NCAA Notebook: Potential playoff upsets, free agents, Maryville's new program, and more

It's playoff time.

For almost everyone.

This weekend, the ECAC, CCHA, Atlantic Hockey, and NCHC will begin their playoff series, and looking at the matchups, it does feel like chalk is going to walk almost everywhere. Logically, these are teams with mostly big gaps between them in their conference standings, and with almost every conference using a best-of-three format, that's going to reduce upset potential. But, critically, it won't reduce it to zero.

So, which matchups are most likely to result in an upset?

Let's start alphabetically and look at Atlantic Hockey. Hard to pick against the top three seeds — Bentley, Sacred Heart, and red-hot Robert Morris — but that No. 4/5 matchup is wild. RIT at Holy Cross. It should be noted that the Crusaders swept the Tigers in their only matchups this se