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ECAC- Last week of regular season

Y

yalehockeyfan

New member
Should be some great hockey.

And who would have thought earlier today that the standings would look as they do. With 8 minutes left in 3rd period Yale trailed Clarkson 4-1. With 7 minutes left in the 3rd Dartmouth trailed Cornell 4-2. Yale and Dartmouth both stage furious comebacks to pull out wins, putting Yale 2 points ahead of Cornell and Union in the standings and owning the tiebreaker with both teams.

Yale plays @ Princeton Friday and @ Quinnipiac Saturday. Yale better hope to come away from Friday's game with 2 points as the atmosphere at Quinnipiac should be crazy. For those of you who can't make it that game will be on NESN.

Also on Friday Union will be @ Cornell. The loser of this game loses any hope of winning The Clearly Cup. In addition, looking at the PWR, it appears that the winner of this game will get a nice boost in the PWR while the loser will drop significantly. In fact, it looks like the loser of that game will need to win the ECAC Tournament in order to make the NCAAs.

It's been a great season to date!
 
Re: ECAC- Last week of regular season

Forecast for each team:

-Yale: Clinched a bye. 2 points clinches the Cleary Cup and the #1 seed in the playoffs.
-Cornell and Union: Clinched byes. Play each other Friday. Loser finishes 3rd.
-RPI and Colgate: Tied for 4th. Play each other Friday. Both teams control their own destiny for 4th place, but both teams lose tiebreaker to SLU. RPI can finish no lower than 6th, Colgate no lower than 7th.
-St. Lawrence: Can still get the bye if they sweep and neither RPI nor Colgate sweeps. Can finish between 4th and 8th.
-Quinnipiac: Cannot get a bye. Owns tiebreaker over Colgate but RPI owns tiebreaker over the Bobcats. Will finish between 5th and 10th. 2 points gives them home ice.
-Harvard: Can finish between 6th and 11th. 3 points gives them home ice.
-Brown and Princeton: Can finish between 7th and 11th. Play each other Saturday. Winner of Saturday's game finishes ahead of loser.
-Dartmouth: Can finish between 8th and 11th. Needs to sweep and get help to finish 8th.
-Clarkson: Locked into finishing 12th. Will play @RPI, Colgate, or Quinnipiac in the 1st round.
 
Re: ECAC- Last week of regular season

Here's a look at what needs to happen for a team to finish with its best possible playoff position.

Also I'm pretty sure RPI can fall as low as 7th. A 0 point weekend plus a Quinnipiac sweep puts both of those teams at 22 points. RPI and QPAC split the season series, so the next tie breaker is wins. If RPI gains 0 points (and thus 0 wins) next weekend, they have 10 wins. If QPAC gains 4 points (and thus 2 wins) next weekend, they have 11 wins. So QPAC would have the tiebreaker over RPI. That would move QPAC to 5th and RPI to 6th. If St. Lawrence gains two points and moves past QPAC, that drops them to 6th and RPI to 7th. Correct? My brain is fried, I'm not a math guy so I may be wrong (and will correct the above link if I am) but this makes sense to me.
 
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Re: ECAC- Last week of regular season

I'm stealing this from the Hockey East thread. Todd did a lot of work to set this up and all I did was cannibalize it.

Yale 30 - 34 [1-3]
Cornell 28 - 32 [1-3]
UC 28 - 32 [1-3]
--- Bye Lock - 26
Colgate 22 - 26 [4-7]
RPI 22 - 26 [4-6]
SLU 21 - 25 [4-8]
--- Bye Eligible - 23
--- Home Lock - 21
QU 18 - 22 [5-10]
Harvard 17 - 21 [6-11]
Brown 16 - 20 [7-11]
PU 16 - 20 [7-11]
DC 14 - 18 [8-11]
--- Home Eligible - 17
CCT 8 - 12 [12-12]

Remaining League Schedules:
Yale - @PU, @QU
Cornell - UC, RPI
UC - @Cornell, @Colgate
Colgate - RPI, UC
RPI - @Colgate, @Cornell
SLU - DC, Harvard
QU - Brown, Yale
Harvard - @CCT, @SLU
Brown - @QU, @PU
PU - Yale, Brown
DC - @SLU, @CCT
CCT - Harvard, DC



Yale has reduced their magic number to 2 due to this weekend's results. Any single point guarantees them 2nd place. The only way for Yale to finish third place is for Cornell and UC to tie and then win their Saturday games while Princeton and Quinnipiac pull off the upsets. In that case, Cornell gets the Cleary Cup and the #1 seed in the tournament by virtue of the second tiebreaker (wins).

Union can only win the Cleary Cup by ending the season alone in points (weekend sweep with Princeton maxing out at 1 point OR 3 points while Princeton gets swept and Cornell gets no more than 2 points).

Cornell must pass Yale to take the 1 seed, but only needs to tie Union (passing Yale means that they cannot lose to Union, guaranteeing the tiebreaker win).

Colgate can sneak into a bye with only 1 point, assuming they take it from RPI (they win the head-to-head tiebreaker) and SLU gets swept. A Friday win pushes their magic number for a bye to 2 and keeps them in control of their destiny. The Raiders can fall all the way to 7th because Quinnipiac holds the tiebreaker by sweeping the season series.

RPI would need at least two points to get a bye. A win against Colgate on Friday guarantees that RPI finishes no lower than 5th based on tiebreakers (the head-to-head and wins tiebreakers with Colgate would be tied, but with the win over Colgate, the points against the top 4 would be a guaranteed RPI win). RPI cannot finish 7th because they swept the series against the Bobcats.

Saint Lawrence benefits by holding tiebreakers over Colgate and Rensselaer. Therefore, any two points with a Colgate-RPI tie, and losses to both of those teams Saturday night, keeps St. Lawrence from playing hockey during the first weekend of March. A SLU sweep means that they cannot finish lower than fifth. On the other hand, SLU can drop all the way to 8th by getting swept by Harvard and Dartmouth, Harvard also beating Clarkson, and Quinnipiac getting at least 3 points. Quinnipiac swept SLU and Harvard's weekend sweep would tie the head-to-head and give them the second tiebreaker (9 wins - 8 wins). A three-way tie between SLU, Quinnipiac, and Harvard would land Quinnipiac in 6th, Harvard in 7th, and St. Lawrence in 8th.

Quinnipiac wins every tiebreaker except those against Union and RPI (they were swept in both series) while those against Yale (moot) and Brown are still in flux, depending on the results of the upcoming weekend. Since the Bears already beat the Bobcats in December and Quinnpiac is leading in the standings by two points, if the Brown tiebreaker does come into play, then Quinnipiac loses it. Holding the tiebreaker over Dartmouth guarantees that the Bobcats cannot fall into 11th place. Beating Brown on Friday guarantees the Bobcats home-ice while a tie does not (but it would reduce the magic number to 1).

Harvard cannot catch the Engineers or the Raiders, but would win the tiebreaker against the Saints if it does come into play. Harvard cannot lose the tiebreaker against Brown (thanks to the season split, an inability to win less games than the Bears and be tied, and their sweep of Union, which means that they would win the points vs top-4 comparison), but did lose the head-to-head battle with the Tigers. Harvard can clinch home-ice on Friday, but only with help. Harvard's season sweep of Dartmouth means that the Big Green would have to sweep this weekend in the North Country for the Crimson to fall to 11th.

Brown holds the edge against Princeton, heading into their final weekend, by winning the tilt in Providence in December. However, if the Tigers win on Saturday in New Jersey, then Princeton would split the series and the Tigers would win the second tiebreaker (8 wins - 7 wins). Multi-way ties involving the Bears require information about how Brown gets into those ties, and who the ties are with. Since they play both Princeton and Quinnipiac this coming weekend, the number of head-to-head points can be highly variable. The good news is that Brown controls its own destiny for home-ice (a sweep distances themselves from Princeton and means that they would win an individual Quinnipiac-Brown or three-way Quinnipiac-Harvard-Brown tiebreak).

Princeton swept the series against Dartmouth, meaning that their magic number to not finish 11th is only two points. Princeton would lose an individual tiebreaker to Quinnipiac or Brown (if Princeton does not win), but would win individual tiebreakers against Harvard, Brown (if Princeton does win), and Dartmouth. Princeton wins most multi-team tiebreaks that do not involve the Brown Bears, but lose most that do. Princeton does not control their own destiny for home-ice. However, a sure-fire way for the Tigers to win home-ice is with a sweep, if Harvard does not sweep.

Dartmouth requires an enormous amount of help to take home-ice. Brown-Dartmouth and Quinnipiac-Brown-Dartmouth tiebreaks would work favorably, but most other multi-team tiebreaks do not. It is highly likely that Dartmouth will be on the road in March, especially since they will be headed to the North Country this coming weekend.

Clarkson is locked into 12th place and no game results can change that. They will be headed to Hamilton, Troy, Canton, or Hamden for the first weekend in March.
 
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Re: ECAC- Last week of regular season

Thank you burgie for the great and thorough analysis! Very much appreciated.

Brown seems to have beaten all the teams it needed to, without knowing it. We hold the tie-breaker with all the teams around us (assuming Dartmouth won't catch up to us, but nothing is a given in this league), and if we can get 3 points, we'll be golden. We also need to root for the North Country teams and for Yale, vehemently.
 
Re: ECAC- Last week of regular season

burgie12 said:
Quinnipiac wins every tiebreaker except those against Union and RPI (they were swept in both series) while those against Yale (moot) and Brown are still in flux, depending on the results of the upcoming weekend. Since the Bears already beat the Bobcats in December and Quinnpiac is leading in the standings by two points, if the Brown tiebreaker does come into play, then Quinnipiac loses it. Holding the tiebreaker over Dartmouth guarantees that the Bobcats cannot fall into 11th place. Beating Brown on Friday guarantees the Bobcats home-ice while a tie does not (but it would reduce the magic number to 1).
Click to expand...

Probably not much point in mentioning this now, but there is a way in which Quinnipiac could finish #11. If the Bobcats lose to both Brown and Yale, Dartmouth beats St. Lawrence and Clarkson, Princeton beats Brown, and Harvard gets at least one point, then there will be a three-way tie among Brown, Dartmouth, and Quinnipiac, all with 18 points. Quinnipiac would lose the three-way head-to-head tiebreaker (1-3 vs. 2-1-1 for both Brown and Dartmouth) and would be seeded 11th.

This could get even worse, as Harvard and/or Princeton could also finish with 18 points under this scenario, creating a four- or five-way tie. The Bobcats would still finish 11th.
 
Re: ECAC- Last week of regular season

Right you are. I focused too much on individual tiebreakers, and forgot to take multi-way tiebreaks into account until I was over halfway through the post. Great catch.

I should have an update tomorrow night after the Friday games get settled out and the playoff picture becomes significantly clearer.
 
Re: ECAC- Last week of regular season

I've seen this misunderstood in places:
The ECAC tiebreakers only involve playoff seedings, not crowning a champion.
Co- Champions or even Tri- Champions are possible for 2009-2010. It happened with Colgate and Dartmouth a few years ago.
 
Re: ECAC- Last week of regular season

UPDATE:

-Yale will finish 1st.
-Cornell will finish 2nd.
-Union will finish 3rd.
-Colgate will finish 4th.

-RPI will finish 5th or 6th. 5th with a win.
-SLU will finish 5th, 6th, or 7th. Can only get 5th with a win and a Cornell win or tie, or a tie and a Cornell win. But if they finish 5th, they play -Clarkson...
-Quinnipiac will finish 6th or 7th. They can leapfrog SLU due to owning the tiebreaker.
-Harvard, Brown, Princeton, and Dartmouth are amazing still "in it" for the 8th and final home-ice spot. But all 4 teams can finish as low as 11th.

Harvard controls its own destiny with a win. Princeton has the next "inside track" as they get 8th with a win and a Harvard loss or tie, due to owning tiebreakers with Harvard and Dartmouth. Brown needs a win along with Harvard and Dartmouth losses to finish 8th. Dartmouth needs to win while both Princeton and Harvard lose for their hopes at home ice. It'll be a wild race to the finish.

-Clarkson will finish 12th and will play at RPI or SLU next weekend.
 
Re: ECAC- Last week of regular season

Since the teams that will get the byes has been determined, Bye Eligible and Bye Lock have been merged to Bye. The "+" for Bye and Home Eligible that just having those many points (24 and 17, respectively) is not enough, the team must also have the necessary tiebreak wins. A lot of concentration was given to the race for 8th, with few comments on the races in the top half because those are fairly self-explanatory.

Yale 32 - 34 [1]
Cornell 30 - 32 [2]
UC 28 - 30 [3]
Colgate 24 - 26 [4]
--- Bye - 24+
RPI 22 - 24 [5-6]
SLU 21 - 23 [5-7]
QU 20 - 22 [6-7]
--- Home Lock - 19
Harvard 17 - 19 [8-11]
Brown 16 - 18 [8-11]
DC 16 - 18 [8-11]
PU 16 - 18 [8-11]
--- Home Eligible - 17+
CCT 10 - 12 [12]

Remaining League Schedules:
Yale - @QU
Cornell - RPI
UC - @Colgate
Colgate - UC
RPI - @Cornell
SLU - Harvard
QU - Yale
Harvard - @SLU
Brown - @PU
PU - Brown
DC - @CCT
CCT - DC

Preliminary comments:

St. Lawrence has played themselves out of contention for the bye by getting only 3 points in their last seven games.

Quinnipiac greatly helped out their cause by winning Friday night against Brown. This clinched home-ice, and also put themselves within striking distance of the teams in front of them. However, with Colgate's win, Quinnipiac can no longer win 5th place.

Last week, I said that Dartmouth needed a lot of help to get home-ice. Well, they got some of it. The Crimson, Tigers, and Bears (oh my! :eek:) all lost, making the race for the last host of the playoffs very, very tight. Dartmouth still needs a lot more to take 8th. See below.

5 positions have been clinched, the four byes and last place. Yale, with their win last night, is guaranteed to take the one seed. Cornell can get a share of the Cleary Cup, but is locked into the two seed. Union and Colgate round out the byes with the 3 and 4 seeds, respectively. Clarkson owns 12th place and will be headed to either Troy or Canton next weekend.

Potential Tiebreakers (Individual):

Yale-Cornell: Yale wins due to the season sweep

Cornell-UC: Cornell wins by taking 3 points from the season series

Colgate-RPI: Colgate wins by sweeping the season series

SLU-RPI: SLU wins by taking 3 points from the season series

QU-SLU: Quinnipiac swept the season series and wins the tiebreaker

Harvard-Brown: Harvard wins the tiebreaker on the third criteria (points vs top-4). The Crimson and Bears split the season series with each team winning on the road. In order to get this tiebreaker to be just two teams, Brown would have to beat Princeton this afternoon and Harvard would have to tie, giving both teams 7 wins. Harvard swept the Dutchmen, which is enough all by itself to hand them the points vs. top-4 comparison and the tiebreak win.

Harvard-Dartmouth: Harvard wins the tiebreaker by sweeping the season series

Princeton-Harvard: Princeton wins the tiebreaker and takes home-ice because they won the series 3 points to 1.

Princeton-Dartmouth: Princeton wins the tiebreaker by sweeping the season series

Brown-Princeton: Brown wins the tiebreaker. The Bears won in Providence in December and these two teams are currently tied in the standings. So, the tiebreaker only comes into play if they tie this afternoon in New Jersey. Therefore, Brown wins the tiebreaker by winning the season series.

Dartmouth-Brown: Dartmouth wins the tiebreaker by taking three points during the season series

Potential Tiebreakers (Multi-Way):

According to the ECAC website, the winner (or winners if there is a tie) of a multi-way tiebreak is separated from the other teams, and the tiebreaking procedure is restarted with the remaining teams (the first tiebreaker is not used to place all of the teams).

RPI-QU-SLU: The three-way tiebreaker is decided in the first criterion, points head-to-head. The Engineers win the tiebreaker because they took 5 points from these two opponents. Quinnipiac wins the QU-SLU tiebreaker to take 6th place.

Brown-Princeton-Harvard: None of these teams swept any other, but Brown fared the best, winning 5 points from these two opponents. Princeton wins the PU-Harvard tiebreaker, taking 9th / 10th place (depending on the Dartmouth result). Note: Again, this requires that Princeton and Brown tie this afternoon.

Harvard-Dartmouth-Brown: Harvard wins the tiebreaker (8th) by taking 6 points from these two opponents (benefiting most from their sweep of Dartmouth). Dartmouth wins the individual tiebreak against Brown.

Princeton-Harvard-Dartmouth: Princeton wins the tiebreaker (8th) by taking 7 points from the Crimson and the Big Green. The Harvard-Dartmouth tiebreaker goes to the Crimson.

Princeton-Dartmouth-Brown: Princeton wins the tiebreaker (9th) by taking 5 points from Brown and Dartmouth. The DC-Brown tiebreaker goes to the Big Green. Again, this requires a Brown-Princeton tie this afternoon.

Princeton-Harvard-Dartmouth-Brown: Princeton wins the tiebreaker by taking 8 points from their 3 fellow Ivies. Harvard wins the 3-way tie between themselves, the Big Green, and the Bears. Then, the New Hampshire Ivy school beats the Rhode Island Ivy school head-to-head (can you tell I'm running out of names to call each team by?) Note: this only occurs with 1) a Brown-Princeton tie, 2) a Dartmouth-SLU tie, 3) Clarkson beating Harvard.

Breaking it all down:

Yale has clinched the #1 seed heading into the playoffs, but Cornell can still take a share of the Cleary Cup by winning tonight and Quinnipiac beating the Elis.

Harvard, due to their one point lead over the Princeton-Brown-Dartmouth cluster*, is the only team that controls their destiny for home-ice in the first round. A win for the Crimson tonight in Potsdam guarantees them two more games in Boston. However, Clarkson will be a tough out. They are 3-3 in their last six games with all three wins coming at Cheel Arena and their three losses coming by a combined three goals.

Princeton has the next inside track because the only tiebreakers they don't control are the Brown-Princeton-Harvard and Brown-Princeton ones. So, a tie in New Jersey is not enough for the Tigers to get home-ice unless the Knights win and the Big Green tie. A win this afternoon means that Harvard has to win tonight to keep the Tigers from taking 8th place. If the Tigers and the Crimson end up tied in points and the Bears are not tied with them (or even if they are if it's a 4-way tie), then the Tigers take the tiebreaker.

Brown and Dartmouth both need some help to get the tiebreakers running their way. If both teams win their games and can finish alone in 8th with their 18 points (Harvard loses), then the Big Green win the tiebreaker and take home-ice. If the Crimson also end up with 18 points, then they take home-ice. So, let's break this down on how each team can get home-ice.

Harvard gets home-ice IF 1) They win; 2) Harvard ties AND Princeton does not win

Princeton gets home-ice IF 1) They win AND Harvard ties / loses (the Dartmouth result does not influence Princeton winning 8th place); 2) Princeton ties AND Harvard loses AND Dartmouth ties

Brown gets home-ice IF 1) They win AND Harvard loses AND Dartmouth ties / loses; 2) Brown ties Princeton AND Harvard loses AND Dartmouth loses

Dartmouth gets home-ice IF AND ONLY IF they win AND Harvard loses AND Brown wins / ties
 
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Re: ECAC- Last week of regular season

Princeton won their home finale this afternoon forcing the Crimson to win if they want home-ice this postseason. Brown and Dartmouth are force into road trips next weekend.
 
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