A interesting Perspective.

Here is an interesting perspective from the From the MGOBLOG

Hypothetical second-round opponents. Those unfamiliar with college hockey might look at the second-round matchup, which features conference champ and 21-12-4 Clarkson as the lower seed against fifth-place and 19-15-5 St. Cloud State, and go "huh"?

Well, unlike college football, college hockey has a clear conference pecking order with the WCHA on top, HE and the CCHA fighting it out for second -- this year it's advantage CCHA -- and the ECAC existing as a clear fourth, halfway between the power conferences and Atlantic Hockey. The last ECAC national champion was RPI in 1985. The last time an ECAC team reached the final was Colgate in 1990. Since 2000 only two ECAC teams have reached the Frozen Four. And so on. With all due respect to the league, the vagaries of the PWR are such that drawing an ECAC team is almost always the best possible scenario given your seeding.

While I agree with what he says I am going to take this a bit further. First off the fact that Clarkson is as high as a three seed puzzles me, espeically after they lost to a weak team like Colgate, I think their ranking is a joke actually. All most as silly as them being a one seed last season.

If Clarkson had actually held on to win their conference tourney there would have only been one EZAC team in the NCAA tourney this year. Second records are missleading as SCSU is in the WCHA which top to bottom is the toughest league in college hockey, they are not the AHA but their conference isn't the WCHA or the CCHA. Clarkson is in the EZAC considered the weakest of the Big Four college hockey conferences. They are closer to the AHA then they are the CCHA or the WCHA most of the time their teams get killed in head to head match ups with the CCHA or WCHA.

Clarkson also plays against a schedule that is what I would consider weak by many. Clarkson has lost to some really bad teams one of them was LSSU. Look at the numbers Clarkson's strenght of schedule is very Miami like at 31st over-all and has lost to some really bad teams. Lets look at the Huskies; SCSU strenght of schedule is ranked 9th sure they are like the 5th place team in the WCHA but, has beaten some really good teams. Just for some perspective, C.C. clobbered Clarkson 5-2 and 6-2 when the Knights played the Tigers. SCSU a fifth team split with C.C. the top team in the WCHA during the regular season.