Never Apologize, Never Explain

First we take base values directly computed from last year's team performance:

Factored into these base values is a function of the following modifiers (the calculation is shown below):

RS

RS = Prior regular season's points, or percentage multiplied by 44 if a team has not played 22 games.

PS

The number of upset (lower seed) advances (+1) or eliminations (-1) in the previous season's ECAC playoffs, multipled by 2.  The consolation game is ignored.

• Colgate upset RPI in First Round
• St. Lawrence upset Princeton in First Round
• Harvard upset Clarkson in First Round
• Colgate upset Union in Quarterfinal
• Cornell upset Dartmouth in Semifinal

Imp

One-half (rounded down) of the difference in points gained in the second half (games 12-22) minus the first half (games 1-11) of the prior ECAC regular season.

Ret

This metric is based on returning % of last year's players.  The top 9 forwards are ordered with 9 points for the leading scorer, 8 for the second, etc.  The same is done for the four leading defensemen (4, 3, 2,  ans 1 point respectively).  The percentages are then taken of these rank-ordered points.

• F%: returning % of points of top 9 scoring forwards
• D%: returning % of points of top 4 scoring defensemen
• G%: returning % of minutes of all goalies

We sum these three stats and then multiply by 7 to scale the percentages to a metric comparable to the other season points metrics. (We chose 7 by the following arbitrary logic. The difference between the theoretical max and min of the sum of the three stats is 3.00. Multiplying by 7 gives a theoretical maximum spread of 21 points -- just barely shy of one-half of an ECAC season. That seemed about right. Note that in practice the real spread will be around 1.00, or 7 points -- very close to the max spread of 6 points from the former RetF, RetD and RetG stats.)

• Ret: 7 x (F% + D% + G%)

The team breakdowns are shown here.

All of last year's significant seniors are assumed non-returning, unless otherwise noted.  The only senior from last season known to be returning:

• Joel Malchuk, RPI Sr. F (returns as Graduate Student)

This year the following significant players with eligibility remaining are known to not be returning:

• Michael Garman, Cornell Jr. G
• Allen York, RPI Jr. G
• Keith Kinkaid, Union So G
• Mark Borowiecki, Clarkson, D

Finally, there is one significant transfer from outside the conference.  He will not be eligible this season.  We will count him in the 2012-13 Predictions as if he were a returning player, to partly account for his improvement of their prospects.  I'm only listing him here to remind myself next fall.

• Jordan Samuels-Thomas, Quinnipiac Jr. F (transfer from Bowling Green)

	RetF	RetD	RetG	Ret
Brown	.62	1.00	1.00	18
Clarkson	.51	.30	1.00	13
Colgate	.64	1.00	1.00	19
Cornell	.62	.70	.50	13
Dartmouth	.53	.50	1.00	14
Harvard	.71	1.00	.03	12
Princeton	.58	.40	.81	13
Quinnipiac	1.00	.70	.99	19
RPI	.62	.70	.12	10
St. Lawrence	.58	1.00	1.00	18
Union	.78	.80	.03	11
Yale	.56	.30	.08	7

Putting it All Together

Ned

Ned = RS + PS + Imp + Ret

The predicted finish is the rank-order of Ned. Tie-breakers go in order of the stats: first RS, then PS, then Imp.