With this past weekend's games coming to a close, the Big Ten regular season is officially in the books. For the first time in the conference’s history, the season ended with co-champions. Michigan State hockey and Minnesota technically ended the season with the same points. Because of this, for the records books, both teams will get to claim a conference championship much like in basketball.
The Gophers and Spartans tied up the standings on the last series of the weekend. The Spartans, after a couple of unfortunate losses last weekend to Penn State, went into the weekend two points behind the Gophers. They went into South Bend needing to make up a point somewhere and thankfully for MSU fans, that came Friday night.
The Gophers lost in overtime against Penn State while the Spartans won in regulation. That pulled the teams to level in the standings going into the final night. Both teams won in regulation on Saturday night, keeping the standings the same and allowing both teams to claim titles.
For the tournament seeding purposes, though, there are tiebreakers. The team with the tiebreak would earn the No. 1 overall seed and earn home ice throughout the tournament along with a first-round bye. For the six teams that did not get the first-round bye, they will play each other in the first round in a best-of-three series taking place next weekend. The higher seed will have home ice advantage.
After the first round, games become single elimination for the semifinals and finals.
So with that in mind, let’s break down how the seeding will look when the tournament gets underway next week.
Seeding breakdown
1-seed: The top seed of the tournament goes to Michigan State. The Spartans finished the season with a 26-6-4 record. The Spartans led most of the regular season in the Big Ten and overcame a couple of late season mishaps to win their second Big Ten title in as many years. Doing so means the Spartans get next weekend off and won’t play their first game Saturday, March 15. That game will be against the lowest remaining seed left after round one and will take place at Munn Ice Arena.
No.
2 vs. No. 7 matchup: The second seed, of course, goes to the Golden Gophers of Minnesota. They will host No. 7 seed Notre Dame in a best-of-three series starting next Friday, March 7, at 8 p.m. ET. The Gophers ended up with a 24-8-4 record and are led by two of the most talented forwards in the country, Jimmy Snuggerud and Oliver Moore.
The Irish had a disappointing season for their standards finishing 10-23-1. The disappointing season has lead to their coach Jeff Jackson stepping down after the season ends. The Irish have some talent on the roster but the Gophers will be the heavily favored team going into this series.
As with all the first-round matchups, Game 1 will be Friday, Game 2 Saturday, and a Game 3, if needed, will be Sunday.
No. 3 vs. No. 6 matchup: This will feature the No. 3-seeded Ohio State Buckeyes taking on the No. 6-seeded Wisconsin Badgers. The Badgers finished this season underachieving by their standards, going 12-19-3. The Buckeyes, on the other hand, finished 21-11-2 and were a tough hockey team to beat all year. These games will start Friday at 7 p.m. in Columbus.
The Buckeyes will be favored here but the Badgers have a decent shot to surprise some people. Freshman Gavin Morrissey, senior Ryland Mosley, and sophomore Quinn Finley are Wisconsin’s dynamic line that can really pour into the offense. It will be crucial for the Buckeyes to slow down that line because Wisconsin’s secondary scoring has lacked throughout parts of the season.
No. 4 vs. No. 5 matchup: This is my favorite series of the first round. The No. 4 Michigan Wolverines will host the No. 5 Penn State Nittany Lions. Penn State has been playing its best hockey of late. They feature one of the nation’s leading scorers in Aiden Fink and goaltender Arsenii Sergeev is probably the hottest goalie in the country right now.
The Wolverines have a talented group of skaters at their disposal as well. Up and down, goalie play has been a bit of their Achilles heel this year. When they get good performances from their goalies, they are a very tough team to beat. Led by forwards Michael Hage and TJ Hughes, the team has multiple top talents. Hage was a first-round pick of the Montreal Canadiens in last year's NHL draft. Hughes leads the team in scoring with 36 points.
This matchup should be entertaining. The puck drops for Game 1 on Friday at 7 p.m. ET from Yost Arena in Ann Arbor.
Predictions
If you are a hockey fan, this tournament has the makings to be fantastic. All first-round games will be available to stream on BTN+. The semifinals and finals will be on regular BTN. I encourage anyone who can to check them out as much as possible. Tickets for Michigan State's second-round game will also be coming for sale soon. Munn will be rocking so if you can make it out to support the boys, please do it. You won’t regret it.
As far as overall predictions, I like the Gophers to beat Notre Dame in two games. The Irish have talent, but the Gophers are one of the premier teams in the country and will just be too much to overcome in the 2 vs. 7 series. Jimmy Snuggerud has seemingly stepped his game up a little bit more towards the end of the season and will be the best player on the ice most nights. His last season in Minnesota before leaping to pro hockey is coming to a close and he will be going for as much hardware as possible. Gophers win the series 2-0.
In the 3 vs. 6 series, I like Ohio State to come out of this one in three games. It’s going to be tough sledding for them, but the Buckeyes are the better team this year and I think that eventually is going to prevail. Wisconsin’s big line will put the points up and I expect them to probably take a game in there somewhere. Riley Thompson and Gunnarwolfe Fontaine are a potent duo on the power play and will be tough for the Badgers to contain. OSU wins the series 2-1.
Finally, in the 4 vs. 5 matchup, I honestly am not sure which team will come out of this one. Michigan is the better team overall but Sergeev has been on an absolute heater and if he stays hot, Penn State will be tough to beat. The old saying in hockey is that a hot goaltender is like the trump card in the playoffs. That is especially true in short series or winner take all games. The counter to this is that I do think Michigan is the deeper team overall. If they can get solid goaltending from either Logan Stein or Cameron Korpi, they will be hard to beat. Especially at Yost. I think this series is going to go three games as well. Give me Penn State to pull the upset and win the series, 2-1.
That would set up the semifinal matchups to be:
MSU vs. Penn State at Munn
Minnesota vs. Ohio State at Mariucci
I like Minnesota to beat Ohio State. They won their season series against them 3-1 and are the more talented team overall. I also would predict MSU to beat Penn State. Again, Michigan State hockey is the better team and I think it's looking for some revenge for Penn State almost costing them the Big Ten title. Plus, I know I have been pumping up how well Sergeev has been playing but MSU does have the better goalie in Trey Augustine.
From there, that would lead the championship game to be Minnesota at MSU for all the marbles on March 22.
The Spartans won the season series against the Gophers 4-0 for the first time in forever. That doesn’t tell the story of this matchup, however. On paper, these teams are almost equal in terms of talent. Stopping Minnesota’s offense has been a tough task all season, and missing captain Red Savage has made the end of the season even tougher for MSU.
The X-factor in this potential matchup is Augustine. When in doubt, take whoever has the best goalie and that is Trey. Give me the Spartans in this potential final matchup. With that, the Spartans would be back-to-back Big Ten Tournament champions as well as regular season champs. Regardless of these outcomes potentially happening, a great couple of weeks of hockey is in store for all of us so I hope you all can enjoy it as much as I do.
Good luck to all teams competing and of course, go green.