Instead of doing a Power Rankings post, each week I am going to go over all the rankings.  (Note: All the rankings includes the USCHO Poll, SB Nation Poll, PairWise Rankings, my Power Rankings, and my ballot for the SB Nation Poll.)

Some thoughts on each of the ranking mechanisms:

  • USCHO Poll – Garbage.  Voters are lazy and (I suspect) don’t actually watch the games.
  • SB Nation Poll – We generally get it as right as biased humans can.
  • PairWise Rankings – Limited, but functional.
  • My Power Rankings – My rankings are built on ranking teams across 10 categories and then summing those categorical rankings.  Those categories are Winning Percentage, Goal Differential, Shooting Percentage, Save Percentage, Power Play, Penalty Kill (both *.333 as teams spend on average 1/3 of a game on special teams), Percentage of Shots Taken in Games, Percentage of Shots taken Relative to Opponent Quality, and the last two against teams that take more than 50% of shots in a game.  This is also limited, but is more well-rounded than the PairWise, which is based solely on wins and losses.  If Team A gets outshot 100-1 by Team B, but wins 1-0, I am more apt to reward Team B and think of them as a better team than Team A.  My rankings attempt to account for this with the limited data available.
  • My Ballot – The best, obviously.

The USCHO.com Poll, SB Nation Poll, and My Ballot:

It’s interesting that this week had some of the least movement in any of the polls, but big movers in both the PairWise and my rankings.  Some of that is due to the quality teams continually shifting, thus causing any metric to shift.  On my rankings, Syracuse is no longer a quality team due to being outshot by Clarkson and Mercyhurst twice, and Bemidji State and New Hampshire now are thanks to outshooting RIT and Yale respectively.  (Yes, I update this every week, and yes, it sucks.  Good teams should be good and bad teams should be bad and never change over the course of the season.)

It’s pretty clear that the polls think they have the teams mostly pegged, and they probably do.  To me, anyone beyond the top three is a question mark now, so I’m probably going to continue to tinker week to week.

The PairWise Rankings:

The big movers were Mercyhurst, up six spots to #19 and Syracuse, down five to #26.  Amusingly, Syracuse didn’t move at all in my rankings, sticking at #24.  I had thought the Orange were better than that, but I guess the numbers were right all along as Mercyhurst swept them this past weekend.

Power Rankings:

At some point I usually double the impact of winning percentage as I feel that over the course of the season, the wins and losses are more and more a true indication of a team, and the additional statistics less and less.  It makes sense, and is also extremely arbitrary so I don’t know if I will continue to do so.  That said, who is out of place in the Power Rankings?

Overrated

Robert Morris???

I mean, I kind of have no idea at this point.  I thought Colgate was going to house them and instead the Raiders were lucky to escape with a draw.  I still think fourth and definitely think above Boston College is a little high.

Where I’d have them: #7

Minnesota

If UND hadn’t folded and UMD didn’t drop off so far, Minnesota wouldn’t even have a home playoff series in the WCHA.  This is a team that would probably be right around .500 if anyone else in the WCHA besides Wisconsin and Ohio State were good.

Where I’d have them: #10

Harvard

Harvard lost to Holy Cross.

Where I’d have them: #20

Underrated

Cornell

The Big Red have played one of the most difficult schedules and actually done alright with it, minus a 6-0 drubbing at the hands of Clarkson.  I expect to see them rise a few spots above Providence and Minnesota by season’s end.

Where I’d have them: #6

St. Lawrence

The Saints are low largely because they’ve played a difficult schedule.  They are better than their 9-6-3 record and +2 goal differential and will likely bear that out in the second half of the season when they see Harvard and Dartmouth twice.

Where I’d have them: #5

Boston University

I don’t think the Terriers are great, but with Victoria Bach, they’re in just about every game.  Also, #17 feels just a touch too low.

Where I’d have them: #14