Re: Minnesota Gophers 2012-2013 Part II: Mmmm, Iron City Beer!
They've had months to get their mind right for the regular season and have failed. They're not going to get it right in the playoffs. It just not going to happen.
I tend to agree with you. I've been looking at series sweeps as a independent variable that correlates with the construct "consistency". Can consistency demonstrated in regular season sweeps predict postseason placement? Statistically, WCHA and overall mean sweeps turns out to be a fairly valid performance metric and predictor variable of postseason success, as well as WCHA regular season championships.
I'll use DU and MN here as examples since both combined provide a small, but reasonable sample size of F5 and NCAA championships to provide a fairly valid assessment of predicting postseason play.
Mean overall regular season (RS) sweeps (1999-2012): DU - 4.92 / Gophers – 5.77
Mean WCHA sweeps (1999-2012): DU - 4.42 / Gophers – 4.84
2011-12: 8 overall sweeps, 7 WCHA sweeps. WCHA RS championship/3rd place NCAAs
The Gophers currently have 3 overall sweeps (MSU, VT, UAA) including 1 WCHA sweep. If they sweep BSU, that's 2 WCHA sweeps and 4 overall. By contrast, DU has 5 overall sweeps and 4 WCHA thus far.
The mean WCHA sweeps for DU (3x) and Gophers (3x) as Final Five champions (1999-2012) = 5.83. I won't take the time to determine the standard deviation for more accuracy, but 5.8 or 6 WCHA sweeps for a sample size of six F5 champions is valid enough for purposes here for a population estimate. The same can be done for mean sweeps for DU (2x) and Gophers (2x) as NCAA Champions (1999-2012) – 5.5 (overall), 4.5 (WCHA).
Obviously, there can always be exceptions (as a Gopher fan I hope this is the year

) and there also are inherent limitations in this little study. But based at least upon these numbers, the Gophers will most likely have an early exit from the F5 and the NCAAs.
WCHA RS sweeps so far for top 7 WCHA teams: UNO-5, MSUM-5, SCSU-4, DU-4, UW-3, UND-2, UMN-1
Overall sweeps so far for top 7 WCHA teams: UNO-6, MSUM-6, SCSU-5, DU-5, UW-4, UND-3, UMN-3