| Year: | 1987 |
| Gender: | men's |
| Division: | Division I |
| Teams: | 8 |
| Frozenfourarena: | Joe Louis Arena |
| Frozenfourcity: | Detroit, Michigan |
| Champions: | North Dakota Fighting Sioux |
| Titlecount: | 5th |
| Champgamecount: | 8th |
| Champffcount: | 11th |
| Runnerup: | Michigan State Spartans |
| Gamecount: | 4th |
| Runnerffcount: | 6th |
| Semifinal1: | Minnesota Golden Gophers |
| Frozenfourcount: | 12th |
| Semifinal2: | Harvard Crimson |
| Frozenfourcount2: | 10th |
| Coach: | Gino Gasparini |
| Coachcount: | 3rd |
| Mop: | Tony Hrkac |
| Mopteam: | North Dakota |
| Attendance: | 36,251 |
The 1987 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey tournament was the culmination of the 1986–87 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey season, the 40th such tournament in NCAA history. It was held between March 20 and 28, 1987, and concluded with North Dakota defeating Michigan State 5-3. All Quarterfinals matchups were held at home team venues while all succeeding games were played at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan.
The NCAA permitted 8 teams to qualify for the tournament and divided its qualifiers into two regions (East and West). Each of the tournament champions from the four Division I conferences (CCHA, ECAC, Hockey East and WCHA) received automatic invitations into the tournament with At-large bids making up the remaining 4 teams, 1 from each conference.
| East | West | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | School | Conference | Record | Berth type | Appearance | Last bid | Seed | School | Conference | Record | Berth type | Appearance | Last bid | |
| 1 | Boston College | Hockey East | 30–7–0 | Tournament champion | 15th | 1986 | 1 | North Dakota | WCHA | 36–8–0 | Tournament champion | 11th | 1984 | |
| 2 | Harvard | ECAC Hockey | 26–4–0 | Tournament champion | 12th | 1986 | 2 | Michigan State | CCHA | 30–9–2 | Tournament champion | 9th | 1986 | |
| 3 | Maine | Hockey East | 24–14–2 | At-large bid | 1st | Never | 3 | Bowling Green | CCHA | 33–8–2 | At-large bid | 6th | 1984 | |
| 4 | St. Lawrence | ECAC Hockey | 24–9–0 | At-large bid | 9th | 1983 | 4 | Minnesota | WCHA | 32–12–1 | At-large bid | 14th | 1986 | |
The tournament featured three rounds of play. The two odd-number ranked teams from one region were placed into a bracket with the two even-number ranked teams of the other region. The teams were then seeded according to their ranking. In the Quarterfinals the first and fourth seeds and the second and third seeds played two-game aggregate series to determine which school advanced to the Semifinals. Beginning with the Semifinals all games were played at the Joe Louis Arena and all series became Single-game eliminations. The winning teams in the semifinals advanced to the National Championship Game with the losers playing in a Third Place game.
[2] Note: * denotes overtime period(s)
| Scoring summary | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Period | Team | Goal | Assist(s) | Time | Score | |||
| 1st | align=center style=";" | UND | Ian Kidd – PP | Joyce | align=center | 15:07 | align=center | 1–0 UND |
| align=center style=";" | UND | Murray Baron | Bowen and Kidd | align=center | 16:44 | align=center | 2–0 UND | |
| align=center style=";" | UND | Bob Joyce | Kidd and Hrkac | align=center | 17:02 | align=center | 3–0 UND | |
| 2nd | align=center style=";" | MSU | Tom Tilly | McReynolds and Messier | align=center | 28:30 | align=center | 3–1 UND |
| align=center style=";" | UND | Malcolm Parks – GW | Koberinski | align=center | 35:05 | align=center | 4–1 UND | |
| align=center style=";" | MSU | Kevin Miller | unassisted | align=center | 36:56 | align=center | 4–2 UND | |
| 3rd | align=center style=";" | UND | Brent Bobyck | Parent | align=center | 47:54 | align=center | 5–2 UND |
| align=center style=";" | MSU | Kip Miller | Miller | align=center | 58:34 | align=center | 5–3 UND | |
| Shots by period | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | T | ||||||
| align=center style=";" | Michigan State | align=center | 2 | align=center | 8 | align=center | 8 | align=center | 18 | |
| align=center style=";" | North Dakota | align=center | 8 | align=center | 9 | align=center | 6 | align=center | 23 | |
| Goaltenders | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Name | Saves | Goals against | Time on ice | |||||
| align=center style=";" | MSU | align=center | 18 | align=center | 5 | align=center | 60:00 | ||
| align=center style=";" | UND | align=center | 15 | align=center | 3 | align=center | 60:00 | ||
* Most Outstanding Player(s)[3]