[1] Of the sixteen teams that are selected to participate in the NCAA tournament, ten will be via at-large bids.
The result is that teams from leagues which perform better in non-conference are much more likely to receive at-large bids even if they possess inferior records overall.
Additionally, most of the conference's wins came against either the CCHA or Independent programs, many of which were low-ranked teams and didn't help the NCHC's position as much as they otherwise could have.
This caused the NCHC to have just three teams in the top 15 of the rankings as opposed to the five they had the year before with a nearly-identical overall record.
[3] * denotes overtime periods [4] [5] Note: teams ranked in the top-10 automatically qualify for the NCAA tournament.