Gophers #4 overall NCAA Seed

They will host Colgate in a NCAA Quarterfinal on Saturday

What was known since the completion of Saturday’s WCHA Championship game was confirmed on Sunday morning when the 2025 NCAA Women’s Hockey Tournament bracket was released. The Minnesota Golden Gophers are the #4 seed in the tournament and will host a NCAA Quarterfinal next Saturday against #5 seed the Colgate Raiders. Faceoff is set for 2PM. It will be the 22nd all-time appearance in the NCAA Tournament for the Gophers, the most of any program.

Minnesota faced #1 Wisconsin in the WCHA Championship game and gave the Badgers one of the toughest games they have had all season. Wisconsin has not lost a game since November and Minnesota took an early 2-1 lead on goals by Allie Franco and Josefin Boulveng. Wisconsin scored a pair in the second period to take a 3-2 lead, but the Gophers would tie it late in the middle stanza with a goal by Natalie Mlynkova knotting the score at 3.

It would stay that was for most of the third period, but the Badgers would take the lead for good with 24.5 seconds left on a gorgeous behind the back pass by probable Patty Kazmaier winner Casey O’Brien to Sarah Wozniewicz who put the Badgers up 4-3. That’s how the game would end. Minnesota had both Abbey Murphy and Chloe Primerano on the All-Tournament Team.

With the loss, it was known the Gophers would drop from #3 in the pairwise ranking to #4 with the ECAC Champion leapfrogging them. That would end up being Cornell who defeated Colgate 5-1 in the ECAC Championship game. The Big Red took the #3 national seed, with Minnesota falling to #4, and Colgate at #5.

Minnesota will try and get past the Raiders on Saturday and ride home ice as long as possible. The 2025 Women’s Frozen Four will also take place at Ridder Arena, meaning as long as the Gophers can keep winning, they will get the comforts of their home rink. If the Gophers can get past Colgate, it sets up a probable rematch for the 6th time this season with the #1 ranked Badgers in the NCAA semifinals.

In the rest of the bracket, the #1 ranked Badgers will host the winner of the first round game between #8 Clarkson and #10 Boston University. #2 Ohio State will face the winner of the first round game between #7 Penn State and #9 St. Lawrence. #3 Cornell will face the winner of #6 Minnesota-Duluth and #11 Sacred Heart. All three first round games will be played on Thursday night and all four quarterfinals will be played on Saturday. Every game of the NCAA Tournament will stream live on ESPN+ with the NCAA Championship Game airing live on ESPNU. The full bracket is below:

We will have a full preview of the NCAA Quarterfinal vs Colgate later this week.