The first round of the postseason tournament features a best-of-three games format. All twelve conference teams participate in the tournament. Teams are seeded No. 1 through No. 12 according to their final conference standing, with a tiebreaker system used to seed teams with an identical number of points accumulated. The top six seeded teams each earn home ice and host one of the lower seeded teams.
The winners of the first round series advance to the Xcel Energy Center for the WCHA Final Five, the collective name for the quarterfinal, semifinal, and championship rounds. The Final Five uses a single-elimination format. Teams are re-seeded No. 1 through No. 6 according to the final regular season conference standings, with the top two teams automatically advancing to the semifinals.
Conference standings
Note: GP = Games played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; PTS = Points; GF = Goals For; GA = Goals Against
Note: Game 2 was the 3rd longest game in WCHA History and 12th longest in NCAA history, although not the longest match between these two schools. SCSU defeated UMD in Triple Overtime in Game 3 of their WCHA 1st Round series in 2007, that went 11:13 into triple overtime. This is the 1st time 2 schools have played 2 triple-overtime games vs one another.