2026 NCAA tournament preview: Biggest-name teams lead one of the best fields ever

The beautiful thing about this year's NCAA tournament is all about the star power.

Thanks to the litany of changes in the hockey landscape over the last few years, and especially in the last 18 months, more teams than ever have high-end talent and lots of experienced depth to make them formidable opponents come tournament time. And that, in turn, means the tournament feels less predictable than ever.

Sure, there are upsets every year, but it's rarely felt so likely that there will be multiple upsets — potentially seismic ones that bust tons of brackets — in the regionals that will take place this weekend.

At this point, though, it feels like there are defined levels to the quality of teams in the tournament. Most people will tell you that the top five are more or less interchangeable in terms