Everyone’s favorite college hockey ranking system, KRACH, has the nice feature that it can be used to assign probabilities to potential matchups.

Here’s what KRACH’s forecast for the odds for each team emerging as the winner of each round the NCAA Ice Hockey tournament:

KRACH   Game 1 Game 2
(Region
Champ)		 Game 3
(Frozen four
semifinal)		 Game 4
(National
Champ)
  West        
100 1. North Dakota 52.74% 28.36% 13.03% 6.89%
89.6042 4. Western Michigan 47.26% 24.12% 10.45% 5.24%
           
84.9926 2. Minnesota 49.43% 23.35% 9.82% 4.79%
86.9526 3. Boston U. 50.57% 24.17% 10.30% 5.09%
           
  Northeast        
154.831 1. Boston College 87.67% 55.51% 35.01% 22.18%
21.7819 4. Air Force 12.33% 2.41% 0.47% 0.09%
           
91.1404 2. Minn. Duluth 50.81% 21.56% 10.81% 5.47%
88.2171 3. Maine 49.19% 20.52% 10.12% 5.03%
           
  East        
71.9621 1. Union 47.27% 21.03% 9.29% 3.72%
80.2812 4. Michigan St 52.73% 24.89% 11.65% 4.97%
           
97.2908 2. Miami (OH) 54.35% 30.47% 15.71% 7.43%
81.7069 3. Mass.-Lowell 45.65% 23.61% 11.16% 4.81%
           
  Midwest        
114.097 1. Michigan 70.06% 39.72% 22.92% 11.74%
48.7625 4. Cornell 29.94% 10.74% 3.96% 1.24%
           
91.2115 2. Ferris St. 52.39% 26.53% 13.84% 6.33%
82.9009 3. Denver 47.61% 23.01% 11.46% 4.98%

A few observations:
* UND’s predicted 53% chance of winning the opening round game is lower than any 1 seed in the previous 4 years I’ve been doing this
* Union is even worse off, not even favored to win its 1 vs 4 matchup
* Similarly, 2 seed Minnesota is an underdog to Boston University
* The largest line in any 2 vs 3 matchup is 54%-46%, Miami over Mass.-Lowell