12. Vermont: In his first season holding the reins in Burlington, Kevin Sneddon ’92 has struggled. The Catamounts have managed only four league wins to this point, and little figures to change over the last four given their porous defense. The one possible Vermont win—this Friday against Yale—could easily see one team reach double digits.

ANALYSIS

Those predictions largely continue recent trends—Cornell and RPI’s winning streaks chief among them—and take into consideration the difficulty of winning on the road. Given the level of parity in the ECAC, any team is vulnerable to an upset on any given night and all teams will be clawing for postseason positioning.

The field, which is now clustered with five teams within four points of one another, would look like those in the accompanying box if my predictions were accurate.

ECAC playoffs give the top four finishers a bye, and have teams Nos. 5-8 host teams 9-12. The teams are re-seeded after the opening round, with the top finisher—in this case Brown—hosting the lowest remaining team.

That would leave the Crimson with home ice in the first round of the playoffs and a date with the Dutchmen, and would have had Harvard narrowly avoid Princeton, thankfully.

—Staff writer Timothy M. McDonald can be reached at tmcdonal@fas.harvard.edu.