NCAA Hockey Season Preview: Breaking down the conference races

It's often the case that most conference regular seasons feel like a fait accompli. There's a clear No. 1 and then a few teams fighting for home ice and, potentially, an NCAA tournament berth.

This season, though, there's a lot more arguments to be made in every single conference, a rarity at this point in the growth of Div. 1. With new programs either entering the landscape or expanding their schedules, a slew of coaching changes, and lots of elite freshmen talent coming into the picture, it feels tougher than ever to predict what the tournament field will look like at the end of the season (and not in the usual “Well, EVERYONE'S good this year!" way you see in a lot of college hockey analysis. Believe me, there are still plenty of teams that are gonna stink out loud).

So let's take a look at the preseason favourites in each conference: