Never Apologize, Never Explain 2012-13

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

RS Regular season points in prior season
PS Post-season performance in prior season

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

Imp Second-half improvement in prior season
Ret Returning players from prior season

RS

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

RS
Brown 14
Clarkson 22
Colgate 23
Cornell 30
Dartmouth 19
Harvard 25
Princeton 16
Quinnipiac 23
RPI 17
St. Lawrence 21
Union 32
Yale 22

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.

PS
Brown 0
Clarkson -2
Colgate 0
Cornell -2
Dartmouth +2
Harvard +2
Princeton 0
Quinnipiac 0
RPI +2
St. Lawrence -2
Union 0
Yale 0

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.

Pts G 12-22 G 1-11 Diff Imp
Brown 14 4 10 -6 -3
Clarkson 22 11 11 0 0
Colgate 23 10 13 -3 -1
Cornell 30 12 18 -6 -3
Dartmouth 19 8 11 -3 -1
Harvard 25 15 10 +5 +2
Princeton 16 9 7 +2 +1
Quinnipiac 23 12 11 +1 0
RPI 17 12 5 +7 +3
St. Lawrence 21 12 9 +3 +1
Union 32 17 15 +2 +1
Yale 22 11 11 0 0

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.

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.)

The team breakdowns of  Returning Players are shown here.

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

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

Finally, there is one significant transfer from outside the conference.  He will be eligible this season, after sitting out a year.  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.

  RetF RetD RetG Ret
Brown .64 1.00 .19 13
Clarkson .38 1.00 .01 10
Colgate .38 .90 .71 14
Cornell .78 1.00 1.00 19
Dartmouth .73 .80 .16 12
Harvard .64 .90 1.00 18
Princeton .87 .70 1.00 18
Quinnipiac .80 1.00 .73 18
RPI .87 .70 1.00 18
St. Lawrence .84 .80 .88 18
Union .62 1.00 1.00 18
Yale .67 .50 1.00 15

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.

RS PS Imp Ret Ned Rank
Brown 14 0 -3 13 24 12
Clarkson 22 -2 0 10 30 11
Colgate 23 0 -1 14 36 8
Cornell 30 -2 -3 19 44 3
Dartmouth 19 +2 -1 12 32 10
Harvard 25 +2 +2 18 47 2
Princeton 16 0 +1 18 35 9
Quinnipiac 23 0 0 18 41 4
RPI 17 +2 +3 18 40 5
St. Lawrence 21 -2 +1 18 38 6
Union 32 0 +1 18 51 1
Yale 22 0 0 15 37 7