Harvard, team to beat in ECAC?

Quite a bold statement from Ron Vaccaro...

[uscollegehockey.com]

"The Harvard Crimson asserted themselves as the team to beat in the ECAC Saturday with a 6-3 win over the Yale Bulldogs in front of a sellout crowd of 3,486 at Ingalls Rink."

Apparently, when you start playing some NC games, people start to forget about you.

Well, they're "in first place," don't you know.

Not that this has anything to do with how many more games they've played than the rest of the conference.

Beeeej

P.S. Didn't USCHO used to have a link for "standings by winning %"? Or was that only during the non-UVM season?

While I only remember it during the non-UVM season, that *was* my freshman year so I can't say if they had it before then. And they did have it for each conference. I believe we discussed this post-game in the chat room this weekend. There's a few things USCHO could use, like more comprehensive stats (i.e. per game, more than top 20, etc)

But as a personal service to Beeeej, here's the win % standings...

1) Cornell 5-1-0 0.833
2) Hahvahd 9-2-0 0.818
3) Yale 7-3-0 0.700
4) Dartmouth 4-2-0 0.667
5) Brown 5-5-1 0.500
Clarkson 2-2-1 0.500
Union 3-3-1 0.500
8) RPI 2-4-1 0.357
9) Colgate 2-4-0 0.333
Vermont 2-4-0 0.333
11) SLU 1-4-0 0.200
12) Princeton 1-9-0 0.100

I would say Cornell, Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth all appear the 'teams to beat' in the ECAC. Harvard really has been consistently winning as of late, and I suspect that the next matchup against them will be a good battle. They've only lost against us, BU, and Brown (which was an early season game where they hadn't really gelled yet). It'll be REALLY interesting to see how they fare against Maine and BC in their upcoming NC games.

We also beat a severely depleted Yale team; the next time around I'm not sure how confident I'd be about a win. They have developed some pretty serious firepower in Wax, Higgins, Steeves, and a promising frosh class. And as for Dartmouth, they have a great mix of young firepower plus solid seniors in Byrne, Summerfelt & Murray. Plus they've had our number for awhile.

I'm not sure the ECAC is as wide open as last year, when something like 6 teams were within 1 point of each other, but it definitely seems that theres a few more really good teams, which IMHO might be better for the ECAC.

Harvard is the team to beat. They won the tournament last year, fair and square. Until we knock them off in Lake...errrr....Albany, they deserve the title no matter our regular season record. You win banners at the tournament, regular season isn't as important.

USCHO had standings-by-winning-percentage as recently as last year, but I can't seem to find it with the current reorganization. But my standings page not only ranks teams by winning percentage, but also breaks ties with the ECAC tiebreakers:

[slack.net]

With any luck, the next time our boys play Yale, it won't matter (much) if the Red win or lose. I believe that is the last regular season game of the season, and hopefully our boys will have clinched home ice by that point.

I disagree adam '01. I don't think "team to beat" means "defending champion." I think "team to beat" refers to the team that most people expect to have to beat to walk away champs. We were the team to beat last year, and Harvard beat us. Kudos to those bastards.

I think we are the team to beat again, especially since we beat Harvard. Of course, being the team to beat means very little unless you actually win.

In any case, there are 4 very solid Ivy teams. I think if the conference as a whole has a great holiday season (and we need one, desperately!), there is a chance to have these "Chosen Four" help one another out down the stretch, the way the Big Four of HE (BU, BC, UNH, and Maine) have been doing for years.

Greg's post on the holiday season makes me think...

Dear Santa,
For Christmas, I'd like Cornell to win the FL hockey tourny...kick ass the rest of the season...and if you could swing it...Whitelaw and the frozen four. But if you can't give me all of this, can you just have Cornell win the Whitelaw and the FF? I promise to be really good this year

We probably went over this in 2000, but why is "winning percentage" W/(W+L) rather than W/GP?

Pat,

It's really points %... (2W + T) / (2GP)

Ah, that makes more sense, hockey-wise. I would have figured it out if someone had tied more than once. Stupid EZAC and their blowouts.

That just made me think of something that might be an indicator of league parity: (overtime games + games where the goalie is pulled)/(games played). It would at least be slightly more robust than a formula involving goal differential, but whether it would actually show anything interesting is left as an exercise for the reader.

Alternatively, you could measure google hits for "<league> 'game was closer than the score.'"