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As per tradition…okay, maybe not tradition. As per recent trend, I’m updating my annual NCAA Hockey Tournament Proposal/Discussion to fit this season’s tournament announcement. If you’ve missed the last couple of years, you can read them here and also here. The second one sparked quite a debate in the comments about a number of different options. It’s worth a quick parsing. Also, this is my first real foray into the Pairwise Rankings and matchups since I didn’t write any Rooting Guides this season. Honestly, Michigan didn’t win enough games to get into the Top 20, so it seemed a bit secondary.

Notes: Individual Scoring, Absent Teams, #1 Seed Punishment

• Scoring: Heading into this tournament, only two players have 50 points, and one of those players got eliminated on Saturday and the other is in the NHL right now. Granted, there are still 15 games to be played for players in the mid-to-high 40s, but I think anyone getting to 55 is a stretch. That seems low. I looked back at the previous five seasons or so (lol the CCM line year) and the number of players to reach 50 points were: 6, 13, 10, and 9. Maybe it's just me, but scoring seems more spread out this season. There also might be a lack of high end scorers? Anyway, it caught my attention.
• Absent Teams: Six schools have at least five National Championships. Five of those six missed the tournament (Denver is the exception). Those teams are: Michigan (boo), North Dakota, Wisconsin, Boston College, Boston University, and Minnesota. All three schools with three National Championships missed the tournament. The three with three aren’t quite as prominent or have not been as good recently: Lake State, Michigan State, and Michigan Tech. Either college hockey is reaching some extreme parity or this was a weird year.
• Minnesota State is the #3 overall seed and they are playing a road game at #14 Providence. Literally a road game. Come on. Also, Minn-Duluth is the #2 overall seed and are going to Allentown, PA (why? why is this even an NCAA Tournament location?) to “host” the Arizona State Ice Devils. If this doesn’t reinforce my coming points, I can’t help you.

[After THE JUMP: replicating the first couple days of the basketball tournament, this year's home-site matchups, Frozen Four locations, and the ways to make it all work]