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Entering the last couple weeks of League play....many of the Playoff's top seeds are still up for grabs.

LEAGUE 8...which feature two of the state's top teams in Woodbury & Lakeville South may go down to game 16 before naming its regular season champion. If Woodbury wins out its final two games (Cottage Grove and Lakeville North) it will be sitting with 43 points. Lakeville South controls its destiny and if it wins out will finish #1 with 44pts. A "HUGE VALENTINE DAY" game against crosstown rival North could decide the positioning of #1-#4.

A couple highly improved teams that have been flying under the radar all year may challenge these two powerhouses for the top spot. A Road block for both Woodbury & South is a much improved Lakeville North team sitting with 2 losses.. Lakeville North could win out its final four games and finish with a 41 pts and put Woodbury and both Lakeville's into a 3-way tie for the top spot. I'm not going to breakdown those tie-breaker scenarios.

Our friends down Rochester are not going to be happy about being put in the spot light but with 7 district games remaining and a favorable schedule they should go at least 6-1 and secure one of the top 4 seed with 40 pts. If they win out (which includes head to versus Lakeville South) they would finish with 42 Pts and if the hockey gods are shining then a #2 seed is possble.

If any of these top teams slip up with a loss or tie or lose their "Happy Point"...roll the dice on the League 8 seedings.

LEAGUE 3/6...if Eden Prairie and Edina win out their remaining games...EP will take #1 seed & Edina #2 as a result from their one head-to-head game. The battle for seeds #3-#5 are wide open. It looks like a three team race with Minnetonka, Wayzata & Orono.

Minnetonka can win out and hold on to the #3 seed. BUT...they also lay claim to the toughest remaining schedule with Wayzata, Edina and Orono still on the horizon. It all starts for them with a Saturday afternoon tilt with Wayzata. They need to go at least 2-1 in their remaining games to maintain a top three seed.

A Wayzata win this Saturday over Minnetonka would put Wayzata in the drivers seat to capture the #3 seed. Its remaining two games are against
Prior Lake and Hopkins.

Orono has an outside chance of capturing the 4th seed. Minnetonka needs to lose their games versus Wayzata & Edina and then the last game versus Minntonka will determine who will grab the #4 seed. The #5 seed is rewarded with an opening League Playoff Game versus Eden Prairie.

Any other good races out there or key match-ups coming up in League 2, 5, 10, or 15?

D8 standings are clearing up I think.

Lakeville North and Rochester tied in their game over the weekend, and these two would seem to be the odds on favorite to place #3 and #4.

Lakeville South and Woodbury will battle for #1 and #2 and it looks like it will come down to the wire with Lakeville North having the chance to clip Souths hopes of finishing #1.

Teams 5-12 all have a play-in game in order to get in to the eight team double elimination bracket for the district playoffs.

REV, Cottage Grove, and Sibley all have a mathematical chance at making top 4 but would need North or Rochester to lose two or three of their last few games.

Pens4

Do you like the way they seed the divisions in the League 3/6 playoff?

Chicken Tender wrote:Pens4

Do you like the way they seed the divisions in the League 3/6 playoff?

It's a format that I haven't seen before...a couple of negatives stand out in the design.
(1) The pool format removes the reward for having a good regular season record. The number 1 seed actually plays a #5 seed in the first game. Every district playoff I have ever been part of has had lower seed play in games which reward the best regular season teams.
(2) The format hurts the lower seed teams because they lose the opportunity to advance in a wildcard game against another lower seed team.
(3) When the tournament moves to 8 -team bracket play...the first game is not double elimination...loser is done. It was pointed out to me that if this was the format last year, our 12A state champion would never had made out of the districts.

In a nut shell...I think D3 might have over-thought it but it will give everyone a lot of games.

The #1 seed playing a #5 seed was the first thing that stood out to me. If the #1 seed take the top seed in the pool they are then guarenteed a game with either the #8 or #9 seed. I guess it evens out there.

The other thing that struck me was a team could only win two games and advance to regions.

It would actually take at least one win to get out of the pool play and then two wins in Bracket play to get one of the (4) regional spots. The years past had 2 wins and in format for the top 2 seeds.

Great race for the #3-#5 seeds with Orono, Wayzata & Minnetonka.

It might be a great race for 3rd, but thanks to District 3's inept ability to post scores to the district website you have to be a cartographer to get real time scores and standings. When you take the fairplay points into account even the scores might not show the whole picture.
A week to post scores is to long in this day and age.

Chicken Tender wrote:The #1 seed playing a #5 seed was the first thing that stood out to me. If the #1 seed take the top seed in the pool they are then guarenteed a game with either the #8 or #9 seed. I guess it evens out there.

The other thing that struck me was a team could only win two games and advance to regions.

CT, You are right about the winning two games and advancing. I was wrong to say it took 3 games.

Another little quirk I noticed about the D3 round robin play-in games was that they are scheduled as only one hour in length with no resurface. Does this mean the hour clock is in play??? If they are incluuding all league seedings in the round robin play than it should be set up with the same 1hr- 45min time slot of bracket-play. No hour clock should ever determine a playoff game.

I tried to find the League 3 playoff rules but they are not available yet. The only thing I could find was in the D3 rules book which says.."Teams advancing to MN Regional Tournament will participate in an 8-team end of the season tournament. Leagues that exceed that number will participate in a play down prior to the start of the tournament, with the lowest finishing league finishers participating."

It will be interesting to see when D3 issues the tournament rules...they have had some real "Beauties" so far.

Pens4 wrote:

Chicken Tender wrote:The #1 seed playing a #5 seed was the first thing that stood out to me. If the #1 seed take the top seed in the pool they are then guarenteed a game with either the #8 or #9 seed. I guess it evens out there.

The other thing that struck me was a team could only win two games and advance to regions.

CT, You are right about the winning two games and advancing. I was wrong to say it took 3 games.

Another little quirk I noticed about the D3 round robin play-in games was that they are scheduled as only one hour in length with no resurface. Does this mean the hour clock is in play??? If they are incluuding all league seedings in the round robin play than it should be set up with the same 1hr- 45min time slot of bracket-play. No hour clock should ever determine a playoff game.

I tried to find the League 3 playoff rules but they are not available yet. The only thing I could find was in the D3 rules book which says.."Teams advancing to MN Regional Tournament will participate in an 8-team end of the season tournament. Leagues that exceed that number will participate in a play down prior to the start of the tournament, with the lowest finishing league finishers participating."

It will be interesting to see when D3 issues the tournament rules...they have had some real "Beauties" so far.

Pens 4 - The round robin play is set up for 1.5 hour games just like bracket play. Game #'s 1,4,7, & 10 on Feb 20th are all 1hr & 45 minutes apart and this holds true for the other days of round robin play.

CT - The #1 seed is not guaranteed a game with a #8 or #9 seed in bracket play. The #4 seed could be the 2nd seed from the black division which plays the #1 seed from the Red division so EP & Mtka could play in the first game of bracket play.

[quote="MNWILD88]CT - The #1 seed is not guaranteed a game with a #8 or #9 seed in bracket play. The #4 seed could be the 2nd seed from the black division which plays the #1 seed from the Red division so EP & Mtka could play in the first game of bracket play.[/quote]

I was trying to make Pens4 feel better about the brackets. He may not sleep tonight now that you brought up the Mtka scenario.

I think the main thing here is this playoff structure diminishes the importance of league play. Normally the #1 and #2 seeds are rewarded with byes and the rest of the seeds battling it out to face them. Was this the structure of D3s 12UA league playoffs last year?

Chicken Tender wrote:I think the main thing here is this playoff structure diminishes the importance of league play. Normally the #1 and #2 seeds are rewarded with byes and the rest of the seeds battling it out to face them. Was this the structure of D3s 12UA league playoffs last year?

No. D3 played in League 2 last year with D1 & D2 (host), so they used D2's playoff format (with 11 teams total, there were 3 knockout games - 6 vs. 11, 7 vs. 10, 8 vs. 9 - to get down to an 8-team bracket, double elimination).