Notre Dame Hockey: Irish take dangerous drop in PairWise rankings

Going into last weekend, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish were ranked #14 in the PairWise rankings with three conference series left with the Michigan State Spartans, Ohio State Buckeyes, and Michigan Wolverines. With both the Sparty and Wolverine series being on the road, it created a great opportunity for Notre Dame’s possible rise in the PairWise rankings.

The big hope took a big hit as the Irish went down in a series sweep against Sparty, and dropped them to #17 in the PairWise.

Again... a team needs to be around #12 (due to autobids for conference champions) to safely be in a position for an NCAA Tournament bid and a chance to go to the Frozen Four.

Just as disheartening for Notre Dame is the tumble in the Big Ten rankings. The Irish were in 3rd place with a great shot at finishing #2 — which is really big as it would keep Notre Dame away from Minnesota until a possible conference championship game.

All in all, Notre Dame has to at least split its final four regular season games — but winning three out of the next four would obviously be ideal for Big 10 positioning and the NCAA bid.

Duh.