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This is a pretty good piece which talks about the influx of talent in college hockey, as well as the relative balance in talent from top to bottom.

http://https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/2...teams.html

"As evidence, four of the past six N.C.A.A. champions were first-time winners. Only half of the 16-team field of last year’s N.C.A.A. tournament returned for this year’s tournament, and no conference tournament champion repeated in 2017. More than half of all Division I teams (34) have reached the N.C.A.A. tournament in the last five years.
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On Jan. 13, the top three teams in the USCHO.com poll all lost, including then-No. 2 Harvard 4-0 to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which entered the game 3-19-1. Of the top 20 teams in the Jan. 16 poll, only six avoided a loss or tie in the following week, and No. 1 Boston University lost its two games to a Hockey East colleague, Merrimack, which had won only two league games at the time.

“That’s not going to happen in college football,” Bemidji State Coach Tom Serratore said. “The No. 100 team isn’t going to beat Alabama or Ohio State.”

Yet it is almost expected in college hockey, said Hastings of Minnesota State.

“In football, baseball and basketball, you don’t see the No. 1, 2 or 3 teams beaten by somebody in the bottom half,” he said. “That happens every weekend in our sport.”

Article is from end of March, but a good read. The talent is so deep in D1 college hockey that is spills over to D3 and club hockey. From top to bottom of the only 60 teams in D1 there is tremendous parity among the teams and players.

College ice hockey is a sport where passion factors as much into the game as physical capability. A lower tier team can dig deep on any given night and give a run for the money against a top rated team. And a goalie can get really hot on any given weekend. That's why I love the sport.