If you watch the replay of it from the other angle it's obviously clear that he dropped to the ice as soon as he felt the stick on his back. There's was no force put into it.
I suppose winning percentage could be a way to go(with a minimum amount of games played requirement), along with 1 autobid for each conference as usual. Maybe the larger conferences can get 2 autobids with more teams competing.
Yes but the NCAA got rid of the standard 5 on 5 ot over the summer. An ot win now doesnt mean as much for pairwise as it usually did. Which is why the points for conference play are being awarded differently now.