2016 NCAA Hockey Playoff Preview

Week One Week Two →

With the teams set for the NCAA tournament, Elo can be used to make predictions on how each team will do in the tournament. The chart below shows the odds of each team making it out of each round.

Quinnipiac (the top overall seed) is given the best chance of winning with a 15.5% chance of finishing as champions. Meanwhile RIT, Quinnipiac's first round opponent, is given the lowest chance at just 0.6% (partially because they have to play Quinnipiac).

The other teams with a greather than 10% chance of winning the tournament are the other number one seeds, St. Cloud State, North Dakota, and Providence.

Northeastern is a bit of an outlier in this tournament. Despite being placed as a number four seed, Elo believes that Northeastern is the sixth best team in the nation and should be ranked much higher. As a result the North Dakota/Northeastern game is predicted to be the closest of all of the first round games with North Dakota only being given a 54.16% chance of winning the opening game.

First Round Quarterfinals Semifinals Finals Quinnipiac 76.91 47.64 27.96 15.50 St. Cloud 72.45 41.56 23.44 13.27 North Dakota 54.16 33.72 18.50 10.37 Providence 61.72 36.40 19.92 10.51 Boston College 58.41 28.60 14.09 6.66 Denver 61.45 32.76 17.51 9.40 Michigan 57.57 24.54 11.23 5.26 Umass-Lowell 55.45 26.07 12.80 5.87 Boston University 38.55 16.29 6.84 2.89 Yale 44.55 18.69 8.17 3.32 Harvard 41.59 16.92 6.96 2.72 Notre Dame 42.43 15.02 5.78 2.29 Northeastern 45.84 26.72 13.57 7.05 Minnesota-Duluth 38.28 18.07 7.80 3.21 Ferris State 27.55 9.39 3.12 1.05 RIT 23.09 7.60 2.29 0.63

However you can safely ignore all of this analysis and just assume that RIT is going to win. The tigers are undefeated in Albany, and there is no reason to assume that this year will be any different, so ignore the math and just trust that RIT will be going to the Frozen Four.