Playoff time is here again.

The Bemidji State men’s hockey team will open the postseason this Friday, March 12, with the first game of a Western Collegiate Hockey Association quarterfinal series. By the time the tournament is complete March 20, the Beavers will hope to have secured their first NCAA Tournament bid since 2009-10.

Fourth-seeded BSU will have to go through fifth-seeded Michigan Tech in a best-of-three series to reach the league’s final four. This weekend marks the third time in the last four seasons Bemidji State (13-8-3, 8-5-1 WCHA) has played in a quarterfinal matchup of the WCHA’s No. 4 and 5 seeds.

“It’s your typical four vs. five matchup,” BSU head coach Tom Serratore said. “It’s going to be a great series. We’ve had great battles with Michigan Tech, not only this year, but over the years we’ve played them a lot.”

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The teams met under identical seeds in the league quarterfinals three years ago, with the Huskies sweeping the series en route to the WCHA playoff title.

This season, however, the Beavers own a 3-1-0 record against Tech, including a nonconference split at the Sanford Center in December and a road sweep in Houghton, Mich., three weeks ago.

The Huskies (17-10-1, 7-7-0 WCHA) threw the kitchen sink at Zach Driscoll in the February series, but the Beaver netminder stood tall and made 80 saves on 82 shots in wins of 4-1 and 2-1, securing the team’s first-ever road sweep at Michigan Tech.

“Them and Mankato have probably the deepest forward group in the league,” Serratore said. “They’ve got an experienced defensive corps, they get really good goaltending out of (Blake) Pietila. … When Bemidji State and Michigan Tech play, probably the best way of describing it is it’s a game of inches.”

BSU enters the postseason coming off a sweep of Alabama Huntsville. Driscoll earned WCHA Goaltender of the Week honors for posting consecutive shutouts of 2-0 and 4-0.

Tech capped its regular season with a pair of one-goal losses at Minnesota State, falling 2-1 and 3-2.

“There’s a good chance it’ll go to three games in three days,” senior defenseman Tyler Vold said of the upcoming series. “It’s going to be a battle every night.”

The four advancing WCHA teams will meet at the site of the highest remaining seed for the single-elimination semifinal and championship weekend, March 19-20.

NCAA prospects

Bemidji State is, in most estimates, squarely on the bubble to make the NCAA Tournament.

Unlike previous seasons, the bubble this year is not as clearly defined since the Pairwise rankings have been rendered useless due to a lack of nonconference games across college hockey.

A selection committee will instead choose the field for this year’s tournament.

The Beavers are No. 13 in College Hockey News’s latest weekly “Power 16” rankings, a tool the site has created that attempts to predict how the committee will select the field. The rankings are unofficial, however, and, other than the six conference autobids, nobody will truly know who is in the 16-team tournament until Selection Sunday on March 21.

BSU is ranked No. 15 in this week’s 20-team USCHO.com poll. The team is unranked, but receiving votes, in the 15-team USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine poll.

Short of winning the WCHA autobid as tournament champions, a good showing in the WCHA playoffs would go a long way towards solidifying Bemidji State’s tournament hopes.

“I think we’ve got some belief on our team that we can do it and that we can go on a run,” freshman forward Eric Martin said. “We’ve got some confidence. I think we ended the season on a high note. … I just think that everyone in the dressing room believes if we stick to our game plan and if we play our game, we can go as far as we can go in this tournament.”

At a glance

Who: BSU vs. Michigan Tech

What: WCHA quarterfinals

Where: Sanford Center

When: 7:07 p.m. Fri./6:07 p.m. Sat./5:07 p.m. Sun. (if needed)

Radio: Beaver Radio Network/92.1 FM

Web stream: FloHockey.tv