I haven't thought this out terribly carefully - but aren't we losing sight
of the fact that if we beat BC twice - we're beating the #3 team in the
nation - instead of beating a team just that's fallen to 13 in the pairwise?
It seems like that taking out BC twice before we get to the playoffs
certainly will help us in the pairwise too - perhaps even more than it
helped us to sweep Lowell.

Is there a higher reward for beating a team under consideration during the
playoffs than during the regular season?


>From: Adam Parker <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Maine Hockey Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Hockey East standings
>Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 11:22:23 -0500
>
>Mosey brings up a great point, but it maakes me wonder:  There appear to be
>2 scenarios here.
>
>1)  We sweep BC, and possibly end up in 1st place in HE, which would have
>us
>playing the 8th place team in the 1st round.  Weaker team that UML,
>obviously.
>
>2)  We stay in 4th and play (hopefully) UML in the 1st round, thus
>increasing our chances for an at-large birth if we don't win the HE
>tourney.
>
>Scenario 2 would require that we either tie or lose at least one game to
>BC.
>Even though it would benefit us (by allowing us to play UML).  So, would
>the
>tradeoff help us in the long run?  I would think a win over BC would be
>better than a Win (or possibly 2) over UML.  I don't know enough about the
>rankings to know how this would play out.
>
>--Adam
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: The Maine Hockey Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>On
>Behalf Of D. B. Doucette
>Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 8:40 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Hockey East standings
>
>Anthony, you make a WHOLE lot of sense.
>
>Not exactly sure, but a first in the HE regular season could get us another
>4 digits on a Regular Season Champions banner at Alfond, but not an
>at-large
>berth to the NC$$ Tournament.  A third might deny us the digits, but push
>us
>more toward a 14th or 13th place in PWR, and get Maine into the Round of
>16.
>  I'll take the latter, and I would guess all in the Maine hockey program
>would take that also.
>
>I should know this, but do the PWR calculations continue extra weeks to
>count games played in the conference tournaments, also ?
>
>Kudos to the WZON radio Sunday announcer who (after they droned on about HS
>hoops in Maine) did note Maine's weekend sweep AND offered information
>about
>their place in PWR after the weekend (solid 15th).  Shows he pays
>attention,
>especially noting that some auto-bids are lower ranked teams and that 15th
>effectively is a bubble spot.
>
>BTW, the foghorn work on Maine's Saturday night goals was very well done.
>The two that did it that night should get a return engagement next season
>for face value of tickets !!
>
>
>Anthony DelMonaco wrote:
>
> >Not that I wouldn't mind seeing Maine in 1st place but I'd rather have
> >them
>play out to a position that will hopefully help them lock up an at large
>bid. Any of this make sense? And also how about the bonus given?
> >
> >Mosey