top 15 2/7

W 01 Colorado College
L 02 Maine (lost to #6 BC)
W 03 North Dakota
- 04 New Hampshire
W 05 Cornell
W 06 Boston College
L 07 Minnesota (lost to #1 CC)
W 08 Michigan
W 09 Ferris State
W 10 Ohio State
L 11 Denver (lost to unranked UMD)
W 12 Boston University
W 13 Harvard
- 14 Mankato State
- 15 St. Cloud State

Am I right in thinking that the Maine loss coupled with a BU Beanpot win would be very good for us?

Are we talking polls or PWR?

Polls. PWR corrects itself at midnight every night, so there's no point.

I doubt Maine'll drop beneath us, having still beaten us, and us having done nothing to prove that we deserve to be ahead of them. That is unless they lose again on Sunday, but seeing as they're playing Merrimack, that's not too likely.

We're not close enough to UNH in the polls (43 points) to pass them without them dropping something, even with the nice victory over Dmouth.

The BU win would be nice to make sure we don't drop below BC, but seeing as the game'll come after this week's poll is announced, it won't make a big difference anyway.


As far as PWR, we really can't go up without other people losing. We're currently tied for third with BC, and losing comparisons to 1 CC, 2 Maine, and 6 (losing tie for 5) UND .

In our CC comparison we lose all three categories. We're not passing them in RPI unless they serious stumble (currently over 0.0200 behind), we have a small shot to pass them in TUC wins, and since I think the rest of the games are conference for both teams, COp isn't changing. The best seems to be a 2-1 lose.

We're currently tied with Maine, but they take it on RPI . We win TUC and COp, but lose RPI and the 1 H2H . The again nearly 0.0200 difference in RPI isn't being overcome w/o a Maine stumble, so that one will stay with them.

UND wins RPI and we win TUC - both perfect against COp. The only way we can win that one is to pick up RPI, which is very doable, only trailing by 0.0010, but they'd need to stumble once to make it happen. Their schedule the rest of the way out doesn't look weak enough to drop them automatically.

On the flip side, there are only three comparisons that we currently barely win. BC we win 2-1, but a BU win against BC on Monday would solidify us in the COp category and probably give us the RPI one too, making it a 3-0 sweep.

vs. UNH we win 2-1, but lose the vital RPI category, and barely wining TUC . Root against UNH, especially against TUCs.

Finally, we beat Minn 2-1. COp we lose and likely isn't going anywhere, TUC we win well, but RPI we barely win. Root for Minny to drop one too.

So, overall analysis is barring some team (including us) breaking down, our PWR range appears to be 3 to 7ish, depending on how the stars align . Sure, no one probably wanted that much analysis, but it's 2:30 am and I had to do something before bed .

BTW, with Maine losing Cornell now has the second best winning percentage in the nation. It would be great to finish strong and have the best, even if with SOS it wouldn't help us all that much.

.845 Colorado College
.818 Cornell
.810 North Dakota
.793 Maine
.732 Ohio State

Greg wrote:

Polls. PWR corrects itself at midnight every night, so there's no point.

The PWR on USCHO updates itself instantly from their score database. (I.e., if the table is older than the latest score, it's recalculated.) My PWR on slack is dynamically generated at 2:41 each morning, but at this point the only thing it has that USCHO's doesn't is the breakdown of opponents for each team. So you should go to USCHO unless you're trying to see who the TUCs are, or which teams are contributing how to the RPI SOS.

We especially need to root against UNH and BC - if they sneak ahead of us in any sort of PWR tiebreaker scenario, hello Western Regionals as a #1 seed. Playing UMinn @ Mariucci is not my idea of fun....

When judging the TUC criteria vs. HEA schools, remember that they all have a bunch of wins vs. current TUC Northeastern, whose winning percentage is about .350, but RPI is exactly .500. If/when NE falls out, it'll be a big help in thosre comparisons (especially vs. UNH).

Also regarding the UND comparison, we still have COP left with them. We need to beat Yale (on the road... for the first time in forever...) and Princeton to stay perfect in COP.


EDIT: It seems that since last night, NE has somehow fallen out of TUC. I guess some late game had a weird effect. But their RPI is now .4995. Anyway, it's really amazing to look at the comparison between Maine and CC. It may come down to whether Michigan Tech or Northeastern are TUCs at the end. If Tech falls out, CC losses 3 wins and a tie and the comparison gets much tighter between the two. It's annoying that the side affect of changing the criteria for TUC involves letting crappy teams in good conferences influence the top so damn much.

Likewise, if Clarkson makes it to a TUC, and if we beat Brown again and they do anyway, then that also helps us there. Good point about Yale/Princeton. The Yale game gets even bigger now.

It seems to me that the number one seeds and region assignments are going to hinge on the outcome of the conference tournaments - especially the Hockey East tournament and us winning the ECAC tournament. Forgetting PWR for a moment, I think it is perceived that if we are any good (by which I mean top four good) we will win the ECAC and if we don't then we aren't worthy of a #1 seed. Assuming Maine, New Hampshire and BC all hover around the top five in both the polls and PWR then the Hockey East tournament winner will (likely) get a number one seed as a "reward". If we lose the tournament then the Hockey East or WCHA runner up has a strong claim on a #1.

Are there any wrenches in this year's placements like the travel restrictions last year or the flipping of the east-west 5 and six seeds of the old 12 team field days? Or are they just going to do it like basketball and rank their top 16 and then place the teams where they fall according to a preset model - after taking geography into account for the number ones? Are they going to try to avoid intraconference matchups in the first round? Multiple rounds? I remember reading an explanation on USCHO and thinking it was like Thunderdome - there are no rules.

There were never rules, but there was a combination of guidelines and precedent that made it possible to make some educated guesses. This year, with the NCAA D1 Men's Championship Handbook still "coming soon" and no past 16-team hockey tournaments to go by, we don't even have that.

EDIT: JTW makes a good point, but this is how it worked in the past. Also, before anyone catches me, they're not actually determined by PWR, but they're determined by a similar process with identical results.

From how I understand it, after the 16 teams are decided by PWR/autobids, the seedings are decided by:

1) How good the team is
2) Avoiding intra-conference matchups in the first two rounds
3) Attendence draw

"First two rounds" this year, effectively means region, so they'll try not to put a team from the same conference in the same region. However, with 4 very good, eastern New England HEA teams (Maine, UNH, BC, BU), chances are two of them will be in the same region... cause you know if they send both BU and BC west, there'll be hell to pay, or at least hear (plus, isn't BU hosting Worcester again?).

While actually winning your conference tournament is not something that's explicitly looked at (excluding getting an autobid), the one thing it did make me realize, is that out of Maine, UNH, BC, and BU, 3 of them have to lose a game near the end of the season! And better yet, unless they falter early, they have to lose a TUC game! Which might vault us ahead of them enough to capture the #1 in the east or NE.

Our best chances to stay east (IMHO) are finishing as one of the top 2 eastern teams in the PWR, and getting a #1 seed or finish as a 4-8 team, so they don't feel pressure to put us in the west as a #1, and instead give us a #2 in one of the east regionals. Of course, while PWR has always managed to predict the field correctly, I have never seen anyone guess the seedings correctly. The committee always seems to come up with some way to juggle it that no one expected.

DeltaOne81 '03 wrote:

PWR has always managed to predict the field correctly

Except when Quinnipiac was in the top 12 in PWR.

I knew, no matter how careful I was, you'd find something . At least I covered myself on two of the three "almost but not exactly" points.

Sunday,Saturday,Friday

-,L,W 01 Colorado College (split to #7 Minnesota)
W,-,L 02 Maine (lost to #6 BC)
-,L,W 03 North Dakota (split with unranked Michigan Tech)
L,-,- 04 New Hampshire (lost to unranked Providence)
-,W,W 05 Cornell
-,-,W 06 Boston College (beat #2 Maine)
-,W,L 07 Minnesota (split #1 CC)
-,W,W 08 Michigan
-,W,W 09 Ferris State
-,W,W 10 Ohio State
-,L,L 11 Denver (lost to unranked UMD)
-,-,W 12 Boston University
-,-,W 13 Harvard
-,-,- 14 Mankato State
-,-,- 15 St. Cloud State

Chris '02 wrote:

Saturday's results (Friday)

L,W 03 North Dakota (lost to unranked Michigan Tech)

To clarify, both games were against MTU, so you should write "split with unranked Michigan Tech" to be consistent.

True... actually, the main USCHO PWR page breaks it by RPI, having us lose the tie, but the "individual comparison chart" page has us winning the tie, probably for the head to head comparison reason. But hopefully BU can win their 28983457th Beanpot tomorrow and eliminate the concern at all.

Nice job, Chris. Thanks.

Ohio State's goaltender Mike Betz looks very midget-like in front of the goal on the front page of USCHO - sort of funny actually.

(didn't feel like starting a new thread to mention this, so since OSU is in the top 15, I thought this'd be the place for it )

Chris '02 wrote:

L,W 01 Colorado College (split to #7 Minnesota)
-,L 02 Maine (lost to #6 BC)
L,W 03 North Dakota (split with unranked Michigan Tech)
-,- 04 New Hampshire
W,W 05 Cornell
-,W 06 Boston College (beat #2 Maine)
W,L 07 Minnesota (split #1 CC)
W,W 08 Michigan
W,W 09 Ferris State
W,W 10 Ohio State
L,L 11 Denver (lost to unranked UMD)
-,W 12 Boston University
-,W 13 Harvard
-,- 14 Mankato State
-,- 15 St. Cloud State

In HE Sunday games, #4 UNH lost at unranked Providence, and #2 Maine beat unranked Merrimack at home.