I was thinking about how things would have turned out this year if they had not expanded to the 16 team tournament (and didn't give the CHA an autobid). For starters, Cornell would get a nice first round bye.
Here's the teams that would make the 12 team tournament.
1 Cornell
2 Colorado College
3 Minnesota
4 New Hampshire
5 Boston University
6 Maine
7 Ferris State
8 Boston College
9 Michigan
10 North Dakota
11 Ohio State
12 Quinnipiac
Harvard is the first team left out.
Byes are pretty clear cut. Cornell and New Hampshire in the east, and CC and Minnesota in the West. If we go by the 9/11 travel restrictions, we'll have an even split of east and west teams.
BU plays Quinnipiac
Maine plays BC
North Dakota plays Michigan
Ferris State plays Ohio State
Yuck...talk about first round intraconference matchups.
If we go by the pre-9/11 rules, I would guess that BC would be swapped with Ohio State to eliminate those intraconference matchups. This actually works out quite nicely when comparing to the PWR ranking.
5 BU plays 12 Quinnipiac
6 Maine plays 11 Ohio State
7 Ferris State plays 8 Boston College
9 Michigan plays 10 North Dakota
To really even things up, we can do one last swap of BC with North Dakota.
5 BU plays 12 Quinnipiac
6 Maine plays 11 Ohio State
7 Ferris State plays 10 North Dakota
8 Boston College plays 9 Michigan
For the second round, I don't recall if they reseed or not. In any case, you're probably going to have a Hockey East matchup in the east. Cornell can play anyone. Out west, CC and Minnesota have less chance at a 2nd round intraconference matchup. The Frozen Four seeding would go the same as this year's.
One last thing, if they did include a CHA autobid team, Ohio State gets bumped and Maine would play them.