Based on the recent questions on whether BU were or were-not Hockey East
Regular Season Co-Champs, I decided to revisit an old thought of mine...
 
At the end of the regular season, I'd made a perfunctory glance at the
standings with shootouts as compared to without. The standings were no
different in all but the case of BU and Maine. However, with Maine being
declared HE regular season champs based on head-to-head performance with
BU, even that was not an issue.
 
But with the recent news, I went back and....
 
 
 
From Mike Machnik's earlier post:
 
FINAL REGULAR SEASON STANDINGS
3/5/95                 Hockey East
                       GP  W-L-T  SOW Pts
                       ==================
 1  Maine              24 15-3-6   1  88
    Boston University  24 16-5-3   2  88
 3  New Hampshire      24 14-6-4   0  78
 4  Northeastern       24 11-8-5   5  70
 5  Mass Lowell        24 11-12-1  1  58
 6  Providence         24  7-11-6  3  50
 7  Merrimack          24  7-12-5  3  48
 8  Boston College     24  8-14-2  1  45
 9  Mass Amherst       24  3-21-0  0  15
Maine finishes first due to head-to-head tiebreaker (1-0-2).
League ties includes all games ending in a tie after overtime.
SOW = shootout wins, a subset of ties.  Teams receive 5 pts for a win,
2 pts for a tie, and 1 additional pt for a shootout win.
______________________________________________________________________
 
 
 
The new standings when we take out the shootouts:
 
                       Hockey East
                       GP  W-L-T  SOW Pts    w/o SOW  New
                       ==================    =======  ===
 1  Maine              24 15-3-6   1  88        36     1
    Boston University  24 16-5-3   2  88        35     2
 3  New Hampshire      24 14-6-4   0  78        32     3
 4  Northeastern       24 11-8-5   5  70        27     4
 5  Mass Lowell        24 11-12-1  1  58        23     5
 6  Providence         24  7-11-6  3  50        20     6
 7  Merrimack          24  7-12-5  3  48        19     7
 8  Boston College     24  8-14-2  1  45        18     8
 9  Mass Amherst       24  3-21-0  0  15         6     9
 
2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie and no points for a loss.
 
______________________________________________________________________
 
Maine finishes first outright and become sole regular season champs.
BU loses the first place tie and are no longer regular season co-champs.
Everyone else remain exactly the same.
 
 
So, it appears on the surface that shootouts have not done much as far
as league standings go (other than providing some excitement at the end
of a game for some fans (!) :) ). However, there are some implications
here. The obvious one is that BU and Maine no longer tie for the first
place. But, there is a bigger question here: what happens if BU and Maine
both fail to win the HE championship and say Providence wins it all. So,
Providence goes to the NCAA tourney. Meanwhile, Maine and BU have strong
claims to make it to the tourney based on their overall performance AND
being HE regular season champs. Of course, NH is still big in the picture
based on their overall performance. I realize that similar confusing
situations may arise even w/o shootouts. However, it seems that shootouts
have only helped make the situation murkier. And, with the general
problems with respect to shootouts ( the not-so-good-feeling of "losing"
a game in SO after playing well to tie, resting a team's win or loss on
one or two players, etc.), I say "Out with the Shootouts".
 
 
All this said, hopefully without the obvious bias of wanting to see Maine
as the sole HE regular season champs :-) :-).
 
 
Cheers
Venky
 
GO Maine!!! 1992-93 Div I NCAA Hockey Champs
            1994-95 HE Regular Season Co-Champs(!) ;-)
 
 
Off to the Joe Louis for the CCHA Championship game...