Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2013-14 edition

[steakbomb]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2013-14 edition

If nothing else the new format and a shakeup in the standings compared to recent years gets some well-deserved home playoff dates for schools that haven't had them for some time.

[J.D.]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2013-14 edition

i wouldn't say "well-deserved". more like those teams are simply lucky there's a new format.

[Aerman]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2013-14 edition

i wouldn't say "well-deserved". more like those teams are simply lucky there's a new format.

Bingo

[Felger]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2013-14 edition

yes that's right and Maine..ties, nu loses, unh wins , your looking at 22 points each..

I am correct that in that scenario UNH would win the tb and get the final home ice spot?

[unh1982]

I am correct that in that scenario UNH would win the tb and get the final home ice spot?

yes

[sterlippo1]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2013-14 edition

i wouldn't say "well-deserved". more like those teams are simply lucky there's a new format.

i think he meant long-awaited

[Todd]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2013-14 edition

After Fri 3/8:
UML 1 @ UVM 0 OT
NU 1 @ BU 4
PC 4 @ ME 2
UNH 2 @ MC 4

BC 34 - 36 [1]
UML 25 - 27 [2]
--- Quarter-Final Home Lock (Top 4) - 23 pts ---
NU 22 - 24 [3-5]
--- Quarter-Final Lock (Top 5) - 22 pts w/ tbs ---
PC 22 - 24 [3-6]
ME 21 - 23 [3-6]
UNH 20 - 22 [4-7]
--- Top 4 Eligible - 22 (NU/PC) ---
--- Top 5 Eligible - 22 (NU/PC/ME/UNH) ---
UVM 18 - 20 [6-8]
ND 18 - 20 [7-8]
--- 1R Home Lock – 13 w BU/UMA tb, 14 w/o ---
--- 1R Road ---
BU 11 - 13 [9]
UMA 11 [10]
MC 8 - 10 [11]

Remaining LEAGUE schedules:
BC - ND
UML - @UVM
NU - BU
PC - @ME
ME - PC
UNH - @MC
UVM - UML
ND - @BC
BU - @NU
UMA - Off
MC - UNH (not sure why MC gets to host both)

Heading into the f1nal night:

UML's nail-biting win at the Gut, combined with NU's loss at Agganis and ME's home loss, leaves the River Hawks clear of the field behind them. UML will be 2nd seed behind BC at 1.

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Mc's win gave them a shot of moving up, but BU's win made it moot. The Terriers pulled them even with the idle Minutemen and out of reach of the Warriors. BU's tb w/ UMA locks up the final three as BU/UMA/MC at 9/10/11.

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With PC leapfrogging ME, the winner of tonight's game is assured of having at least 23 points - or PC will have 23 if they tie. The loser will have 22 or 21. If they tie, ME is the "loser" and PC the "winner", as PC is ahead by a point going in. NU has the H2H tb with either (can't tie both).

A NU win keeps them at least even with PC and wraps up 3rd for the Huskies.
A NU tie gives them the tb with PC at 23 after a PC/ME tie, or with ME after a ME win - in either case, they'd have 3rd. A PC win here puts PC 3rd and NU 4th.
A NU loss puts them behind the outcome of the PC/ME game. Here a PC win or tie puts the Friars 3rd. A ME win puts the Black Bears 3rd. NU take the tb for 4th over either of these two (more to come below).

ME and PC can't tie each other, so one of them will be ahead of the other after tonight. The winner of tonight's game will take either 3rd or 4th, depending on how NU fares on Senior Night against BU.

That covers any of the ties at 24 and 23.

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There a variety of matchups with a tie at 22.

A NU loss keeps them there.
A PC loss keeps them there.
A PC/ME tie elevates ME to 22.
A UNH win moves the Wildcats up to 22.
As pointed out previously, ME and PC can't tie each other, so only one of them (or neither) could be here.

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The possible pairs at 22 break these ways:

NU-PC -> NU/PC (H2H)
NU-ME -> NU/ME (H2H)
NU-UNH -> UNH/NU (H2H)
PC-UNH -> UNH/PC (wins: 11/10)
ME-UNH -> UNH/ME (wins: 11/9)

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The three-ways among this group we already covered the other night. I'll re-post here:

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The final set of three-ways here (without UML) go like this:

RRRs	ME	PC	NU	UNH	ME Total	PC Total
ME:			0-1-1	1-1-0	1-2-1
PC:			0-1-1	1-1-0		1-2-1
NU:	1-0-1	1-0-1		0-2-0	1-2-1	1-2-1
UNH:	1-1-0	1-1-0	2-0-0		3-1-0	3-1-0

There's a big swing by swapping out UML.

Instead of NU sweeping UML and UNH getting swept, the roles reverse as UNH sweeps NU directly. In all combos here, the initial split has NU and either ME or PC all at 1-2-1 and UNH at 3-1-0. NU then wins H2H over both ME and PC, so these trios fall UNH/NU/ME or UNH/NU/PC.

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NU and PC are already clear of 21, and UVM and ND can't get there.

The only tie here is a ME loss and a UNH tie. UNH wins that on 2nd tb, 10-9. That tb would put UNH 5th for the final bye and ME 6th to host MC.

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Taking the broader look at these four teams:

UNH trails the group, but has the tbs with everyone in every scenario. Being caught by UNH means being seeded behind them.

PC and ME lose tbs in every scenario here: whether NU, UNH, or UNH/NU.

NU's only vulnerability on tbs is to UNH. The only way that happens is if there is a tie at 22 - meaning a NU loss and UNH win. In this scenario, that means the PC/ME winner is 3rd, so we are breaking ties for 4/5 or 4/5/6. That puts UNH 4th, NU 5th, and PC/ME 6th.

NU gets home ice UNLESS they tie with UNH. So, with any points from tonight's game - or with UNH not beating MC - the Huskies play at home in the Quarters. If these two do tie, that puts NU at the Whitt for the Quarters.

The PC/ME winner gets home ice as 3 or 4. The loser will be behind NU, or UNH and NU. If UNH is not involved, the PC/ME loser either goes to NU or these two face off again at the winner's house in the QFs. If UNH involved (at 22 or at 21 w/ ME), then the PC/ME loser is 6th and hosts MC in the first round (1R). If they beat the Warriorsthey face the same fate in the QFs as they would if UNH weren't in the mix to begin with.

The reason for this is that, since both have byes this year, there is no possibility for 5 to be upset. 4 definitely plays 5 in the QFS (that changes next year). That means that 6 definitely plays 3 if they win in the 1R. UNH can only get as high as 4 by putting NU 5th, so the PC/ME loser - either 5th (behind winner and NU but ahead of UNH), or 6th behind winner/UNH/NU - cannot face UNH in the QFs.

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The only thing possibly keeping UNH from wrapping up at least 6th is the possibility of a tie at 20 with either UVM, ND, or both.

With UVM losing in OT and ND idle, UVM and ND come into tonight still tied at 18 and unable to pass UNH on points alone.

UNH-UVM -> UVM/UNH (sweep)
UNH-ND -> UNH/ND (sweep)

In the three-way tb at 20, we get UNH at 2-2-0 (sweep and swept). UVM and ND split wins, so UVM is 3-1-0 and ND is 1-3-0. UVM gets 6 and UNH takes the tb from ND for 7th. ND 8th and hosting BU.

UNH doesn't have to worry about ND in any scenario, and so can't be 8th (and can't host BU).

We've covered the H2H tb between UVM and ND already.

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At 19 and 18, it's simply UVM/ND H2H (1-1-0), and then 2nd tb gives UVM the nod, 9-8.

Like UNH in the 3-6 range, UVM wins in any tb scenario among these three.

If UVM wins and UNH loses, UVM is 6th and hosts MC, UNH is 7th and hosts UMA, ND is 8th and hosts BU.
Anything short of that and UNH is at least 6th, but might bet a bye (see above).

In any tie scenario with UVM, ND comes out 8th. ND needs to out-point UVM to move up. Whether UNH is involved is moot.

If ND does out-point UVM, that means UVM didn't win (ND can't out-point a UVM win), and so UVM didn't catch UNH. ND 7, hosting UMA. UVM 8, hosting BU.

[Todd]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2013-14 edition

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In sum:

After tonight, BC awaits the lowest seeded team to come out of the first round, but nothing higher than the 8 seed.
After tonight, UML also waits, but for the second lowest survivor, no higher than 7th.
If NU takes care of business tonight against BU, they will be 3rd and face the highest seed to survive the 1R. That would leave the PC/ME winner to face the 5 seed, either the PC/ME loser or UNH.
IF NU leaves the door open, the PC/ME winner could move up to 3 and be in the position noted for NU above. That also means that UNH could move all the way up to Home ice, as noted in the tb-at-22 scenario above.

UNH out of the picture makes NU's life much easier, so NU is rooting for MC.
UNH's only chance for home ice in the QFs is a tie with NU, either ahead of or also tied with the PC/ME loser. UNH is rooting for BU.

PC and ME will be too busy with each other to scoreboard watch, but if they were, the winner is rooting for BU and the loser is rooting for MC.

UNH is also the pivot point for the 6-8 group, so UVM is also rooting for MC.
ND doesn't care about UNH, but only about UVM. The Irish are rooting for UML.

I suppose BU would rather travel to UVM, who they beat once and is closer, than to ND - who shut them out twice last weekend and where they had travel tribulations to boot. BU gets to really root for ND due to their opponent tonight, but BU will also be joining ND in pulling for the Catamounts to falter at home again. The real key for BU is to root for at least one upset in the other games of the next round, so that if they win their own 8v9 game they can avoid playing best-two-of-three at Conte.

UMA got swept by UVM and split with ND, but they probably would rather travel to Burlington than South Bend. That puts their rooting interests in line with UVMs and opposed to ND/BU's. That said, if they thread the needle, UMA could be going to Durham (0-2-0 against). Given that they are on the former western border of the conference, the trip back to Durham isn't as close as for the eastern side of HE. I'm thinking that UMA might rather go to UVM, so they're in full alignment with UVM tonight.

MC has a number of teams they could face in the 6v11 game, but help control their own fate. If they can ding UNH tonight and have Maine get points (if UNH/MC tie) or have UVM not catch UNH (MC win), then UNH will be 6th. Close road game and MC has already proven that they can beat UNH at least once, maybe twice (or 3 of 4 pts). MC wants UML and ME to do well tonight as well as TCb of their own.

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With an odd number of teams, someone always has to have an off night in league play. This weekend, the schedule has UMA at home. If we assume a mirror of this year's schedules next year (as HE often does), then I would assume that UMA and UConn will be facing off in the final pairs.

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For what it's worth at this point, let's bid a fond farewell to this benchmark that is now obsolete:

--- Playoffs ---

...and welcome its replacement in the prior post.

[unh1982]

PC gets the fourth spot with a tie tomorrow night as they have a 2 point lead on UNH now...

tried explaing to various people that unh had a shot to capture 4th but no one believed. Realistically I didn't see both bu and PC winning again, coupled with a unh win . When they had clearly packed it in .odds who knows but it happened.

[Todd]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2013-14 edition

After Sat 3/1:
ND 2 @ BC 1 OT
UML 2 @ UVM 3
BU 4 @ NU 2
PC 3 @ ME 2
UNH 5 @ MC 2

BC 34 [1]
UML 25 [2]
PC 24 [3]
UNH 22 [4]
--- Quarter-Final Home Lock (Top 4) - 22 pts w/ tbs ---
NU 22 [5]
--- Quarter-Final Lock (Top 5) - 22 pts ---
ME 21 [6]
UVM 20 [7]
ND 20 [8]
--- 1R Home Lock – 13 w BU/UMA tb, 14 w/o ---
--- 1R Road ---
BU 13 [9]
UMA 11 [10]
MC 8 [11]

First Round (single game)
ME hosts MC
UVM hosts UMA
ND hosts BU

QFs (best 2 of 3)
UNH hosts NU
PC hosts highest-seeded 1R survivor
UML hosts middle-seeded 1R survivor
BC hosts lowest 1R survivor

Semis at Garden
Top v Bottom survivor seeds from QFs
Middle two QF survivors

Speaking of all these "Survivors", NU watched BU out-Witt, outplay, and outlast them for the weekend, taking away their Home Ice in the process.

Both NU and ME controlled their own fates for Home Ice coming into this weekend and both got swept.

NU just needed a single point from their home-and-home with bottom-three BU to have escaped UNH's split with MC and been guaranteed to be seeded ahead of the PC/ME loser. Instead, they were caught by the only relevant team where they lost the tb, and Home Ice along with it.

Maine just needed a split from their pair at home to keep their one-point lead over PC and stay ahead of the UNH/MC split. Again, no points and a fall all the way to 6th and out of the byes.

The flip-side of Maine's fortunes was PC, the road team that swept them. Their first win gave them the advantage over ME, and their second moved them up into 3rd seed.

UNH trailed MC into middle of the second period, facing the prospect of the same fate that befell NU and ME - until they scored goals so close together that the HE website initially had the second goal being scored three seconds before the first. I've seen quick goals before, but I've never seen a team do it so quickly that they went back in time.

They kept the lead until the final horn and jumped up into a tie with NU for 4th, where they held the tb. That puts the 4v5 QF series at the Whitt instead of at Matthews. Had UNH lost their finale, they would have been the team caught from behind, by UVM, and would have plummeted all the way from a bye and Home Ice down to 7th.

By beating BC in OT earlier in the day, ND gave themselves a shot to move up from 8th, but UVM pulled out a narrow victory to pull even with the Irish again, holding the tb and taking the higher seed.

[BostonSoccerDad]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2013-14 edition

This thread has brought out the inner geek in me. Attempting to project the QFs - I handicapped each of the first round games using the complement of "10". For example, I think that if ND played BU 10 times at ND, then ND would win 8 times and that BU would win 2 of those contests (just my opinion). I did that for the remaining games and then looked at all of the permutations of possible results and tallied up the numbers.

The most likely scenario is that each "favorite" would win, and the QFs would look like this:
ND at BC
VT at UML
ME at PC
NU at UNH

The second likely scenario (using my own handicapping) looks like this:
MC at BC
ND at UML
VT at PC
NU at UNH

The third likely scenario (using my own handicapping) looks like this:
UMA at BC
ND at UML
ME at PC
NU at UNH

Obviously there are many more scenarios - but in my opinion these are the top three.

[jcarter7669]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2013-14 edition

This thread has brought out the inner geek in me. Attempting to project the QFs - I handicapped each of the first round games using the complement of "10". For example, I think that if ND played BU 10 times at ND, then ND would win 8 times and that BU would win 2 of those contests (just my opinion). I did that for the remaining games and then looked at all of the permutations of possible results and tallied up the numbers.

The most likely scenario is that each "favorite" would win, and the QFs would look like this:
ND at BC
VT at UML
ME at PC
NU at UNH

The second likely scenario (using my own handicapping) looks like this:
MC at BC
ND at UML
VT at PC
NU at UNH

The third likely scenario (using my own handicapping) looks like this:
UMA at BC
ND at UML
ME at PC
NU at UNH

Obviously there are many more scenarios - but in my opinion these are the top three.

So your most likely upset in the play in round is Merrimack in 11th place beating Maine (6th place) in Orono.... where the black bears are 7-3-0. I'm not saying it can't happen but I don't think it is the most likely upset...

I actually would be inclined to pick BU over ND as the most likely upset in a 1 game series. ND coming off a high beating BC and knowing they already swept BU forget that the games were both 2-0 games. Meanwhile BU coming off a huge sweep of NU believes they can compete with ND and squeeks a 2-1 win.

[Nick Papagiorgio]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2013-14 edition

So your most likely upset in the play in round is Merrimack in 11th place beating Maine (6th place) in Orono.... where the black bears are 7-3-0. I'm not saying it can't happen but I don't think it is the most likely upset...

I actually would be inclined to pick BU over ND as the most likely upset in a 1 game series. ND coming off a high beating BC and knowing they already swept BU forget that the games were both 2-0 games. Meanwhile BU coming off a huge sweep of NU believes they can compete with ND and squeeks a 2-1 win.

Merrimack beating Maine is my least likely upset.

I know Umass is terrible but they're adding Frank Vatrano to the mix for this game I believe. He could be a game changer and I would put UVM on upset alert this weekend.

BU over ND is possible, I'd probably put that as the middle of the likely upsets. BU is definitely playing better. ND is the most boring team on the planet and could keep a high school team within a goal of them (and Jeff Jackson would thoroughly enjoy it). If BU can get up on them early... all bets are off.

[BostonSoccerDad]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2013-14 edition

Merrimack beating Maine is my least likely upset.

So your most likely upset in the play in round is Merrimack in 11th place beating Maine (6th place) in Orono.... where the black bears are 7-3-0. I'm not saying it can't happen but I don't think it is the most likely upset...

My head tells me you are correct, however my gut (and unfortunately it is getting significant) is telling me that MC has a very good chance to take down Maine. The main (pun intended) reason for this is that Maine is 0-3-1 in their last 4 games. Sure that is against quality opponents, but that is not a good way to go into the playoffs. Next, while MC lost both games to Maine - each game was decided by one goal. The second game was decided with less than 30 seconds remaining. The point is that MC believes they can play with Maine in their house and beat them. If this were a series, I would definitely pick Maine. But it is only one game and I think MC may steal this one.

[claver2010]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2013-14 edition

ND is the most boring team on the planet

The only entertaining aspect of ND games is how many times Lennay Kekua will knock the net off