The 2026–27 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey season is scheduled to begin on October 2, 2026, and conclude with the NCAA championship on April 10, 2027. This will be the 79th season in which an NCAA ice hockey championship will be held, and will be US college hockey's 133rd year overall.
Polls
Maryville On March 4, 2026, Maryville University officially announced that they will be elevating their teams to the NCAA Division I level beginning in the 2027–28 season. The Saints will play a transitional hybrid schedule for the 2026–27 season.
Regular season Standings
NPI Rankings In 2025, the NCAA announced that they would stop using the PairWise rankings for determining at-large bids to the NCAA tournament in favor of the NCAA Power Index (NPI).
The methodology was announced as follows:
Win percentage / Strength of Schedule – 25%/75% Home-Away Win/Loss – 1.2/0.8 (regular season), 1.0/1.0 (postseason) Quality Win Base – 51 Quality Win Multiplier – 0.5 Overtime – 60/40 (regular season), 100/0 (postseason) Minimum Wins – 12
The final criteria, minimum wins, refers to the number of wins that must be retained in a team's ranking. According to the new system, games that are rated as being below a certain value threshold (e.g. defeating a club 40 places lower in the rankings) are removed from the calculations in order to prevent the numbers from becoming too skewed. Rather than being rewarded or punished for losing to a far stronger or defeating a far inferior opponent, the game is simply not counted in the rankings for one or both teams.
As part of the change, the NCAA selection committee eliminated several criteria that had been use by the PairWise: Ratings Points Index (a measurement of success against opponents weighted by strength of schedule), common opponents and head-to-head matches. Additionally, the committee did not retain the requirement that the teams must have at least a .500 record in order to be considered for an at-large bid.
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