Good god dude, you lost to Michigan at home again in the Big Ten title game and you swept them in Ann Arbor when they had a virus running through the team or something. You can be beat. Absolutely unbearable.
That B1G Title game was for nothing. They won the B1G Conf Regular Season Title, by a record # of points. They locked up the #1 overall seed in the NCAA tourney. Michigan got embarrassed in the regular season finishing so far out from first, so the only thing they could do to salvage some pride was to win the Conf Tourney title, and their seeding wasn't locked in, they could drop down to a lower seed if they lost.
And the Gophers had players missing that weekend in Ann Arbor, too, including their Goalie. Not as many as Michigan, sure.
6-2 vs #4 BU.
4-1 vs #6 SCSU.
9-2 vs #42 Canisius.
3-4 vs #3/2 Michigan.
5-1 vs #16 Mich St.
5-2 vs #7 Ohio St.
4-0 vs #7 Ohio St.
3-2 vs #7 Penn St.
7-2 vs #7 Penn St.
8-1 in last 9 games, 46 goals scored vs 16 GA. 10-3 vs last 2 opponents. 19-5 vs last 3. 9-2 vs #7 OSU. 10-4 vs #7 PSU.
Seems to me that Minnesota is doing quite well vs very good competition.
Can Minnesota be beat? Yeah, DUH. They lost 9 games this season. Of course they can be beat. Could Q possibly be the best team in the nation? Sure, absolutely.
But can you name me a single men's college hockey team playing better against really good teams than Minnesota right now?
I listed the PWR rankings of UMn's last 9 opponents.
Here are the PWR rankings of Q's 9 opponents before losing to Colgate in their Conf Tourney Title game.
#60,
#31,
#32,
#54,
#48,
#43,
#51,
#54,
#54,
and then #26 Colgate.
None of that proves Q isn't the best team in the country. They outscored those 9 opponents by a large margin, winning all 9 games. And then, like Minnesota, followed up their 1 goal loss in their conf tourney title game with impressive wins vs 3 teams arguably better rated than UMn's 3, by a 14-3 scoring margin.
But supposedly Q is a veteran team full of older and more experienced players, so unlike Minnesota pointing to early season losses or close wins and claiming their young players hadn't quite figured things out yet, and now have, what is Q's excuse?
Before that 9 game win streak vs 9 bottom half ranked teams, they had back to back losses, a 4-0 drubbing by Cornell and a loss to Colgate, three ties and some close wins, with only a few of those games being vs really good teams. The one tie was vs a team ranked in the 50s, another was vs a Mass team ranked in the 30s, the other was vs a UND squad that didn't even come close to making the NCAA tourney. Another loss was a 4-0 drubbing by a Maine team ranked in the 30s(bottom half of the country). One goal wins vs Colgate, Brown, St Lawrence and Connecticut.
The only Top 15 team among those was Cornell, who beat them 4-0. Not every game pre-NCAA tourney was an unimpressive game for Q, they beat Harvard easily in 2 games, and got a 2-0 win over Cornell and a win over #20 Connecticut. But overall, prior to beating Merrimack handily, I was not very impressed with Q, just looking at the schedule and the results. AGAIN, that doesn't mean they aren't the best team, just means that they hadn't proven much prior to the tournament, except that even as an older and more experienced and mature team, they could still lose to basically anyone in the country. LIU is only ranked #59 in the country and Q only got one win in their 2 games vs LIU.
