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Hockey East Playoff Picture

W

WildShawn

Registered User
With the Hockey East season 2/3 complete (give or take a game) the home stretch is upon us. The Playoff picture is nowhere near being settled, but I figured I'd steal this from freak's women's hockey east playoff picture, I know someone usually starts one of these around now, so I figured I'd take a peek... not sure how accurate the numbers are, but they're pretty close...

--- #1 Seed Lock - 41 (Can't be caught by #2) ---
--- home ice Lock - 38 (Can't be caught by #5) ---
Team current points-max points [range of finish]
UNH 27 - 45 [1-9]
BC 22 - 40 [1-10]
Maine 20-40 [1-10]
UMA 22-38 [1-10]
UML 18 - 38 [1-10]
UVM 15 - 35[1-10]
BU 16 - 34 [1-10]
MC 12-34 [1-10]
NU 15 - 33 [1-10]
PC 9-27 [2-10]
--- In - 34 (Can't be caught by bottom 2) ---

UNH - 09 pts lost; 9 games remaining
BC - 14 pts lost; 9 games remaining
Maine - 14 pts lost; 10 games remaining
UMA - 16 pts lost; 8 games remaining
UML - 16 pts lost; 10 games remaining
UVM - 19 pts lost; 10 games remaining
BU - 20 pts lost; 9 games remaining
MC - 20 pts lost; 11 games remaining
NU - 21 pts lost; 9 games remaining
PC - 27 pts lost; 9 games remaining
 
Re: Hockey East Playoff Picture

A better way to look at who's "in" for the Hockey East playoffs is to look at previous seasons and see how many points teams have needed since UVM came on board to be safe.

08-09: 14
07-08: 22
06-07: 19
05-06: 14

It really has fluctuated pretty wildly. Last season Maine had fewer points than they did in 07-08, when they missed the playoffs, but they snuck in with 17 points. It mostly depends on if there's a real solid race at the top. In 07-08, UNH ran away with the regular season crown, meaning there were more points at the bottom.

This year looks similar to 07-08. In fact, with the current cut-off for being "in" at 13 points already, we're looking at a final cut-off closer to the 19-22 range of '07 and '08. In that light, we could say with certainty that UNH, BC, and UMass are all definitely in the playoffs - they could all lose out and still make the field - while Maine and UML are basically locks. That leaves 5 teams fighting for 3 slots.
 
Re: Hockey East Playoff Picture

Bottom five fight will be interesting. PC is pretty much done. Win all your home games and steal just one on the road and you're in.
 
Re: Hockey East Playoff Picture

1 UNH (41)
2 BC (34)
3 UMA (30)
Maine (30)
UML (30)
6 BU (24)
MC (24)
8 UVM (23)
9 NU (19)
10 PC (15)

I did the calculator on Sioux Sports. BU wins tiebreaker over MC. Not sure about 3 way tie for 3rd.
 
Re: Hockey East Playoff Picture

WildShawn said:
--- #1 Seed Lock - 41 (Can't be caught by #2) ---
--- home ice Lock - 38 (Can't be caught by #5) ---
Team current points-max points [range of finish]
UNH 27 - 45 [1-9]
BC 22 - 40 [1-10]
Maine 20-40 [1-10]
UMA 22-38 [1-10]
UML 18 - 38 [1-10]
UVM 15 - 35[1-10]
BU 16 - 34 [1-10]
MC 12-34 [1-10]
NU 15 - 33 [1-10]
PC 9-27 [2-10]
--- In - 34 (Can't be caught by bottom 2) ---
Click to expand...

Remember these numbers aren't exacty the lines. I think this normally starts in about 3 weeks when almost everybody has the same number of games left. Even then the interconnectivity isn't examined until the last two weeks it is just too much of a pain to track.

For example Looking at just the top 5:
UNH plays - Maine X2, BC X2
BC plays - UNH X2, UMA X2 and UML X2
Maine plays - UNH X2, UML X2 and UMA X2.
Umass plays - BC X2 and Maine X2
Lowell plays - Maine X2, BC X2

Even if you assume these 5 win all games against the other 5 (huge assumption) then pick the higher winning % team between these teams you get:

UNH - 45
BC - 36
Maine - 36
UMA - 30
UML - 30

So in this senerio with home ice line is actually 30. The combinations are nearly endless at this point. There are a max of 94 points left up for grabs.

Some other interesting numbers:

Road in Opponents winning % HE games and records only -
BU - 43.6%
UML - 46.0%
UVM - 47.0%
MC - 47.9%
PC - 48.1%
UNH - 48.5%
UMA - 49.8%
Maine - 53.6%
BC - 54.7%
NU- 57.2%

This makes sense with the 5 teams better than .500% only matching up in 24 of the 94 remaining games.

Everybody but UMA, UVM and Maine are either 1 more road than home or vice versa. UMA has only 3 home and 5 road games left, including closing the year 3 on the road. UVM has 4 home vs 6 road and Maine has a nice 6 home vs 4 road.

MC looks in good shape to get in, 3 points back of 8th but 2 games in hand. Also there road in is far easier than Northeastern and they play 6 of there last 11 at home where they are hard to beat. Add to that Northeastern is on the road 5 of 9 and I think MC gets in as atleast the 8 seed. If MC keeps up there current MO of win at home with losses on the road they finish at 24 points.
 
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Re: Hockey East Playoff Picture

JB said:
Some other interesting numbers:

Road in Opponents winning % HE games and records only -
BU - 43.6%
UML - 46.0%
UVM - 47.0%
MC - 47.9%
PU - 48.1%
UNH - 48.5%
UMA - 49.8%
Maine - 53.6%
BC - 54.7%
NU- 57.2%
Click to expand...

JB as always some good number crunching!... I'm not sure what these numbers are/mean... there is way too much still up in the air though, and a lot of matchups amongst the top teams will mix things up a lot between now and the playoffs..
 
Re: Hockey East Playoff Picture

Gibber said:
JB as always some good number crunching!... I'm not sure what these numbers are/mean... there is way too much still up in the air though, and a lot of matchups amongst the top teams will mix things up a lot between now and the playoffs..
Click to expand...

The road in numbers are the composite record of remaining opponents. I only used in league records. Take the winning % of all remaining opponents and averaging. This says that BU has the easiest road in with their average opponent only winning 43.6% of the time in league. This makes sense with BU playing 6 of there last 9 against PU, UVM and NU or teams 7,8 and 10 in league.

For several years I have been playing with a better way to predict the end of season records and understand when things are locked in for a certain team. This type of remain schedule information is "free" based on the other stuff I am looking at. One of these days I will actually come-up with something useful. I really only work on it for a couple hours per year and hence nothing gets advanced. One of these days if I get the motivation I will write a computer program to spit out the data instead of doing it by hand with tables.
 
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Re: Hockey East Playoff Picture

If it gets to the point where BU looks incredibly unlikely to get home ice (are we there already?) we should probably just play to get BC in the quarterfinals... the Eagles seem to be the only team we can get up against! Except maybe UMass...
 
Re: Hockey East Playoff Picture

JB said:
The road in numbers are the composite record of remaining opponents. I only used in league records. Take the winning % of all remaining opponents and averaging. This says that BU has the easiest road in with their average opponent only winning 43.6% of the time in league. This makes sense with BU playing 6 of there last 9 against PU, UVM and NU or teams 7,8 and 10 in league.

For several years I have been playing with a better way to predict the end of season records and understand when things are locked in for a certain team. This type of remain schedule information is "free" based on the other stuff I am looking at. One of these days I will actually come-up with something useful. I really only work on it for a couple hours per year and hence nothing gets advanced. One of these days if I get the motivation I will write a computer program to spit out the data instead of doing it by hand with tables.
Click to expand...

Ah ok, that makes sense! I should have assumed, but wasn't sure, thanks for clarifying. Too many numbers hurt my already gigantic noggin ;)
 
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