I just don't think the B1G schools have to be successful for college hockey to be successful. Look at the years Yale and Union won it all. It was cool to see a non-traditional power win it all. That's what makes college hockey great. For some reason, a lot of college hockey fawns all over Michigan. Why? They have all of the advantages but what really have they accomplished since the B1G came to fruition? There's probably less college hockey on TV. I'll admit I used to watch the Gophers on FSN to see if they'd lose. Since they've joined to the B1G, more and more of their games aren't on TV.
By the way, it's fun to discuss this and to speculate on this. Bad news for the Gophers