March 10, 2004

This is the week that tradition runs into reality. Tradition says the top five teams in the WCHA should end the seasons of the bottom five, but reality says an upset is more than merely possible in the first round of league playoffs.

North Dakota won the MacNaughton Cup for the fifth time in the eight years coach Dean Blais has been at the helm, and he's taught his assistants well. Scott Sandelin, a former North Dakota assistant, brought Minnesota-Duluth home second. Brandon Bochenski, a North Dakota junior, scored 16 goals with 23 assists for 39 points in strictly WCHA play, while Junior Lessard, a UMD senior, tied him for the league scoring title with a league-high 19 goals and 20 assists for his 39 points.

It's been that kind of season in the WCHA. We can go back to last October, before the season began, when the annual Grand Forks Herald coaches' poll was announced. Tradition says the coaches' choice almost never wins the WCHA title. Reality says the coaches set new standards for missing the mark this time around.

Consider that not one single team finished where it was predicted to finish by the coaches. There is one close call. Denver was projected to finish fifth, and the Pioneers tied Minnesota for fourth, which means they also tied for fifth. But Denver holds the tie-breaker edge on Minnesota, having beaten the Gophers three out of four games, so the Pioneers technically are fourth.

League champion North Dakota had been projected as second, while second- place Minnesota-Duluth was seen in a tie for third with Colorado College. Third-place Wisconsin was picked seventh by the coaches, making the Badgers the biggest positive surprise in the WCHA. Tied with Denver for fourth, but getting fifth in seeding, is Minnesota, which was the unanimous pick to win the WCHA title.

In sixth place, St. Cloud State was picked for eighth; seventh-place Colorado College was picked in that tie for third, making the Tigers co- holders of the biggest disappointment with Minnesota; eighth-place Alaska- Anchorage was picked to repeat in 10th; ninth-place Minnesota State was picked for sixth; and 10th-place Michigan Tech had been projected ninth. All of that means the coaches are far better at coaching than predicting, but it also shows what a tangle the WCHA has proven to be this season. Which brings us back to this weekend's first round of playoffs, best-of- three affairs that will determine the Final Five entries at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul next week.

In an amazing finish, every single position in the standings went down to the final weekend, and three of the season-ending match-ups will be duplicated as first-round playoff pairings. Michigan Tech, which could have finished eighth, was swept at North Dakota, dropping the Huskies to 10th and securing the fifth MacNaughton Cup in coach Dean Blais's eight years at the Sioux helm. That finish also sends Tech right back from Houghton to Grand Forks this week.

Colorado College, which went into the final regular-season weekend just three points behind Denver and Minnesota, and could have finished as high as fourth, was swept at Denver last weekend to stay in seventh and be destined to return to Denver Friday, to face a team that could have dropped to seventh but finished fourth. The Pioneers, however, will be without speedster Connor James, a senior who has 12 goals, 23 assists for 35 points. James suffered a broken right fibula in Friday's concluding game against Colorado College.

St. Cloud State, needing a split to stay ahead of Minnesota and claim home- ice, instead lost twice at Minnesota and drops to sixth. Adam Coole returned to the St. Cloud nets in the second game, a 4-2 setback, but he appears to have won the playoff starting slot after a strong showing in the face of repeated Gopher breakaways held the Huskies close. The Huskies chose to return home up I94 after both games at Minnesota, so the route will be more than just familiar after this weekend, especially if their series against the Gophers goes three games, and they wind up doing shuttle service to Mariucci Arena.

The only two playoff pairings that avoided rematches find eighth-place Alaska-Anchorage traveling to Wisconsin, while ninth-place Minnesota State goes to Minnesota-Duluth.

³It's OK with our guys to come right back and play Minnesota again,² said St. Cloud coach Craig Dahl. ³We like to play at Mariucci, and it'll be familiar to our guys who are used to playing best-of-five playoffs in junior hockey.²

The advantage to St. Cloud, Colorado College and Michigan Tech, by that logic, is that they are facing foes in OEbest-of-five' settings where the opponents' first two victories don't count any more.

An intriguing edge to the WCHA playoff picture is that in the Pairwise computer ratings, which replicate the NCAA selection committee criteria for picking teams for the national tournament, five WCHA teams rank among the top eight. North Dakota is first, UMD fourth, Minnesota fifth, Denver sixth, and Wisconsin eighth.

So, in reality, all five rank highly enough that if any of them lose this weekend, and fail to advance to the Final Five, they might still rank highly enough to be assured of a berth in the 16-team NCAA field. That may make the five home teams a bit complacent this weekend, but it certainly will add extra incentive to the five visitors, who know they must win the league playoff to assure themselves a possible NCAA slot.

For good measure, St. Cloud State is 15th and Colorado College 16th in the Pairwise. With Colorado College host to one of four NCAA regionals, the Tigers are in jeopardy of missing the playoffs, unless they can make a dramatic playoff run to strengthen their rating.

It seems unlikely that any league could get as many as five teams into the NCAA, but if all goes according to form in the playoffs, the WCHA may well end up with five.

With Bochenski and Lessard sharing the scoring title, Bernd Bruckler of Wisconsin has the edge in goaltending statistics, leading the league in minutes played, and in goals-against at 2.11, as well as in save percentage at .928. Right behind Bruckler in goals-against come North Dakota's duo of Josh Parise at 2.14 and teammate Jake Brandt at 2.18. Trailing Bruckler in save percentage come UMD's Isaac Reichmuth, Brandt, and Chris King of Alaska Anchorage in a three-way tie at .913.

While goaltending is of primary importance at playoff time, Brandt's strong finish gave him the league's top winning percentage, with a 12-2 record. Second was Reichmuth, with a league-high 17 victories to go with three losses and two ties. Next comes Parise 8-3-3 and then Bruckler, at 14-6-7.

If the top five regular-season finishers win their opening round playoff series, the spotlight on Xcel Energy Center will shine on Minnesota facing Denver to break their regular-season tie next Thursday night. The Gophers, who play across town in Minneapolis, are contractually bound to play the Friday night game, for attendance draw purposes, so the good news for crowd- size is that the Gophers will have to play all three nights in order to win the league playoff. The bad news for the Gophers ­ and Pioneers, for that matter ­ is that no team has been able to win three straight games from the play-in game to the title.

Under those circumstances, the Minnesota-Denver winner would face North Dakota in one semifinal next Friday, while Minnesota-Duluth and Wisconsin would tangle in a match of premier goaltenders in the other semifinal. The semifinal losers, who would meet in a third-place game Saturday afternoon, might need a victory about then to improve an NCAA tournament seeding. The championship will be Saturday night.

Who might win the playoff title is anybody's guess. But, based on their preseason picks, don't ask the coaches.

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