NCAA Hockey 101: Bemidji State still well-positioned in WCHA

Don’t look now, but the Bemidji State Beavers are shuffling a little bit.

That is to say they’re 1-1-1 in their last three games, coming off this weekend’s three-point series against Lake State. And that’s a big drop for the Beavers. Before this little stretch of so-so results, 12-0-1 in WCHA play, and 12-4-1 overall.

That’s a pretty solid conference position in which to find yourself heading into your holiday break (after they presumably get run over in a home-and-home against No. 1 Minnesota-Duluth this weekend), because it would take a monumental collapse for them to drop out of one of the top two spots in the WCHA.

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Now, any time you’re talking about how good a team from that conference is or isn’t you have to take into account that the conference has some problems. The top two teams or so in it are consistently going to be competitive against non-conference foes, and probably a lot better than what they play in-conference. That’s holding up so far this year, with Bemidji (43 points) and Michigan Tech (36 points) way out in front of the three teams tied for third (Bowling Green, Minnesota State, and Alabama-Huntsville, all of which have 23).

The real problem when evaluating teams from super-packed conferences like this one is that they have difficulties scheduling non-conference games and typically only end up with a small handful. For example, Bemidji will only play eight non-conference games this season, out of 34 total games in the regular season. It’s therefore hard to get a baseline for what their level of quality actually is.

These are extremely small samples, but right now we can definitively state that North Dakota pushed them around convincingly in their series and only through Cam Johnson’s ineptitude (six goals allowed on just 47 shots) did the Beavers keep those games close. Meanwhile, they didn’t get the results they “deserved” against Princeton despite a significant margin in shot attempts. And in the end, their non-conference CF% (52.2) is actually a little better than their in-conference one (51.5), but both are certainly acceptable, especially when considering how much score effects have to play into the latter. Bemidji has outscored WCHA opponents 43-17 in 16 games so far this season, and you pretty much can’t ask for much better performance beyond that.

It should come as no real surprise that Michael Bitzer is leading the way in net. When teams are playing well in all of college hockey, they typically don’t do so without a high-level goaltending performance, and Bitzer’s .938 overall save percentage is third in the country. In the conference, it’s even better at .952. And yeah, that’s going to win you a lot of hockey games.

So while Bemidji is 0-4 (including getting swept at home by lowly Princeton) it’s also worth pointing out that their other non-conference draw was at North Dakota for a pair, where they lost by one goal each night. The latter performance is what even a very good WCHA team should aim for against one of the top teams in the nation: competition. That’s all you can reasonably ask because teams like this get so badly out-resourced — Bemidji and Minnesota State are the two state schools in Minnesota outside of the nation’s “power conferences” — that except for a fluke run (like Bemidji’s trip to the Frozen Four several years ago) they can’t truly be consistent national contenders or anything all that close.

Again, the good news for the Beavers is they banked so many Ws in the first half of the season that anything other than a total collapse guarantees them the easiest possible path to the NCAA tournament. Right now they’re 18th in the Pairwise, and unless they keep up this torrid winning pace (unlikely) that position isn’t going to improve. They’re going to have to make the tournament the way the vast majority of WCHA and Atlantic Hockey NCAA teams always do: via the conference autobid.

So hey, if Bemidji’s “season” is the remainder of the league schedule, you have to say they’re well-positioned. Not only do they have the wins banked, but they’ve played everyone of consequence in the conference. Against teams currently seeded Nos. 2-5 in the WCHA, they’re 4-1-1, having only missed out on playing Huntsville to this point. That’s as well as you can reasonably ask anyone to do, and the one loss was to second-place Michigan Tech, which itself has dropped decisions to Bemidji and Minnesota State in WCHA play, but that’s it. There aren’t really any unknowns left; while they play a tough February slate of hosting Tech, visiting Huntsville, then hosting Mankato, they’re probably going to have so many wins by then it doesn’t necessarily matter for their postseason positioning.

So a pretty clear picture is emerging just like it always does: It’s probably fair to say Bemidji and Tech are the two best teams in the conference just ahead of maybe two other clubs (I’m not buying Alabama-Huntsville as a long-term competitor despite where they stand right now).

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Two other things appear likely based on the underlying numbers: Tech closes the gap a little bit, and Mankato pulls away from the other tied-for-third teams. The former is actually one of the best CF% teams in the nation, and only really struggled in a handful of games because no one besides Angus Redmond (.937) can make a save. Mankato is likewise a team stronger than they’ve appeared to this point, but goaltending will likely hold them back from being truly good in the conference.

When you only play 34 regular-season games, even the briefest fits of good fortune are important. Bemidji has combined good luck in conference games with a solid process to blaze ahead of the rest of the pack. They’ll recede at some point, probably, but even when they do it just won’t matter. They’ve so much better on the scoreboard that even a month in cruise control won’t hurt them too badly. And you can rest assured they’ll try not to let that happen.

A somewhat arbitrary ranking of teams which are pretty good in my opinion only (and just for right now but maybe for a little longer too?)

1. Minnesota-Duluth (split at Denver)
2. Denver (split with Minnesota-Duluth)
3. Penn State University (idle)
4. Boston College (beat Northeastern, lost at Notre Dame)
5. UMass Lowell (swept Merrimack in a home-and-home)
6. Harvard (idle)
7. Boston University (split at Vermont)
8. Notre Dame (beat Boston College)
9. Minnesota (swept Michigan State)
10. North Dakota (split with Western Michigan)

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist and occasionally covers the NCAA for College Hockey News. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

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