Gophers out of college men's hockey polls for first time since 2011

per the STrib:

The Gophers completed their steady descent from No. 1 by falling out the USCHO college men's hockey poll on Monday afternoon.

They were the preseason No. 1 and spent the next five weeks in the top spot before an 11-week decline pushed them out of the polls for the fist time since April 2011. A pair of in-state rivals, Minnesota State and Minnesota Duluth, finished the job by handing the Gophers a pair of losses last weekend in the North Star College Cup.

The Gophers are 2-5-1 since Jan. 1 and have won only four games since mid-November. The last time the Gophers fell out of the polls, they failed to make the NCAA tournament.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/289812851.html

Go Gophers!!

With the roster we have, missing the tournament would be inexcusable. Get on a roll, and do it now.

Only realistic way we get into the NCAA tournament is winning the B1G tournament. It's feasible that happens, only have to win three (or two) games to do it, but I'm not holding my breath.

Gopher07 said:

Only realistic way we get into the NCAA tournament is winning the B1G tournament. It's feasible that happens, only have to win three (or two) games to do it, but I'm not holding my breath.

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Yep, winnining the tournament probably the only path. Other than Michigan, are there any decent opponents on the schedule that could help the Gophers in the Pairwise rankings? The Gophers only at #20 as it is.

The Big Ten is awful this year. If the Gophers can't win 2 (or 3) games against some combination of Michigan, MSU, OSU, PSU, and Wisconsin they don't deserve a bid.

SelectionSunday said:

Yep, winnining the tournament probably the only path. Other than Michigan, are there any decent opponents on the schedule that could help the Gophers in the Pairwise rankings? The Gophers only at #20 as it is.

The Big Ten is awful this year. If the Gophers can't win 2 (or 3) games against some combination of Michigan, MSU, OSU, PSU, and Wisconsin they don't deserve a bid.

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Let me open with the disclaimer that I am not as up to date as I should be with the new RPI calculation when they changed it a year or two ago to be more similar to the basketball one.

That said, with the way the B1G played out of conference, we are left in a situation where our remaining games aren't against the teams we would benefit from owning the head to head against, they aren't strong enough to really boost our RPI, and the other B1G teams did bad enough out of conference they won't help on the head to head against the teams we need to pass. So basically, our remaining games won't give us a lot of help in any of the three components of the PWR, so now I would bet heavily against the Gophers qualifying by virtue of the PWR, and really think our only chance is the tournament.

You are right, we should be able to win 2 or 3 games against the weak B1G competition, but for whatever reason even when we have good seasons, the conference tournament has been a bugaboo for us in recent history. Just look at last year, we won the regular season outright, qualified for the NCAA tournament I believe as the #1 overall seed, and went to the national title game, but still got knocked off by the underdog in our first game at the X in the conference tourney.

It's pretty ridiculous to see a team like the Gophers hockey squad having problems like this. Reminds me of the Kentucky basketball team in 2013 that had to settle for the NIT. Inexcusable when you bring in the best players in the nation every year.