2018 NCHC Tournament
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Saint Paul, Minnesota
| 2018 NCHC Men's ice hockey tournament | |
|---|---|
| Dates | March 9–17, 2018 |
| Teams | 8 |
| Finals site | Xcel Energy Center Saint Paul, Minnesota |
| Champions | Denver Pioneers (2nd title) |
| Winning coach | Jim Montgomery (2nd title) |
| MVP | Tanner Jaillet (Denver) |
NCHC Men's Ice Hockey Tournaments | |
The 2018 NCHC Tournament was the fifth tournament in league history. It was played between March 9 and March 17, 2018. Quarterfinal games were played at home team campus sites, while the final four games were played at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota. By winning the tournament, Denver received the NCHC's automatic bid to the 2018 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament.
Conference standings
The first round of the postseason tournament features a best-of-three games format. All eight conference teams participate in the tournament. Teams are seeded No. 1 through No. 8 according to their final conference standing, with a tiebreaker system used to seed teams with an identical number of points accumulated. The top four seeded teams each earn home ice and host one of the lower seeded teams.
The winners of the first round series advance to the Xcel Energy Center for the NCHC Frozen Faceoff. The Frozen Faceoff uses a single-elimination format. Teams are re-seeded No. 1 through No. 4 according to the final regular season conference standings.[1]
Note: GP = Games played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; PTS = Points; GF = Goals For; GA = Goals Against
| Conference record | Overall record | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GP | W | L | T | SOW | PTS | GF | GA | GP | W | L | T | GF | GA | ||
| #6 St. Cloud State † | 24 | 16 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 53 | 93 | 59 | 40 | 25 | 9 | 6 | 144 | 101 | |
| #5 Denver* | 24 | 12 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 46 | 76 | 53 | 41 | 23 | 10 | 8 | 135 | 86 | |
| #1 Minnesota–Duluth | 24 | 13 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 39 | 79 | 56 | 42 | 25 | 16 | 3 | 132 | 92 | |
| #17 North Dakota | 24 | 8 | 10 | 6 | 3 | 33 | 71 | 68 | 40 | 17 | 13 | 10 | 117 | 95 | |
| Omaha | 24 | 10 | 13 | 1 | 0 | 31 | 75 | 97 | 36 | 17 | 17 | 2 | 121 | 134 | |
| Western Michigan | 24 | 10 | 13 | 1 | 0 | 31 | 82 | 94 | 36 | 15 | 19 | 2 | 115 | 129 | |
| Colorado College | 24 | 8 | 12 | 4 | 3 | 31 | 63 | 85 | 37 | 15 | 17 | 5 | 99 | 121 | |
| Miami | 24 | 6 | 14 | 4 | 2 | 24 | 62 | 89 | 37 | 12 | 20 | 5 | 103 | 128 | |
| Championship: March 17, 2018 † indicates conference regular season champion; * indicates conference tournament champion Rankings: USCHO.com Top 20 Poll; updated March 5, 2018 | |||||||||||||||
Bracket
Teams are reseeded after the first round
| Quarterfinals March 9–11 | Semifinals March 16 | Championship March 17 | ||||||||||||||
| 1 | St. Cloud State | 5 | 2 | 4* | ||||||||||||
| 8 | Miami | 2 | 3* | 3 | ||||||||||||
| 1 | St. Cloud State | 3* | ||||||||||||||
| 4 | North Dakota | 2 | ||||||||||||||
| 2 | Denver | 0 | 3 | 6 | ||||||||||||
| 7 | Colorado College | 2 | 2 | 1 | ||||||||||||
| 1 | St. Cloud State | 1 | ||||||||||||||
| (Pairings are reseeded after the first round) | ||||||||||||||||
| 2 | Denver | 4 | ||||||||||||||
| 3 | Minnesota-Duluth | 5 | 2 | — | ||||||||||||
| 6 | Western Michigan | 0 | 0 | — | ||||||||||||
| 2 | Denver | 3 | Third Place | |||||||||||||
| 3 | Minnesota-Duluth | 1 | ||||||||||||||
| 4 | North Dakota | 4 | 4* | — | 3 | Minnesota-Duluth | 1 | |||||||||
| 5 | Omaha | 0 | 3 | — | 4 | North Dakota | 4 | |||||||||
* denotes overtime periods