Hockey PWR update and rooting guide

Warning: this got longer than I meant for it to get.  Happens a lot.

 Although Michigan suffered an upset at the hands of Bowling Green on Friday night, all was not lost this weekend.  In fact, an oddity about the Pairwise rankings is that losses to bad teams hurt less than losses to good teams, in that Michigan's record against TUCs was unaffected.  Also, Ferris only managed one point this weekend against Western, Lowell took only one point from Merrimack, and Denver split with North Dakota.  So Michigan ends the weekend in 3rd place in the Pairwise, trailing only #1 Duluth and #2 BC. 

Hockey East and the WCHA have one week of games left, while the CCHA starts its playoffs next weekend.  BU plays Northeastern in what is a win-win for Michigan. Northeastern is a common opponent for Michigan and BU (BU beat them once, Michigan lost to them once.  A BU sweep might knock Northeastern out of the TUC ranks, helping Michigan's record against TUCs.  Any loss or tie by BU gives us a big boost as it breaks the current tie against common opponents in our favor.  It doesn't matter now, but could matter if BU plays BC (another common opponent) in the Hockey East playoffs.  BTW, the other common opponent is Notre Dame, a possible quarterfinal opponent in the CCHA playoffs (should either BG or Alaska upset their opponents). Defeating ND in that series would also help us against BU.  So root hard for Northeastern.

Duluth has two games at St. Cloud.  The only way we win the comparison with Duluth is if they fall behind us in their record against TUCs.  That would happen if they somehow get swept by St. Cloud, or at least lose one now and lose again in the WCHA playoffs while Michigan wins out.

The Ferris comparison will be decided by RPI, where we currently have a slight advantage.  We will win the comparison if we do better than Ferris in the CCHA playoffs.

Denver is a close comparison, but their split this weekend hurt their TUC record and they remain just behind us.  Root against them in their games at UNO this weekend.  If they sweep UNO, they, at least temporarily, flip the comparison. 

Lowell took a beating at the hands of Merrimack, and while it didn't really do anything with our comparison against them, it hurt them against other teams and dropped them down to 6th.  They, like BU, are tied with us against common opponents.  Their series against Providence next weekend is pretty meaningless to us, but should they encounter BC in the Hockey East tournament, root for BC.

And speaking of BC, the Eagles are 0.01 ahead of us in RPI, which is actually a lot, and flipping the RPI comparison is the only way to pull ahead of them.  Here's the thing though: it doesn't really matter if we pull ahead of BC, because they're getting sent to the Worcester, MA regional anyway.  So go ahead and root against BC next weekend if you want, but you'll want to root FOR them later on against Lowell or BU. 

Rooting summary: Next weekend, root for Northeastern over BU, St. Cloud over Duluth and UNO over Denver.