Frozen Four 2025: Analyzing Conference Tournaments And Betting Odds
BOSTON, MA - APRIL 07: TD Garden ice resurfacer decked out in the Frozen Four logo for 2023 during a ... More Frozen Four semifinal between the Michigan Wolverines and the Denver Pioneers on April 7, 2022 at TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Men's college ice hockey starts its premiere event this Thursday afternoon: the 2025 Frozen Four. Before diving into the action in St. Louis, it is worth reflecting on how each team got here. The NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament features sixteen teams, and six of those spots are reserved for the winners of the six Division I conferences. The conferences that are awarded automatic bids are: Atlantic Hockey America (AHA), Big Ten, Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA), Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC), Hockey East, and National Collegiate Hockey Conference. Conference tournaments serve as both a proving ground and a springboard, where some teams cement their status as national contenders and others play their way into the conversation with timely bursts of brilliance. This year's conference tournament results serve as an interesting dataset to examine which teams may under- or overperform in the Frozen Four.
Of the six conference tournaments played, No. 1 seeded teams emerged victorious in half of them, underscoring their dominance where it mattered most. The champions included Michigan State (Big Ten), Minnesota State (CCHA), and Western Michigan (NCHC). Elsewhere, Maine won the Hockey East conference tournament as a No. 2 seed, Bentley won the AHA conference tournament as a No. 3 seed, and Cornell won the ECAC conference tournament as a No. 6 seed.
Conference tournaments won by seed for Division I NCAA men's ice hockey in 2025.
Overall, four No. 1 seeds made it to their conference tournament finals, putting their winning percentage at 75% given a No. 1 seed reaches the finals. No. 2 seeds had a winning percentage of 50%, and No. 3 seeds had a winning percentage of 20%. Interestingly the No. 3 seed played in five out of six of all conference tournament finals. While it is tempting to draw sweeping conclusions from a single year of conference tournaments, the 2025 results undeniably add more evidence to the notion that No. 1 seeds remain the gold standard of college hockey. Yet, the consistent presence of No. 3 seeds in the finals also hints at a league where the gap between the top and middle seeds may not be as wide as it seems.
TEMPE, ARIZONA - FEBRUARY 22: Matteo Costantini #25 of Western Michigan University Broncos skates ... More against the Arizona State University Sun Devils at Mullett Arena on February 22, 2025 in Tempe, Arizona. (Photo by)
If parity was the theme of this year's conference tournaments, it showed up most vividly in the semifinals. None of the six conferences managed to get all four top seeds to the semifinal round, but the level of chaos varied widely from one conference to the next. Interestingly, the average seed of teams making the conference tournament semifinals turned out to be a reasonably good predictor of how many bids a conference earned to the Frozen Four. Below is a plot of the average seed of the teams which made the conference tournament semifinals compared with the number of teams a conference has in this year's Frozen Four.
A linear regression demonstrates the correlation between the average seed of the teams which made ... More the semifinals in a conference tournament and the number of Frozen Four bids received by a conference.
Hockey East received the most bids with six teams represented in the Frozen Four including the No. 1 and No. 3 overall seeds, Boston College and Maine. The average team seed in the semifinals of the Hockey East tournament was 4.5. By comparison, a semifinal group featuring the No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4 seeds would equate to an average seed of 2.5.
The Big Ten followed Hockey East with four teams receiving a bid to the Frozen Four. Impressively, this represents over half of the seven-team conference. The average seed in the Big Ten semifinals was 4.
Maine goalie Albin Boija (30) makes a save during the first period of an NCAA hockey game against ... More Northeastern on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Greg M. Cooper)
What makes this data interesting is how well it correlates with Frozen Four invitations. Running a simple linear regression reveals a strong relationship between the average seed of semifinalists and the number of bids earned by a conference. The lower the average seed in the semifinals, the more bids that conference tends to send to the Frozen Four. In other words, conferences where the top teams successfully defend their status tend to be rewarded more heavily.
This observation lines up well with the depth of talent in both Hockey East and the Big Ten. Hockey East boasts nine teams ranked in the top 25, including five in the top 10, while the Big Ten features five top-25 teams, including three in the top 10. The numbers confirm that quality and depth matter just as much as the sheer number of teams a conference boasts.
Draft Kings is currently favoring the top seeds out of Hockey East and Big Ten to win the Frozen Four this year. The top five teams favored to win the tournament have odds as of March 26:
These translate to win probabilities of 26% for Boston College, 20% for Michigan State, 12.5% for Western Michigan, 10% for Minnesota, 9% for Maine, and 9% for Denver.
Boston College forward Will Vote (22) skates before the start of an NCAA hockey game against Denver ... More on Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023, in Chestnut Hill, Mass. (AP Photo/Greg M. Cooper)
While Boston College had an early exit from the Hockey East tournament, they are still favored to win the national championship this year. But if this year's conference tournaments have proven anything, it is that seeding isn't everything. No. 1 seeds may have won three of six conference tournaments, but No. 3 seeds made five finals, highlighting the thin margin between dominance and disaster. Hockey East and the Big Ten lead the way with a combined ten Frozen Four bids, but even they were not immune to upsets and surprises. The betting markets may favor the usual suspects like Boston College and Michigan State, but the true test begins Thursday.
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