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Several Flames college prospects were eliminated from conference playoffs (but could still make NCAA tournament)
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Photo credit: Steven Ellis/The Nation Network
Ryan Pike
Mar 15, 2026, 15:45 EDTUpdated: Mar 15, 2026, 11:33 EDT
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It was a pretty busy, noteworthy few days in American college hockey!
With so many Calgary Flames prospects involved in the NCAA route, we felt we should do a quick rundown of where things are at heading into Sunday’s action.

National tournament seeding

So in a nutshell, here’s how the NCAA fills out its 16-team national championship field:
  • The 6 conference playoff tournament winners
  • The 10 best remaining teams in the National Collegiate Percentage Index (NPI) rankings, which weighs performance and quality of competition across all Division I teams.
There are usually one or two conference tournament winners that are outside the top 16 of the NPI – both the Atlantic Hockey and CCHA winners will be outside of the top 16 – so effectively if your team is top 14 or better via the NPI, you’re probably headed to the national tournament as an at-large invite.

ECAC Hockey

Ethan Wyttenbach and Quinnipiac entered the ECAC post-season tournament as the top seed. They lost their best-of-three series in two games against Clarkson – 3-0 on Friday and 4-3 on Saturday. Quinnipiac is ranked 11th in the NPI ranking, though, so they’re likely going to be invited to the NCAA national tournament.
Jonathan Castagna’s Cornell and Aidan Lane’s Harvard squads are matched up in the first round as well. They split the first two games on Friday and Saturday. Sunday night’s game will determine who advances to the next round and will face Princeton in the conference semi-final round. If Cornell is eliminated they’re high enough in the NPI (ninth) that they likely get invited to the national tournament, but if Harvard loses, they’re likely done for the year as they’re 30th.

Big 10 Hockey

Luke Misa and Penn State were matched with Minnesota in the first round of the Big 10 tournament and won 6-2 on Wednesday night. They moved on to face top-ranked Michigan on Saturday night… and it didn’t go as well, as they lost 5-2. Penn State is highly-ranked enough in the NPI (10th) that they likely get a national tournament invite.

NCHC

Cole Reschny, Abram Wiebe, Cade Littler and North Dakota beat Omaha last weekend in the best-of-three quarterfinals and faced Minnesota Duluth in a one-and-done semi-final game. Minnesota Duluth won 5-1 and they’ll advance to the conference’s championship game next weekend. (As is becoming a theme: North Dakota is high enough ranked (second) that they’ll get an invite to the national tournament).
Minnesota Duluth will be playing Eric Jamieson and Denver next weekend in the NCHC’s title game. Denver beat Miami (Ohio) last weekend to advance to the semi-final round, then beat Western Michigan in overtime on Saturday to advance. Denver is sixth in the NPI, so they likely make the national tournament either way.

Hockey East

Jaden Lipinski and Maine were knocked out of the Hockey East playoffs on Friday, getting shut out by Boston College. Maine’s 22nd in the NPI and won’t make the national tournament.
Trevor Hoskin and Merrimack had a good week. They beat UMass-Lowell by a 5-3 score on Thursday in the opening round, then beat Providence 3-2 in overtime in the quarterfinals to advance to next weekend’s semi-final round. (Hoskin scored twice against UMass-Lowell and then had the overtime winner against Providence.) Merrimack is 24th in the NPI, so they’ll need to win their way into the national tournament.
Long story short: Quinnipiac, Cornell, Penn State, North Dakota and Denver are all seemingly destined for the NCAA national tournament regardless of this weekend’s or next weekend’s outcomes. We’ll see where they end up in the next couple of weeks.

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