As the annual speculation on who's in and who's out heats up, a few
observations:
 
(1)  Some people seem to be counting Denver as done - I disagree.  It
would seem that if SLU fails to take care of business against Harvard
they'll look an awful lot like Denver.  Couple that with Bowling Green
bowing to Western Michigan and the bubble would be even more interesting.
 
(2)  Cornell/Colgate would seem to have potential to move into the
picture if either sweeps and then wins a semifinal match at Lake Placid,
most likely vs. one of the top 3 ECAC seeds.  That would be three wins
over teams with strong records - a big boost to RPI, record against
teams under consideration, and record in last 20.  Bowling Green would
seem to have a similar potential if it gets past Western Michigan as
opposed to say SLU which wouldn't gain nearly so much RPI, TUC credit
for getting past Harvard.
 
(3)  The teams under consideration angle is particularly interesting if
playoff results change the pool of teams.  For example, either Wisconsin
or Michigan Tech could join the TUC with a strong WCHA tourney run, and
BC could easily be dropped from that group.
 
(4)  Tim Brule's list of individual comparisons (link to it through his
PWR page at http:/www.math.umn.edu/~urton/chockey/articles/pwr.html) is
very interesting reading - particularly when one sees how easily a
criterion such as record against common opponets or TUC could swing based on
the outcomes of what might appear to be fairly unrelated games.   Great
job, Tim!
 
Robin Lock
St. Lawrence University
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