Two weeks into the Hockey East season I warned that the initial scoring system
threatened to devalue an outright win. (Namely, the "winner" of the overtime
shoot-out would get the same 2 points in the standing that would be earned by a
team that won in 60 minutes. Lo and behold, people were persuaded and now we
have the sensible, if unique, 5-3/2-0 system.
A look at the standings at this point really shows what a difference the
weighting makes. In the first "Pts" column you can see where the teams stand
under the revised system. Under the 2-2-1 column you see the points that would
have been earned under that short-lived system. (I've also added a column
called "purist" that assumes no shoot-outs, just the traditional 2-1-0
scoring.)
Key observations: if the 2-2-1 system were still in place and Maine drops
another game, BU could catch them either with a standard win or a shoot-out
victory. Under the revised system they would need a real win, which really
seems right given the fact that Maine has had just one league loss to BU's
four. (Under the purist system, BU would be a full game and a tie behind,
having earned no points for their shoot-out success.) Likewise, BU would
seemingly have more distance on UNH under 2-1-1 than under either of
the other methods.
More intriguing, look how the 2-1-1 would have mistreated UMass-Lowell: it
would be virtually tied with BC and Merrimack even though it is playing .500
hockey and the other two teams are well below that! Northeastern, in turn,
would be in third place under 2-1-1, ahead of UNH by a whisker instead of the r
reverse under5-3/2-0. (A purist would have the Huskies a full game and a
tie behind the Wildcats.)
No system is perfect, but the fairness of the 5-3/2-0 seems all the more
apparent today than when it was put in place earlier this season. Fans seem
to enjoy the shoot-outs, but it would be a shame to give them
more weight than they deserve. As it is, they likely will have a bearing on
home ice and the pairings for the HE playoffs. At the beginning of the season,
the overtime tie seemed more like the rule than the exception, though since
then things have returned closer to form. Still we're likely to see a few
more shootouts. And the scoring system determines just how important
they will be.
1/29/95 Hockey East Other systems
GP W-L-T SOW Pts In hand 2-2-1 Purist
==================================================
1 Maine 17 10-1-6 1 63 * 27 26
2 Boston University 17 10-4-3 2 58 * 25 23
3 New Hampshire 17 9-5-3 0 51 * 21 21
4 Northeastern 17 7-6-4 4 47 * 22 18
5 Mass Lowell 15 7-7-1 1 38 2 16 15
6 Boston College 17 6-9-2 1 35 * 15 14
7 Merrimack 15 4-7-4 3 31 2 15 12
8 Providence 16 4-9-3 1 27 1 12 11
9 Mass Amherst 15 2-13-0 0 10 2 4 4
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.
Mike Wheeler [log in to unmask]
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