NCAA hockey season preview: Breaking down the conference races

This article is presented by Everything College Hockey

Based on pre-season rankings and polls, it seems as though many of the results from the 2023-24 college hockey season are expected to carry through to the 2024-25 campaign. Some of that may simply be due to inertia — three of last year’s Frozen Four teams are in the top three again this pre-season, for example — and, obviously, much of it is because good teams tend to stay good.

But on a conference-by-conference basis, there appears to be a bit more uncertainty as to who’s going to finish where. In Atlantic Hockey, for instance, five different teams received a first-place vote, and four were picked by at least one coach to win both the CCHA and NCHC. Hockey East had three teams receive first-place votes.

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