Tag Archives: Minnesota Duluth

What to watch for in PWR this weekend

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This article looks at the most interesting outcomes of games this weekend, with a focus on what PWR might look like next Monday. If you want a more general analysis of the remaining regular season and NCAA tournament likelihood, check out the article, NCAA tournament outlook as conferences enter final regular season weekend, and the table, Wins needed to likely end regular season at PWR rank.

Biggest upside potential

#20 Wisconsin, visiting the red hot #4 Gophers in Minneapolis, has an opportunity to surge. The Badgers could climb to the 9-11 range with a sweep (as high as 7 is realistic), but will likely just stay put if swept. Of course, in the long run staying put is not good enough for the Badgers who needs 3-4 wins in their final 6 games to climb to the bubble (see NCAA tournament outlook).

#18 Boston College has a similar opportunity facing #8 Mass.-Lowell for a home-and-home series. Sweeping would provide a broad range of possible outcomes, from #8-#15 quite possible. Getting swept would likely result in a modest decline to the 19-20 range.

Biggest downside potential

As past readers of these articles know, just as teams around #20 usually have the most upside potential, teams around #10 usually have the most potential to fall.

#10 Cornell faces the most downside potential, with ranks 15-21 possible if swept by Rensselaer and Union. Given that these are the last two games of the regular season for Cornell, that would put the Big Red firmly on the bubble.

#9 Providence faces a similar outlook, with ranks 15-20 possible with a pair of losses to Massachusetts.

All of #8 Mass.-Lowell, #11 Penn State, #12 St Cloud St, #13 Ohio St, and #14 North Dakota face similar chances of a slightly more modest plunge with a pair of losses. Only Mass.-Lowell’s regular season ends this weekend, so others would have some opportunity to recover.

Top seeds?

#1 Denver and #2 Minnesota-Duluth each look unlikely to leave the weekend outside of the 1-3 range, regardless of outcome, and one of the two is almost certain to come out #1. Denver doesn’t quite control its own destiny, as Minnesota-Duluth stands about a 10% chance of sneaking into #1 even if both sweep. Other teams fighting for spots in the top 4 this weekend are #3 Harvard, #4 Minnesota, #5 Western Michigan, and #6 Boston University.

Methodology

Forecasts include the results of games played through Tuesday of this week.

Each forecast is based on at least one million monte carlo simulations of the games in the described period. For each simulation, the PairWise Ranking (PWR) is calculated and the results tallied. The probabilities presented in the forecasts are the share of simulations in which a particular outcome occurred.

The outcome of each game in each simulation is determined by random draw, with the probability of victory for each team set by their relative KRACH ratings. So, if the simulation set included a contest between team A with KRACH 300 and team B with KRACH 100, team A will win the game in very close to 75% of the simulations. I don’t simulate ties or home ice advantage.

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This weekend’s big PWR movers

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Sorry for the lateness and any errors, had to crank this one out in a hurry…

More upside than you might expect

Not this week. Usually a team or two in the mid-20s have the opportunities for jumps approaching 10 spots. Plenty of teams in that range have the chance to jump about 5 spots, maybe even 6 if all goes well, but anything approaching a 10 spot jump from a team of any consequence is very unlikely.

More downside than you might expect

The high teens is a tough place to be this time of year.

#14 Penn State, idle last weekend but on the list of potential big drops two weeks ago, is in familiar territory — win 2 to stay in place, or be prepared to fall. A 10 spot drop to #24 is possible.

pennstate

#15 Minnesota-Duluth, which jumped 10 spots (as predicted) with an impressive pair of wins last weekend, doesn’t have much upside potential but stands to give back its ground if it doesn’t keep up its winning streak. An 11 spot drop to #26 is possible.

minnduluth

#16 Minnesota, which was also on last week’s potential big drop list, finds itself there again. Two wins won’t do much for the Gophers, but losses could result in up to a 9 spot drop to #25.

minnesota

#17 Michigan Tech, #18 Miami, and #20 Cornell also face potentially significant drops of up to 7-8 positions if they lose 2. They each, however, face more normal upside potential with success.

mtech

miami

cornell

This weekend’s big PWR movers

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Looking up!

As mentioned in yesterday’s PWR outlook article, all the teams from #20 St. Lawrence to #26 Clarkson have the potential to climb into the teens this weekend. But, #25 Minnesota-Duluth and #26 Clarkson, in particular, have the potential to make huge jumps.

The #25 Bulldogs could find themselves as high as #14, a jump of 11 spots, with a sweep of #2 St. Cloud St. Most likely with a sweep is a still unusual climb of 8-9 positions to #16-17.

duluth

#26 Clarkson could find itself as high as 16 with wins over Dartmouth and Harvard, though #19-21 are more likely. The likely outcomes for Clarkson with two wins cover a surprising #16-#23 span. Clarkson’s outcome with two wins would rest a lot on other games, with the Golden Knights cheering for sweeps from Alaska Anchorage over Minnesota St, St. Cloud St over Minnesota-Duluth, Maine over Northeastern, Alaska over Michigan Tech, and Canisius over Robert Morris.

clarkson

Going down?

Every team in the #14-22 range, except idle #15 Penn State, could fall more than five positions with a pair of losses. #14 Cornell, #17 Miami, #18 Michigan Tech, and #16 Minnesota are facing particularly steep falls.

Cornell could see itself fall as low as #24 with losses to Rensselaer and Union, though the spread of likely outcomes stretches a huge span of 17-24.

cornell

Miami faces a steep drop to as low as #29 if swept by Colorado College, with a still significant drop to 26-27 most likely.

miami

Michigan Tech could find itself as low as #28 if they drop a pair to Alaska, though #24-26 are more likely.

mtech

If Minnesota gets swept by Michigan, it will face a broad range of potential outcomes that stretches as low as #25. #19-23 are all reasonably likely in that scenario.

minnesota

This weekend’s big PWR movers

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As the weekend game results come in during the final few weeks of conference play, college hockey fans start watching the PairWise Rankings tables for big moves that might push teams into, or out of, position for an at-large bid. Here are the teams most likely to be cited on forums and in tweets this weekend for “surprisingly” large moves.

Don’t look down

#14 Penn State is unlikely to benefit much from a pair of wins over #40 Ohio State, but would likely plummet to about #20 (as low as #24 is realistically possible) if swept.

pennstate

Surprise! #15 St. Lawrence could climb just a little with a pair of wins over #10 Yale and #53 Brown, but is facing steep decline to the #22-24 range with a pair of losses (or a more modest decline with a single loss).

stlawrence

#17 Rensselaer won’t move much if they defeat #1 Quinnipiac and #55 Princeton, but face a steep decline of about 9 ranking positions if they drop both.

stlawrence

Going up?

#23 Minnesota Duluth, which I already noted is facing significant upside potential with a visit to #3 North Dakota, could surge to the #14-16 range if they hand the Fighting Hawks a second consecutive conference sweep. Even a single win would likely result in a noticeable climb.

duluth

#25 Robert Morris could excite fans with a likely move into the teens with a pair of wins over #30 Air Force. But remember, they’d need a repeat performance against Canisius next weekend to avoid giving that ground right back.

robertmorris

With two weeks until conference tournaments begin, teams on the bubble need to get hot

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Picking up where I left off yesterday, in A few top teams are starting to look like locks for the NCAA tournament, those teams currently ranked #10 and below in the PWR need to do some work to ensure being positioned for an NCAA tournament bid.

If #10 Yale and below lose more than they win, they risk going into conference tournaments in the teens and having to glue themselves to this blog. #11 Boston University and #12 Harvard have very similar outlooks to Yale, each with 4 scheduled regular season games remaining, and each wanting two wins to maintain their current position.

yale

#13 Mass.-Lowell can also maintain its current position, or slip slightly, with a pair of wins. But, that would leave them squarely on the bubble going into conference tournament play.

masslowell

Because the Big Ten regular season extends later into March, #14 Penn State has 6 games remaining. But, the Nittany Lions need 4 wins to make maintaining their #14 ranking the most likely outcome.

pennstate

#15 St. Lawrence has kept me in business this year, with a wild ride from #10 in my inaugural January article, down to as low as #27 at the end of January. I noted back in January that they would need to win about 9 of their last 10 to go into the conference tournament on the bubble. After a 5-0-1 run, the Saints are still positioned for a #13-14 ranking with no more losses, or a #15-16 ranking with one loss.

stlawrenceride

stlawrence

The #16 Minnesota Gophers have 6 games remaining, and most likely need 5 wins just to maintain that ranking going into the conference tournament.

That should be no surprise, as all the way back on January 6, I published a chart on Minnesota that suggested Minnesota needed to win about 12 of its remaining 16 to end up ranked #15-16. Including two additional tournament games, Minnesota has gone 8-4 over that period, leaving them little room for additional losses.

minnesota

#17 Rensselaer, #18 Cornell, #19 Michigan Tech, #20 Miami, #21 Dartmouth, and #22 Clarkson all need to win out to be most likely to end the regular season in the #13-14 range.

rpi

clarkson

#23 Minnesota-Duluth has a bit more wiggle room, with a finish in the #14-16 range likely with even just 4 wins in its remaining 6 games. The Bulldogs have the notable RPI improvement possibility, and challenge, of playing #2 St. Cloud and #3 North Dakota on the road.

In late January, I suggested that the Bulldogs would need to win 8/9 out of their final 11 to end up in the 14-16 range. In the interim, they’ve delivered a 3-2 performance, so it’s a modest upside surprise that they might be able to afford two more losses.

minnesotaduluth

Who’s in position for the NCAAs with four weeks left in the regular season?

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With most conferences having just four weeks of games remaining before their tournaments begin (the Big Ten has five), the field is tightening up a bit compared to my first look at the cutlines.

Still, no one is mathematically a lock — leaving the regular season in the 10-14 range, as is possible for even the top teams, is not safe because each can accumulate two additional losses and no wins in the conference tournament (only in the Big Ten conference tournament is the worst case scenario exiting immediately with a single loss and no wins).

#1 Quinnipiac
#2 St Cloud St
#3 North Dakota
#4 Boston College
#5 Providence
#6 Michigan
#7 Notre Dame
#8 Boston University
#9 Nebraska-Omaha
#10 Yale
#11 Harvard
#12 Denver

Through #12 Denver should be safe for an at-large bid unless they slump and sink below .500 in their remaining games. Teams near the top have more margin for mistakes than near the bottom.

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denver

From #13 Mass.-Lowell through #26 Minnesota-Duluth can position themselves for an at-large bid, with those near the bottom requiring near perfect records.

#13 Mass.-Lowell
#14 Cornell
#15 Penn St
#16 Dartmouth
#17 Clarkson
#18 Michigan Tech
#19 Robert Morris
#20 Rensselaer
#21 Minnesota St
#22 Minnesota
#23 Bowling Green
#24 Miami
#25 St. Lawrence
#26 Minnesota-Duluth

masslowell

umd

#27 Northeastern and below would need near perfection and some luck to sneak into position for an at-large bid. Even then, success in the conference tournament would be required to not fall out of position. These teams should plan to do well in their conference tournaments.

#27 Northeastern
#28 Ferris St
#29 Union
#30 Northern Michigan
#31 Air Force
#32 Holy Cross
#33 Bemidji St
#34 New Hampshire
#35 Vermont
#36 Western Michigan
#37 Ohio St
#38 Wisconsin
#39 Mercyhurst
#40 RIT
#41 Merrimack
#42 Bentley
#43 Connecticut
#44 Colgate
#45 Massachusetts
#46 Alaska Anchorage
#47 Michigan St
#48 Maine
#49 Colorado College
#50 Army
#51 Lake Superior
#52 Princeton
#53 Brown
#54 Sacred Heart
#55 Canisius
#56 Alaska
#57 Alabama-Huntsville
#58 Niagara
#59 Arizona St
#60 American International

northeastern

These lines are approximate because it’s entirely possible for a currently lower ranked team to have a better chance of a higher finish than a higher ranked team. Individual teams’ records, remaining games, and opponents can result in different potentials. For example, most of the teams in the 30s have literally no chance of rising onto the bubble, see #35 Vermont, but then you occasionally stumble across a chart like #36 Western Michigan.

vermont

westernmichigan

Methodology

Forecasts include the results of games played through Tuesday of this week.

Each forecast is based on at least one million monte carlo simulations of the games in the described period. For each simulation, the PairWise Ranking (PWR) is calculated and the results tallied. The probabilities presented in the forecasts are the share of simulations in which a particular outcome occurred.

The outcome of each game in each simulation is determined by random draw, with the probability of victory for each team set by their relative KRACH ratings. So, if the simulation set included a contest between team A with KRACH 300 and team B with KRACH 100, team A will win the game in very close to 75% of the simulations. I don’t simulate ties or home ice advantage.

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Weekend PWR outlook (Jan 29-31)

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If you missed yesterday’s article, you might want to start with Playoff cutline movers to get some perspective on big movers over the last few weeks and where teams are likely to end the regular season. This article will look at what movements are likely this weekend.

Teams in the top 20 tend to face significantly more downside potential each week than upside. It is pretty intuitive if you think about winning percentages—for a .500 team to climb to the top, it needs to net win a lot more games than the top teams do (which is especially difficult, given that the top teams’ past success is likely correlated with continued wins). However, a few losses can result in a precipitous drop. Teams in the 45-55 range often face similarly disproportionate upside potential, but we don’t notice that as much because it’s less interesting.

#19 Minnesota-Duluth exemplifies the imbalance—with a sweep the Bulldogs are most likely to climb to #18 (though could do a bit better, particularly with SCSU and Denver wins), but if swept is most likely to fall to about #24.

This is a good time for a warning about edge cases. Unexpected things can and do happen. When I talk about “likely” outcomes, those generally only cover 60-70% of the possibilities. So, you could infer that something other than what I call “likely” will occur every 3rd or 4th prediction. That’s why I usually also show you the entire possibilities curve in a graph. Using UMD’s outcomes for this weekend as an example, ranks 15-27 come up in over 1% of scenarios, while ranks 14-30 are mathematically possible (albeit extremely unlikely).

duluth

Having lost 5 of its last 6, #9 Nebraska-Omaha is at risk of falling to the bubble with two more losses.

uno

#10 Yale also faces significant downside facing Rensselaer and Union. A pair of losses could result in a drop to the 15-16 range.

yale

#12 Mass.-Lowell shows the risks of hosting a bottom-ranked team. A pair of wins over Arizona St could result in no movement at all, though a pair of losses would probably drop the River Hawks to 18-19.

masslowell

#26 St Lawrence has plummeted after losing 6 of its last 7. The hole is so deep now that it would take the rest of the regular season to climb back out, with a pair of wins this week most likely only resulting in a climb of about 2 rank positions.

stlawrence

Methodology

Forecasts include the results of games played through Sunday of this week, unless otherwise noted.

Each forecast is based on at least one million monte carlo simulations of the games in the described period. For each simulation, the PairWise Ranking (PWR) is calculated and the results tallied. The probabilities presented in the forecasts are the share of simulations in which a particular outcome occurred.

The outcome of each game in each simulation is determined by random draw, with the probability of victory for each team set by their relative KRACH ratings. So, if the simulation set included a contest between team A with KRACH 300 and team B with KRACH 100, team A will win the game in very close to 75% of the simulations. I don’t simulate ties or home ice advantage.

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Tournament cutlines and weekend PWR outlook

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Welcome new visitors. You might want to start with my introductory post, Hello world, to see what this blog is about. It may not be for everyone.

Review of last week’s cutlines

I don’t report on the cutlines (the rankings above which teams are locks for the tournament and below which teams are unable to make the tournament at-large) weekly, because their movements are usually pretty intuitive. If I reported that a team needs to win 5 out 8 and it subsequently wins 2 games, it then needs to win 3 out of 6; the PWR curves usually look about same, just the curve labels change from “5 more wins” to “3 more wins” and so forth. To illustrate that, let’s quickly review a few of the teams that had charts in last week’s article (you may want to open its charts side-by-side for comparison if you can).

By winning 2 games, #4 Minnesota-Duluth made the old “win 0” curve drop off and now just needs 1 or 2 more wins to stay on or above the bubble.

minnesotaduluth_endofseason

#5 Bowling Green also won 2 games, so now just needs about 4 wins to go into conference tournaments on the bubble.

bowlinggreen_endofseason

Further down the chart, #14 Minnesota shifted all of its curves with a pair of wins — the Gophers now need about 6 or 7 wins out of 10 (consistent with last week’s 8 or 9 out of 12) to climb onto the bubble before conference tournaments.

minnesota_endofseason

#30 Bemidji State, which I said last week could only afford about 2 losses, has racked up 2 losses. They would pretty much need to win out for a shot at an at-large bid.

bemidjistate_endofseason

Interesting potential movements this weekend

First, is this the week #1 Minnesota State falls out of first? It only seems possible if they get swept (which KRACH gives about a 2.6% chance of happening), and even then someone nipping at their heels (North Dakota seems the only possibility) has to do well. You can’t see the “Win 1” curve because it’s in exactly the same place as “Win 2″—100% at 1.

mankato

The matchup of the weekend is definitely #12 Michigan vs #14 Minnesota. Neither has much upside potential, but if either sweeps the other will plummet up to 10 spots.

michigan minnesota

#15 Mass.-Lowell needs a sweep to hang on, but pair of losses could send them into the twenties.

masslowell

Remember when #16 Harvard was ranked 1st and I said that a “not particularly likely” bad 2nd half could still push them out? Two more losses this weekend could push them into the twenties.

harvard

#22 St Cloud State, mentioned last week as the lowest ranked team with a good chance of climbing into contention, can make up some ground this weekend. An unlikely sweep of #5 Minnesota-Duluth could catapult them up onto the bubble, while even a split could result in a climb of a position or two.

stcloudst

#26 Western Michigan is also poised for huge jump with an also unlikely sweep over #4 Nebraska-Omaha.

westernmichigan

Methodology

Forecasts include the results of games played through Sunday of this week, unless otherwise noted.

Each forecast is based on at least one million monte carlo simulations of the games in the described period. For each simulation, the PairWise Ranking (PWR) is calculated and the results tallied. The probabilities presented in the forecasts are the share of simulations in which a particular outcome occurred.

The outcome of each game in each simulation is determined by random draw, with the probability of victory for each team set by their relative KRACH ratings. So, if the simulation set included a contest between team A with KRACH 300 and team B with KRACH 100, team A will win the game in very close to 75% of the simulations. I don’t simulate ties or home ice advantage.

Resources