Final PWR Standings

Recap of Michigan/ND in a bit. We lost 5-2 if you're under a rock.

With the final game all but over (UMD leads Denver 3-0) here is your tournament field for 2008-09:
1. BU
2. Notre Dame
3. Denver
4. Michigan
5. Yale
6t. Northeastern
6t. Minnesota-Duluth
8. North Dakota
9. Vermont
10. New Hampshire
11. Cornell
12. Princeton
13. Miami
14. Air Force
15. Ohio State
-- Bemidji State

Without doing the Bracketology thing, that I'm not all that good at, a few thoughts:

-It'll be interesting to see what the committee does here. Boston University has earned the right to play the "easiest" team in the field, which is Bemidji State. But with two CCHA four seeds, and two CCHA one seeds, the only way to avoid a conference matchup in the first round would be to pit BU against Ohio State, Denver against Miami, Michigan against Air Force, and Bemidji State against Notre Dame. If you're BU, playing OSU isn't the type of reward I'm looking for as the #1 overall seed. They're not that great, but they have a good goalie and they've beaten some quality teams this year.

-Then when you add in the fact that based purely on seedings, BU will be a bracket with North Dakota and a host New Hampshire team, today didn't go so well for the Terriers, Hockey East title aside.

-Another thing the committee will have to deal with is that as the seedings look, the Regional in CT would have Michigan, Yale, Princeton, and Miami. But that means two conference matchups in the first round. So they slide Air Force in for Miami to fix the first one.

Typically you'd just switch Princeton with the 11 seed, but that's Cornell. Another ECAC intraconference matchup. 10 seed New Hampshire is hosting so you can't move them. So they'd have to go all the way down to the 9 seed, Vermont, and I don't know that they'd flip the 12 with the 9.

Another option would be to flip Yale and Northeastern in the two-seed band, but where are you putting that Regional? Yale is hosting, so is New Hampshire. So you'd either have to make New Hampshire the three seed in that bracket (which would create a conference matchup in the first round) or move it west, because Yale has to be at home.

Could they flip the 12 (Princeton) with the 13 (Miami)? That way, BU could still get rewarded by playing Bemidji, Notre Dame could play Air Force, DU could play OSU, and Michigan would play Princeton. I know they don't like to move teams out of their band, but that seems to make the most sense. I don't think you're hurting the integrity of the bracket by flipping the 12 and 13, you're protecting your #1 overall seed by giving them the game they earned, and it's the easiest fix. I feel like there was one example of them moving a team out of their band a couple years back.

DC Nole seems to be on the same wavelength as me on this one. He flipped Miami and Princeton and got the following bracket:

Manchester:
BU vs. Bemidji
NoDak vs. New Hampshire

Grand Rapids:
Notre Dame vs. Air Force
UM-Duluth vs. Vermont

Minneapolis:
DU vs. OSU
Northeastern vs. Cornell

Bridgeport:
Michigan vs. Princeton
Yale vs. Miami

Makes sense to me.