Montreal Canadiens: Cole Caufield Begins Quest For NCAA Championship Today
Montreal Canadiens top prospect Cole Caufield has had a sensational second season for the Wisconsin Badgers.
The first round pick in the 2019 NHL Draft led the entire country in goals and points in the college hockey regular season, and continued his hot play in the Big Ten Conference playoffs.
Though Caufield scored, the Badgers lost to the Minnesota Golden Gophers in the Big Ten final. Both teams did advance to the NCAA championships which begin today.
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Caufield’s Badgers were picked as one of the four first seeds for this weekends playdowns. There are 16 teams still alive in college hockey, with four sets of four teams playing in a bracket style playoff this weekend which will narrow the field to just four teams. Those four teams will advance to the Frozen Four Playoffs, or national semifinals on April 8. The final game will be played on April 10.
Wisconsin is the #1 ranked team in the Bridgeport bracket. They will face Bemidji State today at 1:00 PM EST. The winner of that game will face the winner of University of Massachusetts vs Lake Superior State.
Wisconsin goes into today’s game as a huge favourite over Bemidji State. Anything can happen at the NCAA playoffs. Bemidji had a solid record of 15-9-3 on the season, but faced much weaker competition in the WCHA than the Badgers saw in the Big Ten Conference. That is why most pundits are predicting a big win for the Wisconsin Badgers.
If so, Caufield will move on to the regional final against either Massachusetts or Lake Superior State. That game will be played tomorrow at 4:00 PM EST.
Today’s game can be found on ESPN2 in the United States and TSN is streaming the game online in Canada.