2023-2024 Predictions

[BearLover]

My only real predictions are that:
—Quinnipiac is going to be by far the best team in the conference. They lost a lot of very good players to graduation/pro signings but reloaded with very good transfers/grad students.
—Harvard and Cornell will be 2 and 3. They both lost most of their best players but have enough talent coming in/remaining.
—Clarkson should be 4 mostly by virtue of the rest of the conference being bad.
—Cornell has only 2 seniors, one of whom is the third string goalie. They do not have enough experience to compete for a national title this year. My best guess is the finish in the 20s in the Pairwise.

[CAS]

Cornell has 5 seniors, including a backup goalie.
The team has 10 players who recently participated in NHL development camps, including 6 draft picks.

[jkahn]

Cornell has 5 seniors, including a backup goalie.
The team has 10 players who recently participated in NHL development camps, including 6 draft picks.

I suspect Bearlover is counting 2 seniors aince O'Leary, Rego and Penney are only 3rd year players, though academic seniors, having sat out their freshmen Covid year.

[Trotsky]

Somebody will severely underperform.  Let's not be them.

Somebody will severely overperform.  People who know things already know who this will be, so none of us do.

Eventually to be indicted on RICO and have their last 10 seasons wiped: Qpc
Always good: Hvd, Cor
Good now: Cgt, SLU
Bad now but never for long: Clk
Bad and still bad except somebody will emerge to become good: RPI, Uni, Prn, Yal
Hot garbage baking under the noonday sun: Brn, Drt (not too late to replace with Cal and Stanford).

[Dafatone]

Somebody will severely underperform.  Let's not be them.

Somebody will severely overperform.  People who know things already know who this will be, so none of us do.

Eventually to be indicted on RICO and have their last 10 seasons wiped: Qpc
Always good: Hvd, Cor
Good now: Cgt, SLU
Bad now but never for long: Clk
Bad and still bad except somebody will emerge to become good: RPI, Uni, Prn, Yal
Hot garbage baking under the noonday sun: Brn, Drt (not too late to replace with Cal and Stanford).

For how hilariously terrible their record was last year, I believe Dartmouth played a lot of close games and had a better goal differential than you'd expect. Wouldn't shock me if they crept up like a tier.

I take no pleasure in saying this, as someone who hates Dartmouth more than any other team in the conference.

[ursusminor]

An RPI fan and his computer program's ECAC predictions. https://thefieldhouse.substack.com/p/ecac-2023-24-preview?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

Cornell is #2, and Harvard is #7 below #4 Princeton.

[BearLover]

An RPI fan and his computer program's ECAC predictions. https://thefieldhouse.substack.com/p/ecac-2023-24-preview?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

Cornell is #2, and Harvard is #7 below #4 Princeton.

I appreciate that someone is trying to quantify these things rather than making prediction based on feel, but the fact this model ranks Harvard's returning offense as 12th in the league evidences a clear flaw in its methodology, in my opinion. I would guess the issue is that Harvard's top players last year were SO good that they got all the PP time and played a crazy amount of minutes, especially when Harvard needed a goal. So yeah, nearly all the offensive production came from those players, who are gone now. But that doesn't mean the players who played behind them, and will now take on a larger role, are not good players—it just means they didn't add much offensively last year, because they didn't need to.

And though I wish it were true, I just don't see Cornell as an elite team this season. We could compete for an NCAA spot, but if that happens it is most likely as one of the final at-large bids. We have a ton of freshmen, no one who has played more than two years for Cornell (and no one aside from Seger who has played more than two years of college hockey at all). We are still going up against much older and more experienced teams whenever we play a non-Ivy. I like our trajectory but don't expect us to be elite until the fifth-year eligibility rule finally goes away in a couple seasons.

[Trotsky]

An RPI fan and his computer program's ECAC predictions. https://thefieldhouse.substack.com/p/ecac-2023-24-preview?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

Cornell is #2, and Harvard is #7 below #4 Princeton.

Huh, this is what I have been trying to with Predictions for 20 years.

[sezenack]

An RPI fan and his computer program's ECAC predictions. https://thefieldhouse.substack.com/p/ecac-2023-24-preview?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

Cornell is #2, and Harvard is #7 below #4 Princeton.

I appreciate that someone is trying to quantify these things rather than making prediction based on feel, but the fact this model ranks Harvard's returning offense as 12th in the league evidences a clear flaw in its methodology, in my opinion. I would guess the issue is that Harvard's top players last year were SO good that they got all the PP time and played a crazy amount of minutes, especially when Harvard needed a goal. So yeah, nearly all the offensive production came from those players, who are gone now. But that doesn't mean the players who played behind them, and will now take on a larger role, are not good players—it just means they didn't add much offensively last year, because they didn't need to.

And though I wish it were true, I just don't see Cornell as an elite team this season. We could compete for an NCAA spot, but if that happens it is most likely as one of the final at-large bids. We have a ton of freshmen, no one who has played more than two years for Cornell (and no one aside from Seger who has played more than two years of college hockey at all). We are still going up against much older and more experienced teams whenever we play a non-Ivy. I like our trajectory but don't expect us to be elite until the fifth-year eligibility rule finally goes away in a couple seasons.

ursusminor told me he posted this here, and I saw this and wanted to reply.

Harvard's 12th ranked returning offense isn't an opinion; it's a fact. They return 122 points and played 34 games, so they return 3.59 points per game, which is last in the league. It's an entirely objective metric. I disagree that it's a flaw in the methodology and think it's much more of a symptom of the lack of college hockey data available to the public (mainly time on ice).

However, I do agree with your points about PP time and general time on ice. Harvard does have good talent that played lower in the lineup that will likely step up. It's entirely possible they beat the projection, and I'd say they are the likeliest team to do that of the 12. Anyone expecting them to maintain their level of last season is mistaken though. Looking at the roster, the only player I see surpassing 30 points is Joe Miller. None of the players that remain are at the level of Coronato, Farrell, or Laferriere. None of the defensemen are at the level of Thrun even though Ian Moore is very good. Those are the players they have to replace, and Harvard isn't equipped to do it regardless of ice time. The players they have are not that caliber, where they put up big numbers and get an NHL deal following the season (with the exception of Miller and Moore).

[BearLover]

An RPI fan and his computer program's ECAC predictions. https://thefieldhouse.substack.com/p/ecac-2023-24-preview?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

Cornell is #2, and Harvard is #7 below #4 Princeton.

I appreciate that someone is trying to quantify these things rather than making prediction based on feel, but the fact this model ranks Harvard's returning offense as 12th in the league evidences a clear flaw in its methodology, in my opinion. I would guess the issue is that Harvard's top players last year were SO good that they got all the PP time and played a crazy amount of minutes, especially when Harvard needed a goal. So yeah, nearly all the offensive production came from those players, who are gone now. But that doesn't mean the players who played behind them, and will now take on a larger role, are not good players—it just means they didn't add much offensively last year, because they didn't need to.

And though I wish it were true, I just don't see Cornell as an elite team this season. We could compete for an NCAA spot, but if that happens it is most likely as one of the final at-large bids. We have a ton of freshmen, no one who has played more than two years for Cornell (and no one aside from Seger who has played more than two years of college hockey at all). We are still going up against much older and more experienced teams whenever we play a non-Ivy. I like our trajectory but don't expect us to be elite until the fifth-year eligibility rule finally goes away in a couple seasons.

ursusminor told me he posted this here, and I saw this and wanted to reply.

Harvard's 12th ranked returning offense isn't an opinion; it's a fact. They return 122 points and played 34 games, so they return 3.59 points per game, which is last in the league. It's an entirely objective metric. I disagree that it's a flaw in the methodology and think it's much more of a symptom of the lack of college hockey data available to the public (mainly time on ice).

However, I do agree with your points about PP time and general time on ice. Harvard does have good talent that played lower in the lineup that will likely step up. It's entirely possible they beat the projection, and I'd say they are the likeliest team to do that of the 12. Anyone expecting them to maintain their level of last season is mistaken though. Looking at the roster, the only player I see surpassing 30 points is Joe Miller. None of the players that remain are at the level of Coronato, Farrell, or Laferriere. None of the defensemen are at the level of Thrun even though Ian Moore is very good. Those are the players they have to replace, and Harvard isn't equipped to do it regardless of ice time. The players they have are not that caliber, where they put up big numbers and get an NHL deal following the season (with the exception of Miller and Moore).

Sorry if my post came off as overly critical. I do appreciate people trying to quantify this stuff, as I said. And I enjoyed reading your findings and write-up. I also certainly didn't mean to imply that you were putting your thumb on the scale. I understand these metrics are objective and that Harvard's returning points per game number is what it is.

However, the fact you chose to base offensive ranking entirely (mostly?) off of returning points per game is not objective. While the inputs themselves may be objective metrics, choosing which inputs to use is necessarily subjective. I don't deny that you are limited in your data and maybe this is the best you can do; but it's very clear if you look past this one statistic that Harvard is once again going to be very talented this season. They still have by far the most draft picks in the ECAC, by the far most players who were in the central scouting rankings, etc. These are imperfect metrics, but they're other metrics that you could consider factoring into your analysis.

By the way, how do you measure incoming class rank? I may have missed that, but I didn't see it in your post. Cornell's incoming class consists of five draft picks, which I believe is easily the most in the ECAC, but its incoming class is ranked #7.

[scoop85]

By the way, how do you measure incoming class rank? I may have missed that, but I didn't see it in your post. Cornell's incoming class consists of five draft picks, which I believe is easily the most in the ECAC, but its incoming class is ranked #7.

While I thought the overall analysis was good, the recruiting ranking made no sense. Neutral Zone ranked Cornell's recruiting class #1 in the ECAC and #7 nationally.

[Beeeej]

An RPI fan and his computer program's ECAC predictions. https://thefieldhouse.substack.com/p/ecac-2023-24-preview?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

Cornell is #2, and Harvard is #7 below #4 Princeton.

I appreciate that someone is trying to quantify these things rather than making prediction based on feel, but the fact this model ranks Harvard's returning offense as 12th in the league evidences a clear flaw in its methodology, in my opinion. I would guess the issue is that Harvard's top players last year were SO good that they got all the PP time and played a crazy amount of minutes, especially when Harvard needed a goal. So yeah, nearly all the offensive production came from those players, who are gone now. But that doesn't mean the players who played behind them, and will now take on a larger role, are not good players—it just means they didn't add much offensively last year, because they didn't need to.

And though I wish it were true, I just don't see Cornell as an elite team this season. We could compete for an NCAA spot, but if that happens it is most likely as one of the final at-large bids. We have a ton of freshmen, no one who has played more than two years for Cornell (and no one aside from Seger who has played more than two years of college hockey at all). We are still going up against much older and more experienced teams whenever we play a non-Ivy. I like our trajectory but don't expect us to be elite until the fifth-year eligibility rule finally goes away in a couple seasons.

ursusminor told me he posted this here, and I saw this and wanted to reply.

Harvard's 12th ranked returning offense isn't an opinion; it's a fact. They return 122 points and played 34 games, so they return 3.59 points per game, which is last in the league. It's an entirely objective metric. I disagree that it's a flaw in the methodology and think it's much more of a symptom of the lack of college hockey data available to the public (mainly time on ice).

However, I do agree with your points about PP time and general time on ice. Harvard does have good talent that played lower in the lineup that will likely step up. It's entirely possible they beat the projection, and I'd say they are the likeliest team to do that of the 12.

Certainly more likely than Quinnipiac.

[Trotsky]

TBRW Predictions:

Code Select Expand


 1  Quinnipiac
 2  [color=#b31313]Cornell[/color]
 3  Harvard
 4  Clarkson
 5  Colgate
 6  St. Lawrence
 7  Yale
 8  Union
 9  RPI
10  Princeton
11  Brown
    Dartmouth


[sezenack]

An RPI fan and his computer program's ECAC predictions. https://thefieldhouse.substack.com/p/ecac-2023-24-preview?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

Cornell is #2, and Harvard is #7 below #4 Princeton.

I appreciate that someone is trying to quantify these things rather than making prediction based on feel, but the fact this model ranks Harvard's returning offense as 12th in the league evidences a clear flaw in its methodology, in my opinion. I would guess the issue is that Harvard's top players last year were SO good that they got all the PP time and played a crazy amount of minutes, especially when Harvard needed a goal. So yeah, nearly all the offensive production came from those players, who are gone now. But that doesn't mean the players who played behind them, and will now take on a larger role, are not good players—it just means they didn't add much offensively last year, because they didn't need to.

And though I wish it were true, I just don't see Cornell as an elite team this season. We could compete for an NCAA spot, but if that happens it is most likely as one of the final at-large bids. We have a ton of freshmen, no one who has played more than two years for Cornell (and no one aside from Seger who has played more than two years of college hockey at all). We are still going up against much older and more experienced teams whenever we play a non-Ivy. I like our trajectory but don't expect us to be elite until the fifth-year eligibility rule finally goes away in a couple seasons.

ursusminor told me he posted this here, and I saw this and wanted to reply.

Harvard's 12th ranked returning offense isn't an opinion; it's a fact. They return 122 points and played 34 games, so they return 3.59 points per game, which is last in the league. It's an entirely objective metric. I disagree that it's a flaw in the methodology and think it's much more of a symptom of the lack of college hockey data available to the public (mainly time on ice).

However, I do agree with your points about PP time and general time on ice. Harvard does have good talent that played lower in the lineup that will likely step up. It's entirely possible they beat the projection, and I'd say they are the likeliest team to do that of the 12. Anyone expecting them to maintain their level of last season is mistaken though. Looking at the roster, the only player I see surpassing 30 points is Joe Miller. None of the players that remain are at the level of Coronato, Farrell, or Laferriere. None of the defensemen are at the level of Thrun even though Ian Moore is very good. Those are the players they have to replace, and Harvard isn't equipped to do it regardless of ice time. The players they have are not that caliber, where they put up big numbers and get an NHL deal following the season (with the exception of Miller and Moore).

Sorry if my post came off as overly critical. I do appreciate people trying to quantify this stuff, as I said. And I enjoyed reading your findings and write-up. I also certainly didn't mean to imply that you were putting your thumb on the scale. I understand these metrics are objective and that Harvard's returning points per game number is what it is.

However, the fact you chose to base offensive ranking entirely (mostly?) off of returning points per game is not objective. While the inputs themselves may be objective metrics, choosing which inputs to use is necessarily subjective. I don't deny that you are limited in your data and maybe this is the best you can do; but it's very clear if you look past this one statistic that Harvard is once again going to be very talented this season. They still have by far the most draft picks in the ECAC, by the far most players who were in the central scouting rankings, etc. These are imperfect metrics, but they're other metrics that you could consider factoring into your analysis.

By the way, how do you measure incoming class rank? I may have missed that, but I didn't see it in your post. Cornell's incoming class consists of five draft picks, which I believe is easily the most in the ECAC, but its incoming class is ranked #7.

It didn't come off overly critical; it just seemed like you thought returning scoring was a subjective metric so wanted to make sure you knew it wasn't.

All good points and questions here! I'll do my best to address them all.

Offensive ranking isn't based on mostly returning scoring. Offensive projections are done by essentially taking the best 12 forwards and 7 best dmen projected by the model and adding up their offensive projections. If that means it's the entire recruiting class, that's what is used. If the recruits are bad (SLU), it's all returners used.

I agree Harvard will be talented but talent doesn't always equal wins. Quinnipiac had one draft pick last year and won the natty. For all of Harvard's draft picks, they have been finishing behind Quinnipiac and sometimes Cornell and Clarkson as well. I also don't think all draft picks are created equal. Huge difference between someone like Sean Farrell and Zakary Karpa. For what it's worth, I did consider including draft picks as part of it, and I felt like it made the projections worse. There are too many nepotism picks and picks that are clearly just bad like Misha Song that dilutes the value they could add. The really talented players will show it with their play, which the model will factor in.

As for the recruiting questions, I tried to address this a bit in the article, but I wouldn't think of that like a true recruiting class ranking. It's not rating the total talent of the recruiting class. It is strictly based on offensive projections, and it is not total offense but average offensive projection for the incoming skaters. So for Cornell, they get hurt in the rankings due to bringing more defensemen since defensemen get projected for less offense than forwards.

Overall differences from Neutral Zone: only offense not overall talent, averaged to account for size of class (Neutral Zone doesn't go by average), includes transfer portal additions unlike Neutral Zone

I also want to make it clear that the recruiting ranking doesn't directly go into the total projections; it's just cosmetic to add some context to the projections. The overall offensive projections work as I said above by creating a team's best lineup based on the projections, so Cornell's strong recruiting class with mostly defensemen gets factored in properly overall.

[sezenack]

TBRW Predictions:

Code Select Expand


 1  Quinnipiac
 2  [color=#b31313]Cornell[/color]
 3  Harvard
 4  Clarkson
 5  Colgate
 6  St. Lawrence
 7  Yale
 8  Union
 9  RPI
10  Princeton
11  Brown
    Dartmouth


I'll declare Keith Allain the second coming of Christ if Yale finishes 7th in the league