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

• Colgate upset Clarkson in the QF.
• Cornell upset Union in the QF.

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:

• 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 seniors are assumed non-returning. This year, no players who might qualify by these categories are known to be non-returning (this is highly unusual).

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.