What are Penn State men’s hockey’s chances to win the Big Ten after a road split against Wisconsin?
Another weekend series, another split for Penn State men’s hockey.
The Nittany Lions traveled to Wisconsin to take on the bottom-of-the-Big Ten Badgers, but were unable to come away with a crucial sweep, falling on Friday night, 4-3, before winning on Saturday, 3-2.
Penn State fell behind early on Friday night after a bad first period. From then on though, Penn State dominated the game, but a Dylan Holloway goal on an odd-man rush with 1:04 left in the third period sealed the Nittany Lions’ fate.
On Saturday, Penn State was in a must win situation and responded to the pressure well, jumping out to a 2-0 lead and eventually closing out the Badgers.
Penn State has now split six of its 11 Big Ten series this season.
Here is where the Nittany Lions stand in the various college hockey polls rankings and standings with only two more regular season games to play.
Big Ten standings
Penn State entered the weekend as the outright leader in the Big Ten conference, but after earning three of the possible six points last weekend, the Nittany Lions are now tied at the top of the conference standings.
Penn State and Minnesota are tied for the lead in the conference as both teams have 36 points.
However, Penn State has played 22 of its 24 conference games while Minnesota has only played 20, meaning the Gophers have two games in hand on the Nittany Lions.
Either way, this weekend’s showdown between the two schools could very well determine the regular season conference Big Ten champion. If Penn State wants any chance of securing the title and the top seed in the Big Ten Tournament, the Nittany Lions will need to play almost a perfect weekend.
That being said, it isn’t just a two-team race for the title, as Michigan State and Ohio State are tied for third with 31 points.
The Spartans have three games in hand on the Nittany Lions as they are set to play Michigan on Monday night. Ohio State has two games in hand on Penn State.
Michigan also isn’t completely out of the race as the Wolverines have 30 points and three games in hand on the Nittany Lions.
The way Penn State’s schedule has worked out this season, the Nittany Lions have a bye week during the last weekend of the regular season, meaning that next weekend, Penn State is going to be forced to watch to see where they end up in the Big Ten standings and mathematically it could be anywhere from first to fifth.
Pairwise rankings
Penn State sat at No. 8 in the PairWise rankings heading into Madison this weekend, which would have earned them a No. 2 seed in the tournament.
After the split against the worst rated team in the Big Ten however, the Nittany Lions dropped two places to No. 10.
If the NCAA Tournament started today, Penn State would be a No. 3 seed in the Allentown region.
The middle of the PairWise rankings this season are very tight and Penn State is rated 0.0001 points behind Northeastern, which sits at No. 9 in the rankings.
The Nittany Lions are still the top-rated team in the Big Ten as Ohio State is No. 13. Minnesota has also climbed the rankings very fast the past couple weeks and now sits at No. 16 in the poll.
If Penn State was able to complete a sweep over Wisconsin last weekend, the Nittany Lions would be sitting at No. 7 in the rankings.
If the Nittany Lions were unable to hold onto the lead on Saturday night and fell to Wisconsin, Penn State would’ve dropped to No. 12 and firmly be on the bubble to make the NCAA Tournament.
According to the College Hockey News PairWise probability matrix, Penn State currently has an 87 percent chance to make the NCAA Tournament.
Without factoring in other results around the country which play a massive role in the PairWise rankings Penn State could end up anywhere from No. 9 to No. 13 depending on the results against Minnesota this weekend.
USCHO.com rankings
Penn State dropped two places to No. 11 in the latest USCHO poll.
The Nittany Lions are still the highest ranked Big Ten team in the poll as Ohio State is No. 13 and Minnesota is No. 18.
Michigan, Michigan State and Notre Dame also all received votes in the latest poll.
This story was originally published February 17, 2020 at 3:31 PM.
