NIHL 2013 Seeding Round Predictions: Squirts

By CAYH Editor

We all love to speculate on how the regular season tiers will shake out this time of year. It has become an annual favorite around here when we indulge in a little bit of prognostication ourselves. My first year of doing this, I spoke to Larry Beller of NIHL. Check here for our previous coverage. Larry said that, every year, about 10% of the teams move up or down. However, we did not see many teams move last season. Now with NIHL's fancy website, we can look at what happened last year (2012-2013) and use that to inform our forecast.

First up, we take a look at the Squirts. In 2012, the Squirt seeding round included 3 Gold brackets of 10 teams or 30 teams total (up from 27 the previous season), 3 Silver brackets of 9-10 teams or 29 teams (up 2), and 3 Bronze brackets of 8-9 teams or 26 teams (down 2). The regular season became 1 Elite bracket of 9 teams, 2 Gold brackets of 10 teams each (up 3 teams), 2 Silver brackets of 15 and 14 teams, and 2 Bronze brackets of 13 and 14 teams. Everything after Elite was tiered to further match like competition. It is important to note that last season was the first time that squirt Gold was split into two tiers. So who went where?

The top 3 teams from each of the 3 Gold seeding round brackets moved on to Elite. Since it has been like this for pretty much forever, it is a good bet to happen again. Although we have 31 gold teams in the seeding round this year for the first time, so it is possible we have a 10 team Elite tier. So how can we figure out which teams might make the cut? Here's how:

1. Points from wins and ties are the first factor that decides a team's placement in the table. 
2. In the event of a tie in points, the goal differential decides position.

The Gold seeding round teams that went on to Elite last season also had more than 10 points and a goal differential of between +8 and +39. Only one team with 10 points did not make it into the Elite tier with a differential of +4.

The remaining teams in the 3 Gold seeding round brackets stayed in the Gold regular season brackets of "A" and "B", with the exception of teams with 3 points or less going down to Silver Tier 1. Only the very top teams at Silver moved up to Gold Tier B, and all 4 teams had 14 or more points and plus/minus of 23 or more. The Chiefs moved up from Silver to win Gold B last season.

The remainder made up Silver Tier 1 regular season bracket, with the exceptions being that the teams with 3-8 points or less moved down to Silver Tier 2 and those with 3 points or less moved down to Bronze Tier 1. This season, we have 35 Silver teams in the seeding round! That will make for some ridiculously big brackets.

Only 2 very exceptional Bronze teams moved up to Silver Tier 2, and both finished at the top of the table in the regular season. Those Bronze teams that just missed the cut to move up became the Bronze Tier 1 regular season bracket together with those Silver seeding round teams that moved down.

So here is the summary:

Gold Seeding Round

10+ points - Elite
8-10 points - Gold A
4-7 points - Gold B
0-3 points - Silver Tier 1

Silver Seeding Round

15-16 points - Gold B
9-15 points - Silver Tier 1
3-8 points - Silver Tier 2
0-3 points - Bronze Tier 1

Bronze Seeding Round

16 points - Silver Tier 2

Knowing the above, and recognizing that there are still 1-6 games to be played that will alter the final outcome, here is the CAYH Hockey Blog's prognostication for the 2013-14 regular season brackets at Squirt:

Elite

All teams #1 unless noted.

Express
Cyclones
Bloomington
Leafs
Jets
Hawks #1

On the bubble:

Vikings
Chargers
Hawks #2
St. Jude
Blackbirds
Falcons #1

Gold A

Any bubble teams not making the cut plus:

Blues
Wilmette
Sabres
Winnetka
Redwings
Bulldogs
Wolf Pack

Gold B

Northbrook
Falcons #2
Bruins
St. Jude #2
Ice Dogs

Moving up from Silver:

Cyclones #2
Yellowjackets
Sabres #2
Maulers
Express #2

Headed to Silver:

Jaguars
Glenview
Vikings #2
Irish
Wildkits
Rockford
Admirals

Silver Tier 1

Gold teams moving down plus:

Jets #2
Bloomington #2
Huskies #1
Stallions #1
Leafs #2
Hawks #3
St. Jude #3
Maulers #2
Glenview #2
Ice Dogs #2

Moving up from Bronze:

Sabres #3

Silver Tier 2

Wolf Pack #2
Blues #2

Winnetka #2

Hawks #4

Komets #1

Northbrook #2

Chargers #2

Leafs #3

Bruins #2

Jaguars #2

Skokie #1

Vikings #3

Peoria #1

Moving up from Bronze:

Sabres #4
Leafs #4

Headed to Bronze:

Rockford #2
Wilmette #3
Cyclones #3
Winnetka #3
Blues #3
Wilmette #2
Bulldogs #2


Given the size of these projected Silver tiers, I wouldn't be surprised if NIHL went to 3 tiers this year. Check back in next month and see how we did. Better yet, tell me what you think in the comments below!



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