Entering the final weekend of the regular season, Miami could finish anywhere from fifth to ninth in the standings in a league that sees eight of its nine teams qualify for its conference tournament.
That means despite their unimaginable reversal from a three-win season a year ago, the possibility remains that the RedHawks could again be locked out of the NCHC postseason championship.
Miami — currently tied for sixth in the conference with 25 points, having clinched its first winning regular season in 11 years — leads the last-place Mavericks by four, with Colorado College tied with the RedHawks and Arizona State one ahead of Omaha.
With the top of the league standings bunched up as well, college hockey scoreboard sites should see a ton of traffic the next 48 hours.
VFG takes a look at the upcoming series:
WHO: Miami RedHawks (17-13-2, 8-12-2) at Omaha Mavericks (11-21, 7-15).
WHERE: Baxter Arena (7,898), Omaha, Neb.
WHEN: Friday and Saturday–8:05 p.m.
ALL-TIME SERIES: Tied, 31-31-7.
VIDEO STREAMING: NCHC.tv ($).
OMAHA RADIO: Both nights–KOIL-AM (1290), Omaha, Neb.
MIAMI RADIO: Both nights–Miamiredhawks.com. Greg Waddell (PxP).
NOTES: Miami played one of its best series of the season against Omaha in mid-January, outscoring the Mavericks, 9-2 in the RedHawks’ first NCHC sweep in over four years (which was also vs. Omaha in 2022).
Omaha is 3-5 since, including a 4-1 win at powerhouse Western Michigan.
The Mavericks — second-last only to Arizona State in the NCHC defensively — have allowed four goals per game in February and 112 on the season, eighth-most in Division I.
Fourth-year Omaha netminder Simon Latkocy, who has 51 career wins with the Mavericks, has played every minute since UNO left Oxford and has a 3.22 goals-against average and a .902 save percentage.
No Maverick has eclipsed the 20-point threshold, and only freshman Marcus Nguyen has reached double-digits in goals with exactly 10.
Miami has cooled off at the worst possible time, dropping five straight games, albeit to teams ranked third, fourth and ninth in the national poll, which the RedHawks have fallen out of.
But MU could still win out and pass idle St. Cloud State, vaulting into fifth place, and the teams below the RedHawks in the standings have much more difficult matchups.
Colorado College heads to Duluth, and Arizona State is at Denver.
Unofficially by our count, Miami needs 1 of 6 points to clinch a playoff berth, since it would win the tiebreaker in the event both teams ended the regular season with 26 (Miami swept Omaha in Oxford and if this weekend is a 5-1 split, that means Omaha wouldn’t have won one of the games in regulation).
The first tiebreaker is regulation winning percentage against all teams involved in the tie. Things would get much more complicated if Arizona State or Colorado College somehow ended up at 26 as well in that scenario.
Assuming Miami qualifies for the NCHC Tournament, it would face one of the four teams that have clinched home-ice advantage in a best-of-3 series on the road: North Dakota, Denver, Western Michigan or Minn.-Duluth.
The RedHawks have finished last in the conference outright four straight seasons and tied for last in the COVID year. Eight teams qualify for the NCHC Tournament, but Arizona State became the league’s ninth member last season.
Miami ended 2024-25 ninth last season and missed the conference championship.
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