Oh what could have been...

This afternoon while killing some time I stumbled upon the build your own rankings website which I have used in the past and had forgot about but it got me thinking about how certain outcomes in games this season have affected Wisconsin's Pairwise ranking.

There are a couple specific games that stand out. Beginning with the start of the season, the Badgers played in the Ice Breaker tournament in St. Louis. In one of the games in St. Louis the Badgers lost to Boston University 4-3 in a very controversial game 4-3. Wisconsin had two goals in that game (One off the leg of Mark Zengerle and one shot I believe by John Ramage) that were deemed no goal by the on ice officials. For some reason the tournament organizers decided against the use of video replay even though it was clearly available in the NHL arena. Video from the TV broadcast CLEARLY showed that both goals should have counted and cost Wisconsin not only a tie but a win.

So what if Wisconsin had won that game? How would it have affected their PWR? Using the build your own rankings website and changing that game from a Wisconsin loss to a win changes everything. The Badgers would be sitting at #15 in the PWR instead of their current #21 if you simply change that outcome.

Another game that should have ended differently? How about the Friday night game when UMD was in town in overtime when Jake Gardiner was blatantly tripped by Jack Connolly which led directly to a game winning goal? Changing that result from a loss to a tie moves the Badgers up from #21 in the PWR to #18. Not enough to get them in, but anything would help at this point. If you added up the BU game and the UMD game that would have the Badgers sitting in 13th in the Pairwise and in the drivers seat for an at large bid.

The following is where the Badgers would be had their loss or tie been a win.

October 8th, 4-3 loss to BU: #15
October 22nd, 4-2 loss to Denver: #17
October 23rd, 3-3 tie to Denver: #18
November 6th, 3-3 tie to Minnesota: #18
November 12th, 1-0 loss to North Dakota: #14
November 13th, 4-2 loss to North Dakota: #14
November 19th, 6-4 OT loss to UMD: #17
November 20th, 3-2 OT loss to UMD: #17
November 26th, 4-4 tie to Michigan: #18
December 3rd, 2-1 loss to Anchorage: #19
January 14th, 2-0 loss to UMD: #17
February 11th, 4-1 loss to UNO: #19
February 12th, 4-3 loss to UNO: #19
February 18th, 5-2 loss to Minnesota: #18
February 19th, 3-3 tie to Minnesota: #18
February 25th, 4-2 loss to St. Cloud: #16
February 26th, 7-3 loss to St. Cloud: #16

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