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This is a big week for league standings, and a major week from a WMU point of view.

Current Standings. (We are back to even games played for all teams)

1. NoDak 46
2. Duluth 38
3. WMU 32
4. Denver 28
5. SCSU 25
6. Omaha 21
7. Miami 14
8. CC 12

6 games left for everyone, 18 points max available left

1. NoDak can finish no worse than 3rd now, magic number is now 10 points to lock up 1st.
2. Duluth can finish no worse than 6th, magic number to host is 5 points.
3. WMU can finish no worse than 7th, magic number to host is 11 points. (But you can likely ignore SCSU given their schedule, the magic number to Omaha 7 points, we can lock up home ice this weekend with a little help) WMU can be in a tie for 2nd (and own the tiebreaker with a sweep this week). WMU is still eligible for finishing 1st but would need a lot of help.
4. Denver can still finish anywhere between 1-8. Magic number to host is 15 points.
5. SCSU is eliminated from 1st place now. They need help to host, and with their schedule it'll be tough for them to hold on to 5th.
6. Omaha is eliminated from 1st, they need a lot of help to get into the top 4 but are the most likely team to spoil a current top 4 team.
7. Miami can finish no higher than 3rd, they need a bunch of help, pretty big jump even to get into 6 in reality.
8. CC can finish no higher than 4th, and in reality needs a strong finish to jump to 7th. With Duluth and Denver on the schedule that's gonna be impressive even to get to 7th.

Let's talk WMU. WMU has a challenging schedule to finish, but with that comes a lot of opportunity. 4 games vs. the top 2, 4 games at home. Thinking WMU can pull all 18 points is a bit crazy, very few teams in the nation when they are hot would get 18 vs that finish. The question is does WMU limp across the line with say 4 points, or do they heavily impress and finish with say 13-15 points. A safe guess would be that WMU lands somewhere between 7-13 points. That 7 point number will lock them into 4th place almost certainly, but the 13 number would most likely lock them in 2nd. The close to 10 the more muddy the picture becomes. A herculean finish could still give them 2nd, but that seems highly unlikely, but a 5-1 finish might make it happen.

Since the top 4 get a home game does it really matter? Outside of the Pairwise convo which we won't get into, the placement really will determine who you get 1st round. The bottom 4, while not locked in, is a clearer picture.
Likely bottom 4 will be.....5) Omaha, 6) SCSU, 7)Miami So who do you want to face??

WMU will need to win that 1st series regardless for Pairwise, but a sweep vs a 2-1 win might determine if we need to win a game in the Frozen Faceoff. Of course is we limp through the next 3 weekends we will need to win the league tourney regardless.

WMU likely still needs to win 7 games, or 6 with 2 or 3 ties....so......

Need to sweep Duluth at home (can happen as we have swept good teams at home before, #1 Denver a few years back). Somehow get a split in North Dakota where they’ve only lost once all season and that was a 6-3 loss to Omaha a few months ago and then finish sweeping Miami at home for senior weekend.

If that happens that puts us at 15 points, which should be good enough for 2nd and we could get Miami or CC at home. I think the worse case scenario team would be Omaha and that’s not a team I would wanna face

I know we don’t care about rankings or the polls but we are back in at #19.

Just keep winning

(02-17-2020 01:37 PM)Broncodan Wrote:  I know we don’t care about rankings or the polls but we are back in at #19.

Just keep winning

USCHO has 17, but the reality is 14-19 is almost a statistical tie right now. Root for CC and Michigan tonight, we will be 15 in the morning then.

In today’s presser, there was no mention of why Allison didn’t play Saturday, hoping that’s good news. They didn’t even bother to ask AM about it.

My hope is that maybe AM gave him the night off to rest for Duluth this weekend?

I’ve been led to believe that many of our 1weekend “ injuries” earlier in the year were not injuries but illness. It’s possible that’s what this was too.

Say get swept by UND, then what would be needed in the other games? Win-out? Okay to split w/ UMD?

(02-17-2020 05:39 PM)Bronco14 Wrote:  Say get swept by UND, then what would be needed in the other games? Win-out? Okay to split w/ UMD?

If we split with both UMD and UND I think we would still be in decent shape pairwise. I think sweeping UMD would be tremendous and even a split at und would also be huge.

We have been pretty much unstoppable at home besides the Notre
Dame game in early January.

I like our chances to sweep Duluth this weekend as long as we play well and stay out of the box.

We can lose two games, after that we need a lot of help, or go 3-1 in the tourney with a little help.