Since we are in the thick of the championship hunt, it’s worth taking a look at the tie breakers for the tournament seeding. They are as follows.
Seeding for the Big Ten Men’s Ice Hockey Tournament shall be determined by points accumulated in conference games. Points in the regular season Big Ten standings will be awarded as follows: three points for a regulation or overtime win, two points for a shootout win, one point for a shootout loss and no points for a regulation or overtime loss.
a) Seeding amongst tied teams shall be determined by the greater number of Big Ten regular-season wins;
b) If not determined by (a), seeding amongst tied teams shall be determined by the team with the best regular-season winning percentage against the other co-champion(s);
c) If not determined by (a) or (b), seeding amongst tied teams shall be determined by comparison of total goals for and against each team in contests between (among) co-champion(s) in conference games. For sake of clarity, a team’s goals-against shall be subtracted from its goals-for in order to compare;
d) If not determined by (a) or (b) or (c), seeding amongst tied teams shall be determined by comparison of the winning percentages of the co-champions against the remaining highest ranked Big Ten teams in conference games, successively, until the determination is accomplished or all Big Ten regular-season contests have been considered;
e) If not determined by (a) or (b) or (c) or (d), seeding amongst tied teams shall be determined by the flip of a coin.
In the case of ties among three or more schools, the criteria will be used in order until a team, or teams, is separated from the pack. At that point, the process will begin anew to break the “new” tie. In other words, when a four-way tie becomes a three-way tie, the three-way tie is treated as a “new” tie and the process begins with the first tie-breaking criterion.
Note: Shootout wins shall not count as regular-season wins for the purpose of breaking ties in the standings for tournament seeding. Games that go to shootout will be considered a tie game and treated as such in calculating winning percentages.
Here’s what the standings look like at the moment.
One think to note is that head-to-head is not the primary criteria, total Big Ten wins is.
So as it stands at the moment, we own the tiebreaker over Michigan State, despite their having won three of the four games against us. If the tournament were to start tomorrow, we would be the third seed and would get Wisconsin.
As of the moment, we lose a tie-breaker against Michigan since they have one more win than we do, but we have them at home in two weeks and can make that up with a couple of wins here (a win and a tie would not be enough since Michigan swept us in Ann Arbor).
Since both Minnesota and Penn State have eight wins, and we split our two games here, we are for all intents and purposes, even in the tie-breaker race. But we still have to travel to Minnesota to face them the final weekend of the season.
While there are four teams in the heat of the race, only two of them control their own destinies – Michigan and Penn State. If either win out, they will be the regular season champs and will claim the #1 seed in the tournament. Minnesota, despite being tied for first right now, will need help from someone else in order to win the regular season title.
Still, there are three weeks left and a lot can happen in that time.