2015-16

As someone said on another thread, next year can't come fast enough.

These are the current commits.

We lose 4 forwards and 2 defensemen.

Assume all the 95s will enter:

F Luc Lalor
F Chad Otterman
F Beau Starrett
F Mitchell Vanderlaan

D Matt Nuttle

Anthony Angello (a 96) was taken in last year's draft, so presumably he's ready:

F Anthony Angello

The question is, will we see additional players brought in to guard against injuries and/or defections? One would think at least 2 more D will come in, bringing the total to 9. Conveniently, there are 2 96 Ds:

D Trent Shore
D Brendan Smith

Putting them all together would give this incoming class:

F Anthony Angello
F Luc Lalor
F Chad Otterman
F Beau Starrett
F Mitchell Vanderlaan

D Matt Nuttle
D Trent Shore
D Brendan Smith

Added to the returning 12 F and 6 D, that would give a roster of 17 F and 9 D.

Bringing over a discussion that rests more fruitfully over here…

Trotsky

BearLover
No one here would deny we were going to lose by 3+ goals to Yale [in 2010] if we matched up with them.

We actually stayed with them during the RS. We lost at Ingalls in a game that was tied with 6 minutes to go, then lost in overtime at Lynah. Granted, in the latter game Iles had 52 saves.

This thread is where I'd like to take up in this discussion. Everyone loves to bemoan how awfully we're stacking up with Union and Yale these days, but when one looks at the stats (say, for the last four years), one might change one's tune, as Trotsky has hinted at:

Union: 5–5-1 (semifinal loss in 2014; first-round loss in 2015)
Yale:  5-3

To me, that looks pretty good, considering the kind of teams Yale and Union have had for the last few years; indeed, with regard to Yale, we seem to have turned it around after the 1-8-1 (championship game losses in 2009 and 2011) of the previous four. To my mind, one of the teams to be concerned about is…

Quinnipiac: 6-8 (quarterfinal win in 2011; quarterfinal loss in 2013)

Whether or not their coach is a "classless asshole," he circulates in a completely different recruiting environment to ours, the Hilbrichs notwithstanding. And, looking into my crystal ball, I can't imagine that we'll have to deal with them much longer. When Notre Dame finally decides to leave Hockey Least, there is little doubt in my mind that QU will make the switch. (Who do we take? I'll guess one of RIT, Niagara, or Mercyhurst.) So, basically, I care but really I don't.

Rather, what gets my goat is how we're playing against the "bottom" of the league:

RPI: 1-4-3
Princeton: 6-3-1 (first-round win in 2013)

There is no way on earth that we should play as badly as we do, particularly away (1-2-1) during the regular season, against Princeton. We should destroy them every time we play them; we should drive the puck through their goalies into the net. Everything I've seen over the last four years versus them has been too cute—too much "flash and dash," not enough focus and dirty goals. With regard to RPI, Seth Appert has not turned out to be the world beater they thought he was going to be; to my mind, he and Teddy top my list of "ECAC Coaches That I'm Generally Happy To See Stick Around." Yet, his teams seem to be able to take it to ours…

Let's take a look at how "taking care of business" vs. Princeton and RPI would have increased our standing for the last few years:

2012: 1st (actual 2nd); RPI 10th, Princeton 11th
2013: 4th (actual 9th); RPI 2nd, Princeton 8th (RPI, granted; 0-2[!] in the regular season vs. Princeton)
2014: 3rd (actual 4th); RPI 7th, Princeton 12th (to be fair, swept Princeton)
2015: 4th (actual 7th); RPI 9th, Princeton 12th (Oi!)

Lately, RPI gets under our skins. (One could argue that has historically been the case. I remember a 2-2 tie at Lynah that nearly led to a riot.) And, lately, we've made every Princeton goalie look like the second coming of Dryden.

With the two goalies we have now, there are simply no excuses. For my money, it's lack of discipline and lack of "buy in" to The System, which includes, on off nights, pouring the puck on net, scoring dirty goals, and removing any "cuteness" from the game.

So, I look forward to the captaincy of (one would assume) Christian Hilbrich, a return to The (Original) System, a healthy Reece Willcox, and a team that's willing to do what's necessary to put away the bottom of the league next year.

I saw the 1997 team win a championship and make it within a game of the final four even though they really had no business being there. (Oh, but 1996… clang! Damn! Bad memory… We could have won the Unfrozen Four.) Although '97 lacked top-end talent, that team absolutely bought into everything Schafer was selling. The last team that did that was 2010.

Not to mention we lost a few to Dartmouth and Clarkson when they were not having good years.

So I agree - we need to win the games we should win, and some of the toss-ups. We haven't been doing that.

The table of our head-to-head by final ECAC standing reinforces the concern of Scersk '97. Between '01 and '10 we were 36-1-3 .938 against the 11 and 12 seeds. Since '11 we are 11-4-5 .675 against them.

Scersk '97
Bringing over a discussion that rests more fruitfully over here…

Trotsky

BearLover
No one here would deny we were going to lose by 3+ goals to Yale [in 2010] if we matched up with them.

We actually stayed with them during the RS. We lost at Ingalls in a game that was tied with 6 minutes to go, then lost in overtime at Lynah. Granted, in the latter game Iles had 52 saves.

This thread is where I'd like to take up in this discussion. Everyone loves to bemoan how awfully we're stacking up with Union and Yale these days, but when one looks at the stats (say, for the last four years), one might change one's tune, as Trotsky has hinted at:

Union: 5–5-1 (semifinal loss in 2014; first-round loss in 2015)
Yale:  5-3

To me, that looks pretty good, considering the kind of teams Yale and Union have had for the last few years; indeed, with regard to Yale, we seem to have turned it around after the 1-8-1 (championship game losses in 2009 and 2011) of the previous four.

My comment about us never beating Yale was more about how we can never beat that type of team: small, fast, skilled. Union has never, as far as I can tell, really played that style; they were more in the middle (with us and Yale at the two extremes). In the past few years, Yale has changed its style and they are now the best defensive team in the country, which is one of the reasons we've done better. Moreover, looking at the last four years doesn't make much sense when I was talking about 2010. You conveniently started during a season when we broke a MASSIVE losing streak to Yale, and 8 games really isn't much of a sample, especially since we were outshot in probably all of them.

Now we have a better chance of beating Yale than we did 8 years ago because they changed styles. The point remains that Yale is still doing much better than us and that we never were able to solve the Yale teams of 2008-2011.

BearLover
The point remains that Yale is still doing much better than us and that we never were able to solve the Yale teams of 2008-2011.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Pretty much all it takes to beat Cornell is to play that style, because the coaching staff has no clue how to neutralize it.

Kyle Rose

BearLover
The point remains that Yale is still doing much better than us and that we never were able to solve the Yale teams of 2008-2011.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Pretty much all it takes to beat Cornell is to play that style, because the coaching staff has no clue how to neutralize it.

So, in the past season, who were the teams that play that style? I have no idea because I didn't see all of the games. Looking at box scores from this season, I don't think any team dominated us in every game we played against them with the exception of Miami. Perhaps that's also a function of some teams just having a bad day when they play us.

During 2008-2011, it just felt like Yale was going to beat us (and by a wide margin) every single time. That's not a worry I had this year. Don't get me wrong, I don't think this team was great, I just don't think they had a systematic flaw that I felt Yale exploited in 2008-2011.

Plus given Trotsky's table, I'd be happy if Brent Brekke. It looked like he lined up well with Cornell's success.

KGR11

Kyle Rose

BearLover
The point remains that Yale is still doing much better than us and that we never were able to solve the Yale teams of 2008-2011.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Pretty much all it takes to beat Cornell is to play that style, because the coaching staff has no clue how to neutralize it.

So, in the past season, who were the teams that play that style? I have no idea because I didn't see all of the games. Looking at box scores from this season, I don't think any team dominated us in every game we played against them with the exception of Miami. Perhaps that's also a function of some teams just having a bad day when they play us.

During 2008-2011, it just felt like Yale was going to beat us (and by a wide margin) every single time. That's not a worry I had this year. Don't get me wrong, I don't think this team was great, I just don't think they had a systematic flaw that I felt Yale exploited in 2008-2011.

Plus given Trotsky's table, I'd be happy if Brent Brekke. It looked like he lined up well with Cornell's success.

I don't remember anyone playing that style. At that time Yale had a terrific, aggressive, deep 2 man forecheck. At times they had 2 men down near the goal line. They were quick and great with their sticks. I don't think I've seen it since, as it takes a large number of quick forwards to play that style. The reason that Yale changed was that they didn't have that type of player. Since no one else seems to be able to get them either, I'm not going to worry about it. Nor am I going to judge us by it.

A lot of the ECAC teams didn't play it consistently, but I agree, whenever our guys saw it, they couldn't deal with it and made mistakes.

I remember one game against Princeton, when they played it for the first period, and we fell behind. They stopped and we came back.

BearLover

Scersk '97

This thread is where I'd like to take up in this discussion. Everyone loves to bemoan how awfully we're stacking up with Union and Yale these days, but when one looks at the stats (say, for the last four years), one might change one's tune, as Trotsky has hinted at:

Union: 5–5-1 (semifinal loss in 2014; first-round loss in 2015)
Yale:  5-3

To me, that looks pretty good, considering the kind of teams Yale and Union have had for the last few years; indeed, with regard to Yale, we seem to have turned it around after the 1-8-1 (championship game losses in 2009 and 2011) of the previous four.

My comment about us never beating Yale was more about how we can never beat that type of team: small, fast, skilled.

Well, fine. I'll allow a move of the goalposts; I may even be sympathetic to what you're saying. But you'll have to go into the past and find a team or group of teams, other than late-00s Yale and other than 1980s Harvard, that plays that style and to whom we've consistently lost. My memory stretches back to the beginning of the McCutcheon era, and I can't think of one. To my mind, Allain's bequest from Taylor (including a goalie) was staggering, and what he added in those first years was lightning in a bottle. I'll also bet he'll never be able to put that together again, since his assistant coaches are not the recruiters Tim Taylor was.

BearLover
Moreover, looking at the last four years doesn't make much sense when I was talking about 2010. You conveniently started during a season when we broke a MASSIVE losing streak to Yale, and 8 games really isn't much of a sample, especially since we were outshot in probably all of them.

Well, we've got to start somewhere. On the other thread, someone was talking about four-year stretches as reasonable lengths of time across which to evaluate trends. Sure, I cherry picked, but not without reason. Would you deny that we've turned it around against Yale since four years ago? And, although our negative game-to-game and season-long shot differentials have begun to concern me, shot totals do not always indicate the flow of a game, as I'm sure you well know. (Myself, I attribute the downturn in differential to a lack of "grind" and poor shot selection [high and wide rather than low and looking to create a rebound] on the part of our forwards.)

BearLover
Now we have a better chance of beating Yale than we did 8 years ago because they changed styles. The point remains that Yale is still doing much better than us and that we never were able to solve the Yale teams of 2008-2011.

There's where you go wrong. I've demonstrated that Yale is not doing "much better" than us anymore. And the past is past, as detractors of Schafer are so fond of reminding us.

KGR11
Plus given Trotsky's table, I'd be happy [with] Brent Brekke. It looked like he lined up well with Cornell's success.

Both Brekke's and Russell's bios indicate that they worked mostly with the defense; Garrow's indicates that he worked mostly with the offense.

The interesting point of inflection happens between the 2007 and 2008 seasons, when Brekke leaves. We go from generally (sometimes enormously) outshooting our opponents to being mildly outshot by them. Given that Brekke was a defensive guy and that Garrow was a constant throughout, it's difficult to say why the problem started then.

To my mind, Brekke and Garrow should be candidates should Schafer step down or be let go sometime in the future.

Scersk '97

BearLover

Scersk '97

This thread is where I'd like to take up in this discussion. Everyone loves to bemoan how awfully we're stacking up with Union and Yale these days, but when one looks at the stats (say, for the last four years), one might change one's tune, as Trotsky has hinted at:

Union: 5–5-1 (semifinal loss in 2014; first-round loss in 2015)
Yale:  5-3

To me, that looks pretty good, considering the kind of teams Yale and Union have had for the last few years; indeed, with regard to Yale, we seem to have turned it around after the 1-8-1 (championship game losses in 2009 and 2011) of the previous four.

My comment about us never beating Yale was more about how we can never beat that type of team: small, fast, skilled.

Well, fine. I'll allow a move of the goalposts; I may even be sympathetic to what you're saying. But you'll have to go into the past and find a team or group of teams, other than late-00s Yale and other than 1980s Harvard, that plays that style and to whom we've consistently lost. My memory stretches back to the beginning of the McCutcheon era, and I can't think of one. To my mind, Allain's bequest from Taylor (including a goalie) was staggering, and what he added in those first years was lightning in a bottle. I'll also bet he'll never be able to put that together again, since his assistant coaches are not the recruiters Tim Taylor was.

BearLover
Moreover, looking at the last four years doesn't make much sense when I was talking about 2010. You conveniently started during a season when we broke a MASSIVE losing streak to Yale, and 8 games really isn't much of a sample, especially since we were outshot in probably all of them.

Well, we've got to start somewhere. On the other thread, someone was talking about four-year stretches as reasonable lengths of time across which to evaluate trends. Sure, I cherry picked, but not without reason. Would you deny that we've turned it around against Yale since four years ago? And, although our negative game-to-game and season-long shot differentials have begun to concern me, shot totals do not always indicate the flow of a game, as I'm sure you well know. (Myself, I attribute the downturn in differential to a lack of "grind" and poor shot selection [high and wide rather than low and looking to create a rebound] on the part of our forwards.)

BearLover
Now we have a better chance of beating Yale than we did 8 years ago because they changed styles. The point remains that Yale is still doing much better than us and that we never were able to solve the Yale teams of 2008-2011.

There's where you go wrong. I've demonstrated that Yale is not doing "much better" than us anymore. And the past is past, as detractors of Schafer are so fond of reminding us.

Yale is doing much better than us. Maybe not head-to-head, but nationally, yes, they are.

It takes great talent to end up with a team that is skilled and fast enough to play like that, and it's true there may not be many in the ECAC who are styled in that way. But that doesn't mean they aren't out there. This problem usually rears its ugly head whenever Cornell makes it to the NCAAs and is matched up with one of these teams, whether they be Minnesota or UNH or whomever is outshooting Cornell 2-to-1 in the tournament. This year we played one of them down in Florida (Miami). I've seen it happen when we play BU at MSG. It just so happens that one of these powerhouse teams appeared in our own conference for a stretch. The super skilled teams are just too fast for us to grind down as we do against weaker opponents.

I've seen flashes of these quick puck movement, fast in transition attacks even from other ECAC teams (e.g., Harvard this season, Q sometimes too), and it has been those plays that Cornell cannot handle. Teams that can do that consistently may not be common, but they are out there, and Cornell has never shown the ability to beat them. Schafer-led teams are good at hanging on by a thread, but at some point, when the other team is having its way with you in your own zone, McKee, or Iles, or whomever the poor netminder is, is going to let in that 61st shot on goal, and then the season is over.

(It is possible, of course, that the reason we get annihilated when we play Yale and Minnesota is that they are just that much more talented than us, rather than their particular style of play. But when we match up against teams that are equally talented but instead bigger and (relatively) slower, like Union and Michigan, we do a lot better.)

Scersk '97

KGR11
Plus given Trotsky's table, I'd be happy [with] Brent Brekke. It looked like he lined up well with Cornell's success.

Both Brekke's and Russell's bios indicate that they worked mostly with the defense; Garrow's indicates that he worked mostly with the offense.

The interesting point of inflection happens between the 2007 and 2008 seasons, when Brekke leaves. We go from generally (sometimes enormously) outshooting our opponents to being mildly outshot by them. Given that Brekke was a defensive guy and that Garrow was a constant throughout, it's difficult to say why the problem started then.

To my mind, Brekke and Garrow should be candidates should Schafer step down or be let go sometime in the future.

I'd like to hear Brekke's whistle return to Lynah, too.

Trotsky,

You're missing Alec McCrea, who'll show up next year on defense:

[wcfcourier.com]

Scersk '97

KGR11
Plus given Trotsky's table, I'd be happy [with] Brent Brekke. It looked like he lined up well with Cornell's success.

Both Brekke's and Russell's bios indicate that they worked mostly with the defense; Garrow's indicates that he worked mostly with the offense.

The interesting point of inflection happens between the 2007 and 2008 seasons, when Brekke leaves. We go from generally (sometimes enormously) outshooting our opponents to being mildly outshot by them. Given that Brekke was a defensive guy and that Garrow was a constant throughout, it's difficult to say why the problem started then.

To my mind, Brekke and Garrow should be candidates should Schafer step down or be let go sometime in the future.

We mentioned it on another thread, but Scott Garrow seems to have left coaching after the shakeup at Princeton.

Alec McCrea was a former Harvard recruit.

BearLover

Scersk '97

BearLover

Scersk '97

This thread is where I'd like to take up in this discussion. Everyone loves to bemoan how awfully we're stacking up with Union and Yale these days, but when one looks at the stats (say, for the last four years), one might change one's tune, as Trotsky has hinted at:

Union: 5–5-1 (semifinal loss in 2014; first-round loss in 2015)
Yale:  5-3

To me, that looks pretty good, considering the kind of teams Yale and Union have had for the last few years; indeed, with regard to Yale, we seem to have turned it around after the 1-8-1 (championship game losses in 2009 and 2011) of the previous four.

My comment about us never beating Yale was more about how we can never beat that type of team: small, fast, skilled.

Well, fine. I'll allow a move of the goalposts; I may even be sympathetic to what you're saying. But you'll have to go into the past and find a team or group of teams, other than late-00s Yale and other than 1980s Harvard, that plays that style and to whom we've consistently lost. My memory stretches back to the beginning of the McCutcheon era, and I can't think of one. To my mind, Allain's bequest from Taylor (including a goalie) was staggering, and what he added in those first years was lightning in a bottle. I'll also bet he'll never be able to put that together again, since his assistant coaches are not the recruiters Tim Taylor was.

BearLover
Moreover, looking at the last four years doesn't make much sense when I was talking about 2010. You conveniently started during a season when we broke a MASSIVE losing streak to Yale, and 8 games really isn't much of a sample, especially since we were outshot in probably all of them.

Well, we've got to start somewhere. On the other thread, someone was talking about four-year stretches as reasonable lengths of time across which to evaluate trends. Sure, I cherry picked, but not without reason. Would you deny that we've turned it around against Yale since four years ago? And, although our negative game-to-game and season-long shot differentials have begun to concern me, shot totals do not always indicate the flow of a game, as I'm sure you well know. (Myself, I attribute the downturn in differential to a lack of "grind" and poor shot selection [high and wide rather than low and looking to create a rebound] on the part of our forwards.)

BearLover
Now we have a better chance of beating Yale than we did 8 years ago because they changed styles. The point remains that Yale is still doing much better than us and that we never were able to solve the Yale teams of 2008-2011.

There's where you go wrong. I've demonstrated that Yale is not doing "much better" than us anymore. And the past is past, as detractors of Schafer are so fond of reminding us.

Yale is doing much better than us. Maybe not head-to-head, but nationally, yes, they are.

It takes great talent to end up with a team that is skilled and fast enough to play like that, and it's true there may not be many in the ECAC who are styled in that way. But that doesn't mean they aren't out there. This problem usually rears its ugly head whenever Cornell makes it to the NCAAs and is matched up with one of these teams, whether they be Minnesota or UNH or whomever is outshooting Cornell 2-to-1 in the tournament. This year we played one of them down in Florida (Miami). I've seen it happen when we play BU at MSG. It just so happens that one of these powerhouse teams appeared in our own conference for a stretch. The super skilled teams are just too fast for us to grind down as we do against weaker opponents.

I've seen flashes of these quick puck movement, fast in transition attacks even from other ECAC teams (e.g., Harvard this season, Q sometimes too), and it has been those plays that Cornell cannot handle. Teams that can do that consistently may not be common, but they are out there, and Cornell has never shown the ability to beat them. Schafer-led teams are good at hanging on by a thread, but at some point, when the other team is having its way with you in your own zone, McKee, or Iles, or whomever the poor netminder is, is going to let in that 61st shot on goal, and then the season is over.

All right- teams you mentioned and how we've done against them in the past season (or previous time we've seen them if they are out of conference).

Minnesota-
We played them last in '05 and it took overtime for them to beat us in the NCAAs second round. They outshoot us 18-39.

UNH-
We beat them 4-2 (with an ENG) in Estero in 2013-2014. They outshoot us 46-24.

BU-
MSG in 2013-2014. They beat us 3-2, but we outshoot them 39-11.

Miami-
In Estero this season, they beat us 3-0. They also outshoot us 26-15.

Harvard-
Tied in Boston, 3-3. They outshot us 29-38.
Win in Lynah, 3-2. We outshoot them 28-23.

Quinnipiac-
Lose in Hamden 0-1. They outshoot us 40-18 (We only get 1 shot in the third period).
Lose in Lynah, 0-1 in OT. They outshoot us 25-20.

Looking at the results, we get out-shot a lot. However, the only game that we were really out of it from a score point of view was Miami, who's the best team we've played (they're in the top 5). As you alluded to, we might've lost by 3 goals to them just because they were a better team.

For all of its dependence on chance, goal differential is pretty important to me. Although Quinnipiac dominated play back in November (especially in the 3rd period), all it would take is 1 lucky break or bounce and it was a tie game. The game was exciting to the end because of that. From the season starting in 2008 to the one ending in 2011, Yale won every game, beating us in the ECAC Championship Game twice by a combined score of 11-0. It felt like we had NO chance. If we didn't beat Union this year in the regular season, I'd probably feel the same way about them.

Obviously, this team wasn't good (obvious because good>mediocre and mediocre=.500). But I don't feel like there was a match-up with a team with the kryptonite-like characteristics that Yale had. Those 3 seasons against Yale will probably always be my standard of a team we don't have a chance against.

KGR11

BearLover

Scersk '97

BearLover

Scersk '97

This thread is where I'd like to take up in this discussion. Everyone loves to bemoan how awfully we're stacking up with Union and Yale these days, but when one looks at the stats (say, for the last four years), one might change one's tune, as Trotsky has hinted at:

Union: 5–5-1 (semifinal loss in 2014; first-round loss in 2015)
Yale:  5-3

To me, that looks pretty good, considering the kind of teams Yale and Union have had for the last few years; indeed, with regard to Yale, we seem to have turned it around after the 1-8-1 (championship game losses in 2009 and 2011) of the previous four.

My comment about us never beating Yale was more about how we can never beat that type of team: small, fast, skilled.

Well, fine. I'll allow a move of the goalposts; I may even be sympathetic to what you're saying. But you'll have to go into the past and find a team or group of teams, other than late-00s Yale and other than 1980s Harvard, that plays that style and to whom we've consistently lost. My memory stretches back to the beginning of the McCutcheon era, and I can't think of one. To my mind, Allain's bequest from Taylor (including a goalie) was staggering, and what he added in those first years was lightning in a bottle. I'll also bet he'll never be able to put that together again, since his assistant coaches are not the recruiters Tim Taylor was.

BearLover
Moreover, looking at the last four years doesn't make much sense when I was talking about 2010. You conveniently started during a season when we broke a MASSIVE losing streak to Yale, and 8 games really isn't much of a sample, especially since we were outshot in probably all of them.

Well, we've got to start somewhere. On the other thread, someone was talking about four-year stretches as reasonable lengths of time across which to evaluate trends. Sure, I cherry picked, but not without reason. Would you deny that we've turned it around against Yale since four years ago? And, although our negative game-to-game and season-long shot differentials have begun to concern me, shot totals do not always indicate the flow of a game, as I'm sure you well know. (Myself, I attribute the downturn in differential to a lack of "grind" and poor shot selection [high and wide rather than low and looking to create a rebound] on the part of our forwards.)

BearLover
Now we have a better chance of beating Yale than we did 8 years ago because they changed styles. The point remains that Yale is still doing much better than us and that we never were able to solve the Yale teams of 2008-2011.

There's where you go wrong. I've demonstrated that Yale is not doing "much better" than us anymore. And the past is past, as detractors of Schafer are so fond of reminding us.

Yale is doing much better than us. Maybe not head-to-head, but nationally, yes, they are.

It takes great talent to end up with a team that is skilled and fast enough to play like that, and it's true there may not be many in the ECAC who are styled in that way. But that doesn't mean they aren't out there. This problem usually rears its ugly head whenever Cornell makes it to the NCAAs and is matched up with one of these teams, whether they be Minnesota or UNH or whomever is outshooting Cornell 2-to-1 in the tournament. This year we played one of them down in Florida (Miami). I've seen it happen when we play BU at MSG. It just so happens that one of these powerhouse teams appeared in our own conference for a stretch. The super skilled teams are just too fast for us to grind down as we do against weaker opponents.

I've seen flashes of these quick puck movement, fast in transition attacks even from other ECAC teams (e.g., Harvard this season, Q sometimes too), and it has been those plays that Cornell cannot handle. Teams that can do that consistently may not be common, but they are out there, and Cornell has never shown the ability to beat them. Schafer-led teams are good at hanging on by a thread, but at some point, when the other team is having its way with you in your own zone, McKee, or Iles, or whomever the poor netminder is, is going to let in that 61st shot on goal, and then the season is over.

All right- teams you mentioned and how we've done against them in the past season (or previous time we've seen them if they are out of conference).

Minnesota-
We played them last in '05 and it took overtime for them to beat us in the NCAAs second round. They outshoot us 18-39.

UNH-
We beat them 4-2 (with an ENG) in Estero in 2013-2014. They outshoot us 46-24.

BU-
MSG in 2013-2014. They beat us 3-2, but we outshoot them 39-11.

Miami-
In Estero this season, they beat us 3-0. They also outshoot us 26-15.

Harvard-
Tied in Boston, 3-3. They outshot us 29-38.
Win in Lynah, 3-2. We outshoot them 28-23.

Quinnipiac-
Lose in Hamden 0-1. They outshoot us 40-18 (We only get 1 shot in the third period).
Lose in Lynah, 0-1 in OT. They outshoot us 25-20.

Looking at the results, we get out-shot a lot. However, the only game that we were really out of it from a score point of view was Miami, who's the best team we've played (they're in the top 5). As you alluded to, we might've lost by 3 goals to them just because they were a better team.

For all of its dependence on chance, goal differential is pretty important to me. Although Quinnipiac dominated play back in November (especially in the 3rd period), all it would take is 1 lucky break or bounce and it was a tie game. The game was exciting to the end because of that. From the season starting in 2008 to the one ending in 2011, Yale won every game, beating us in the ECAC Championship Game twice by a combined score of 11-0. It felt like we had NO chance. If we didn't beat Union this year in the regular season, I'd probably feel the same way about them.

Obviously, this team wasn't good (obvious because good>mediocre and mediocre=.500). But I don't feel like there was a match-up with a team with the kryptonite-like characteristics that Yale had. Those 3 seasons against Yale will probably always be my standard of a team we don't have a chance against.

That 2013 BU team was an aberration--it was their worst season in many, many years. I was talking about other seasons at MSG. That Minnesota game, and the UNH games in the 2010 tournament, and the Wisconsin game--the shots told the story. We simply couldn't keep up with them. We could have stolen some of those games, of course, because practically any hockey team can steal practically any hockey game, but we were on our heels the entire game, and it wasn't much different from a 6-0 Yale thrashing, or a 10-0 Q thrashing.

The signs point to shot differential being the best available (to us) prediction of team success. You can argue about the quality of shots and making the most of your chances, but that is something this Cornell team has been stunningly bad at. So it stands to reason that unless we can start turning these shot differentials around, we are not going to start winning.

BearLover

Scersk '97

BearLover
Now we have a better chance of beating Yale than we did 8 years ago because they changed styles. The point remains that Yale is still doing much better than us and that we never were able to solve the Yale teams of 2008-2011.

There's where you go wrong. I've demonstrated that Yale is not doing "much better" than us anymore. And the past is past, as detractors of Schafer are so fond of reminding us.

Yale is doing much better than us. Maybe not head-to-head, but nationally, yes, they are.

I think this attitude comes from retrospective rearrangement of the facts. While the record was certainly poor, as Trotsky mentioned above, we were very much in many games with Yale during that "dark period." Yes, they obliterated us 5–0 in that final in Albany, and I still can't fully explain that—couldn't while I was watching, and still can't. (Looking back at the box scores today, though, I noted that we were without both Devins for that game, and Mike Devin was certainly a top D-man.) But then they tanked vs. Vermont in the first round of the NCAAs, whereas we beat Northeastern and then… let's not talk about what happened next.

During that dark period, we won one ECAC championship; they won two. We went to the tournament twice; Yale went thrice. We made one quarterfinal; they made two. Since then, we've gone once; they've gone once. (This year is still up in the air. If they lose to Harvard again tonight, they're going to be on the outside looking in.) The only big deal is that they won that national championship. But, look: they blew the ECAC semifinal and consolation that year, and then caught fire. In no way were they world beaters all season. That kind of thing can happen! They should've won in '09 or '11. (Their goaltending was woeful in '10.) Instead, they put four games together and won in '13. No one expected that; honestly, Quinnipiac (our own University of No Hardware) should've won it that year.

I think, if you look back a bit more dispassionately and reduce the national-championship-induced blue-tinted glasses, you'll be able to say, "Yes, Yale was better than us in '08–'11, but we've turned it around, provisionally." Not, "Yale is doing much better than us." Period.

BearLover
This problem usually rears its ugly head whenever Cornell makes it to the NCAAs and is matched up with one of these teams, whether they be Minnesota or UNH or whomever is outshooting Cornell 2-to-1 in the tournament. This year we played one of them down in Florida (Miami). I've seen it happen when we play BU at MSG. It just so happens that one of these powerhouse teams appeared in our own conference for a stretch. The super skilled teams are just too fast for us to grind down as we do against weaker opponents.

I think KGR11 did a pretty good job of responding to this part of what you said. While we're still being outshot, we're not being outshot in many of these games by as much as you imagine. But, like you, I'm concerned about the trend. I think it has something to do with a change in offensive strategy on our part that I'm not wholly pleased with, and perhaps a bit to do with obstruction being called a bit tighter (except when someone's obstructing Hilbrich) than it used to be in the past.

I don't know. It bugs me, and it's my biggest problem with how the players are being coached right now. Particularly on off nights, we need to start throwing the puck on net and generating dirty goals. I don't see that happening.

Yet, no matter how bad this season turned out, I'm pretty excited for the future. I think we've got two very, very good goalies. Both fit the system, and both have the potential to be outstanding. (I know I'm in the minority here, but I feel better about the goaltending than at any time after Scrivens left.) I'm pleased to hear that something was different about the forecheck this year, because that helps to explain all the odd-man rushes and the lack of offensive production. I may, once again, be in the minority, but I'm looking forward to next year's "back to the future."

In the end, it's all about the players. Next year's seniors and, particularly, next year's juniors need to step it up.

On offense, Kubiak needs to learn to "be like bull." Perhaps Stoick will finally settle in somewhere. The offense is going to center around Hilbrich and Buckles next year, so their modestly sniper-ish ways need to continue. Both Angello and Starrett (if he can get over a season-long shoulder injury) sound like Bitz/Bâby/maybe (huge) Moulson (!) types, and Vanderlaan sounds like a Vesce.

On defense, Willcox, McCarron, and Bliss are rocks. Hopefully Anderson develops a bit more, and/or hopefully Wedman learns how to play defense. We've got some trees and some shorter guys coming in. I hope that, somewhere in there, is someone in the McRae/Cook vein. I see two spots open next year, assuming one of Anderson or Wedman pans out. I suppose that's why we have four D coming in. When it comes down to it, I'm never very worried about our defensemen.

The power play was pretty good until it kind of fizzled over the last bit of the season. At least there was movement and something other than the umbrella most of the time. At last, the penalty kill is back to where it should be. We're going to take penalties; a great kill is absolutely essential to Cornell hockey.

I'm cautiously optimistic about next year. I suppose I always am.

My litmus test on Schafer or any HC or any leader is can a better one be brought in? I've been a Schafer supporter but the past two seasons have for me shown he needs to go. So yes I think a better HC is out there.

Disclaimer: I don't know anything about the inner workings of how HC are hired, dismissed, or paid at CU. So my statements might be unrealistic.

At this point I think a better, younger, more in tune with the way the sport is currently and for the foreseeable future is played, needs to be brought in for CU to move forward. In my opinion the game has changed a lot in the past ~5 years. The game is moving back towards the way it was played in the '80's & early '90's. Can The System compete with that? I do not believe it can. I believe Schafer refuses to adapt with those changes in the game to the detriment of the program. He and the program have become stagnant.

CU players are too slow, cannot shoot accurately, or are "floaters". The best shot comes from a player (Hilbrich) that a gnat could knock off his feet. The best and quickest skaters are comparatively very small guys (Knisley). Draft pick players (Tschantz) are not willing to go do the dirty work. Players who are the a good mix are what is needed. They are out there and other Ivies are getting them. Why?

I believe it is because those players do not want to come play for a coach who is going to stifle their offense so that CU can win 2-1 or 1-0. With the mindset of today's youngsters I do not believe too many are interested in that.

I also believe Schafer is a poor evaluator of the way players currently should be given ice time and what combos work. This is either because the talent isn't there or he's become piss poor at it. No decent HC switches the line up as frequently as he does. Nor do they change line combos as much either. Or play their best player (Ryan) as much as he did at the end of the season. Triple shifting him at points? Playing the whole 2 minutes very soon after playing the whole 2 minutes if a PP.

Additionally all of the advanced statics have shown that dump and chase hockey isn't as effective as carrying the puck. Yet for the most Schafer refuses to change in either players he recruits or in the style of play. When he does slightly change the style of play he apparently is going to abandon it since it did not immediately yield excellent results.

There must be a coach out there who is willing to come to CU for the pay, willing to deal with Ivy restrictions, and can do a better job. I'm not sure who that is but other programs seem to he able to get them. Why not CU?

An extension of this is why Lynah is half full. I still think that winning or losing 2-1 or 1-0 is not what today's fan wants to see. They don't come to a game to watch players dump and chase, play at the boards, rarely shoot, have a slow passing PP that anyone with a decent grasp of the game could coach against.

There is a reason pretty much all sports are trying to improve scoring. It's because that is what the fans want to see. I think most young fans and many older ones, would rather see a win or a loss, at say, 6-5 than 2-1. Why? Because then they would get to be excited and cheer 5 or 6 times a game than 1 or 2. It's all about entertainment.

Unfortunately I don't see any of this happening. Nobody at CU athletics or Schafer wants to change. Unless a change in coaching style happens or a new HC is brought in, 10 years from now we are all going to be reminiscing about the glory days of CU hockey and what it was like to see it.

KGR11
Obviously, this team wasn't good (obvious because good>mediocre and mediocre=.500). But I don't feel like there was a match-up with a team with the kryptonite-like characteristics that Yale had. Those 3 seasons against Yale will probably always be my standard of a team we don't have a chance against.

For me that will be the mid-80s RPI team, but the Yale 11-13 squads are next. While I think reports of our deaths have been greatly exaggerated, for much of the Yale run we didn't belong on the same sheet. Even the Harvard team that didn't lose an RS game to us in 10 years was less dominant.

MattS
My litmus test on Schafer or any HC or any leader is can a better one be brought in? I've been a Schafer supporter but the past two seasons have for me shown he needs to go. So yes I think a better HC is out there.

Disclaimer: I don't know anything about the inner workings of how HC are hired, dismissed, or paid at CU. So my statements might be unrealistic.

At this point I think a better, younger, more in tune with the way the sport is currently and for the foreseeable future is played, needs to be brought in for CU to move forward. In my opinion the game has changed a lot in the past ~5 years. The game is moving back towards the way it was played in the '80's & early '90's. Can The System compete with that? I do not believe it can. I believe Schafer refuses to adapt with those changes in the game to the detriment of the program. He and the program have become stagnant.

CU players are too slow, cannot shoot accurately, or are "floaters". The best shot comes from a player (Hilbrich) that a gnat could knock off his feet. The best and quickest skaters are comparatively very small guys (Knisley). Draft pick players (Tschantz) are not willing to go do the dirty work. Players who are the a good mix are what is needed. They are out there and other Ivies are getting them. Why?

I believe it is because those players do not want to come play for a coach who is going to stifle their offense so that CU can win 2-1 or 1-0. With the mindset of today's youngsters I do not believe too many are interested in that.

I also believe Schafer is a poor evaluator of the way players currently should be given ice time and what combos work. This is either because the talent isn't there or he's become piss poor at it. No decent HC switches the line up as frequently as he does. Nor do they change line combos as much either. Or play their best player (Ryan) as much as he did at the end of the season. Triple shifting him at points? Playing the whole 2 minutes very soon after playing the whole 2 minutes if a PP.

Additionally all of the advanced statics have shown that dump and chase hockey isn't as effective as carrying the puck. Yet for the most Schafer refuses to change in either players he recruits or in the style of play. When he does slightly change the style of play he apparently is going to abandon it since it did not immediately yield excellent results.

There must be a coach out there who is willing to come to CU for the pay, willing to deal with Ivy restrictions, and can do a better job. I'm not sure who that is but other programs seem to he able to get them. Why not CU?

An extension of this is why Lynah is half full. I still think that winning or losing 2-1 or 1-0 is not what today's fan wants to see. They don't come to a game to watch players dump and chase, play at the boards, rarely shoot, have a slow passing PP that anyone with a decent grasp of the game could coach against.

There is a reason pretty much all sports are trying to improve scoring. It's because that is what the fans want to see. I think most young fans and many older ones, would rather see a win or a loss, at say, 6-5 than 2-1. Why? Because then they would get to be excited and cheer 5 or 6 times a game than 1 or 2. It's all about entertainment.

Unfortunately I don't see any of this happening. Nobody at CU athletics or Schafer wants to change. Unless a change in coaching style happens or a new HC is brought in, 10 years from now we are all going to be reminiscing about the glory days of CU hockey and what it was like to see it.

Amazing post, +1 for everything you said.

MattS
My litmus test on Schafer or any HC or any leader is can a better one be brought in.

I agree.

There must be a coach out there who is willing to come to CU for the pay, willing to deal with restrictions, and can do a better job. I'm not sure who that is but other programs seem to he able to get them. Why not CU.

You go on to say Schafer should be replaced, but you don't have any idea who it should be. "There must be" isn't an answer.

A couple of years before Schafer came, many of us were hoping that we could get him. He had shown to be a good recruiter and was respected for his knowledge. Indeed he turned out to be what we needed then.

So if he needs replacing now, who is the obvious candidate? Up to now I haven't seen anyone give that name. Maybe he exists, but just saying he must, doesn't make it so.

BearLover

MattS
There must be a coach out there who is willing to come to CU for the pay, willing to deal with Ivy restrictions, and can do a better job. I'm not sure who that is but other programs seem to he able to get them. Why not CU?

Amazing post, +1 for everything you said.

-1. This thread is about next year, not "Should He Stay or Shoul He Go." Take it over to that thread. Schafer's not going anywhere next year.

Scersk '97

BearLover

MattS
There must be a coach out there who is willing to come to CU for the pay, willing to deal with Ivy restrictions, and can do a better job. I'm not sure who that is but other programs seem to he able to get them. Why not CU?

Amazing post, +1 for everything you said.

-1. This thread is about next year, not "Should He Stay or Shoul He Go." Take it over to that thread. Schafer's not going anywhere next year.

-1000 for playing Thread Cop. jfc

Jim Hyla
Up to now I haven't seen anyone give that name. Maybe he exists, but just saying he must, doesn't make it so.

OK- I'll take a shot. How about Tom Coghlin, current head coach at Div III St. Norbert College? League record 233-64-29, overall 462-122-47 over 21 years. Yes, he's older, but I think still about 4 years younger than Mike is now. Been in the NCAA title game seven times in the last 11 years, won it four times. Last season he coached the first team in Division III to lead the country in BOTH scoring offense AND scoring defense in the same season since the NCAA started tracking hockey statistics in 1996. Seems to know what he's doing.

Strong Canadian recruiter, especially western Canada.

Maybe he'd like a shot at Div. I.

Jim Hyla
Up to now I haven't seen anyone give that name. Maybe he exists, but just saying he must, doesn't make it so.

Difficult to answer without knowing the financial commitment Cornell might be willing to offer. I'd assume it'd be limited given we almost always hire unproven assistants. I'd probably look at Albie O'Connell (BU) or Paul Pearl (Harvard) if I'm looking at assistants. Among head coaches, Derek Schooley (RMU), Wayne Wilson (RIT), and Casey Jones (CU) could be reasonable candidates.

If the money was there I'd consider making a run at George Gwozdecky (if he still has the fire) or Nate Leaman (PC).

Nate Leaman is a GREAT suggestion. I watched him bring Union's teams up from nowhere. Never had any player problems, clearly can recruit and find talent. Probably would like to get out of the shadow of BU and BC.

TimV
Nate Leaman is a GREAT suggestion. I watched him bring Union's teams up from nowhere. Never had any player problems, clearly can recruit and find talent. Probably would like to get out of the shadow of BU and BC.

But I don't understand why, after leaving the ECAC for HE, he'd want to come back. He jumped into it knowing he'd be in "the shadow of BU and BC", although I disagree that he's in their shadow. Why come back?

Leaman is under contract with PC through 2022.

Trotsky
Leaman is under contract with PC through 2022.

I hope I'm still in the stands in 2022.

I liked Leaman. He was very much a class act. Of course we had the Fridge, in contrast, on the evening sports.

Trotsky
Leaman is under contract with PC through 2022.

I'm sure he has that within-25-miles-of-my-alma-mater escape clause.

BearLover

I've seen flashes of these quick puck movement, fast in transition attacks even from other ECAC teams (e.g., Harvard this season, Q sometimes too), and it has been those plays that Cornell cannot handle. Teams that can do that consistently may not be common, but they are out there, and Cornell has never shown the ability to beat them.

Guy Gadowski has turned Penn State into exactly the team you described: quick puck movement and constantly peppering the net with shots. Over the course of this season, they have more than double our GF. At MSG we were outshot 38-25, and Cornell showed the ability to beat a team like that. The problem with PSU is that they do so at the expense of a sound defensive game. Harvard's top line is all about quick puck movement & transition, and Cornell showed the ability to beat a team like that. Our D can get thrown off their game by aggressive fore-checks, and there's less room for mistakes with teams like that, but to say they have "never shown the ability to beat them," isn't completely true.

I'm not buying the "the college game has changed" to a free-wheeling high-octane offensive sniper-centric model argument. I think that's your wish, (and we see 1-2 guys like Gaudreau/Eichel dominate each year), so you keep repeating it here, but it isn't happening. Overall scoring in the NCAA has plateaued, and it isn't returning to the '80s & '90s levels no matter how much you want that to happen.

If you're saying that Cornell would be better served turning into 1992-93 Maine, I would agree with you. Wouldn't every team's fans like that? It's not going to happen.

RichH

BearLover

I've seen flashes of these quick puck movement, fast in transition attacks even from other ECAC teams (e.g., Harvard this season, Q sometimes too), and it has been those plays that Cornell cannot handle. Teams that can do that consistently may not be common, but they are out there, and Cornell has never shown the ability to beat them.

Guy Gadowski has turned Penn State into exactly the team you described: quick puck movement and constantly peppering the net with shots. Over the course of this season, they have more than double our GF. At MSG we were outshot 38-25, and Cornell showed the ability to beat a team like that. The problem with PSU is that they do so at the expense of a sound defensive game. Harvard's top line is all about quick puck movement & transition, and Cornell showed the ability to beat a team like that. Our D can get thrown off their game by aggressive fore-checks, and there's less room for mistakes with teams like that, but to say they have "never shown the ability to beat them," isn't completely true.

I'm not buying the "the college game has changed" to a free-wheeling high-octane offensive sniper-centric model argument. I think that's your wish, (and we see 1-2 guys like Gaudreau/Eichel dominate each year), so you keep repeating it here, but it isn't happening. Overall scoring in the NCAA has plateaued, and it isn't returning to the '80s & '90s levels no matter how much you want that to happen.

If you're saying that Cornell would be better served turning into 1992-93 Maine, I would agree with you. Wouldn't every team's fans like that? It's not going to happen.

Just to further jump on this point, one thing that I think gets underrecognized (it's a word because I said so) is that uptempo play is sometimes what happens when you're doing well. We'd have looked a lot flashier if we could score on our breakaways or odd-man rushes. When you're controlling play and spending more time in the offensive zone, you look uptempo.

That's not to say that there's no difference between a defensive and offensive team. Just that speed of play can sometimes be a result of success rather than a deliberate choice.

Dafatone
Just to further jump on this point, one thing that I think gets underrecognized (it's a word because I said so) is that uptempo play is sometimes what happens when you're doing well. We'd have looked a lot flashier if we could score on our breakaways or odd-man rushes. When you're controlling play and spending more time in the offensive zone, you look uptempo.

That's not to say that there's no difference between a defensive and offensive team. Just that speed of play can sometimes be a result of success rather than a deliberate choice.

That's a very good point. The 2010 team had a guy like Greening at the top of his game, but all four lines were rolling on a fairly consistent basis.

This year's team showed two areas of improvement that will get lost in the crushing disappointment of The End:

1) The breakout. This has been a bugaboo of many recent CU teams. I hate, hate, hate, the breakout strategy of retreating behind our net and holding it for 10 seconds before attempting to bring it through the neutral zone (while a forward would occassionaly swing through and maybe decoy picking up the puck). It was constantly poorly executed and often resulted in a quick turnover & opponent scoring opportunity. This year, that seemed to be mostly abandoned, and our transition out of the defensive zone was much improved. For this reason, I don't think our top lines did all that much dump-and-chase as everyone here seems to think. Our checking lines? Ehhhh not so much. Lots of dumping.

2) Penalty killing, returning to a Cornell hallmark. We were great at getting in the way, and few teams were successful from mid-Jan on to really set up a sustained PP.


Two major areas of regression:

1) All shots on our established possessions seemed to come from above the circles. There was nobody willing to do the dirty work down low near the crease. Hilbrich learned to leverage his body more and force himself to the area near the post at times, and Cole was pretty much everywhere, but there were so few of those hard-fought efforts to work the puck to the slot and/or jump on rebounds. Everybody wanted to be Ryan and McDonald and bomb away from the top of the circles, and our shooting was clearly not accurate enough to do that without the low-point muckers to help out.

2) Physicality was never established under a game-plan framework. I like a team willing to hit hard and use its physical advantage, but I love a team that hits with a planned outcome or purpose. Our checking this season was rather aimless. Early penalties went up, because so many hits were for mistake-compensation only. Great Cornell teams not only had the size advantage, but they were able to use contact with an idea of a positive outcome from that contact, whether it was to spring an advancing forward with the puck or maintain an established possession cycle.

RichH

BearLover

I've seen flashes of these quick puck movement, fast in transition attacks even from other ECAC teams (e.g., Harvard this season, Q sometimes too), and it has been those plays that Cornell cannot handle. Teams that can do that consistently may not be common, but they are out there, and Cornell has never shown the ability to beat them.

I'm not buying the "the college game has changed" to a free-wheeling high-octane offensive sniper-centric model argument. I think that's your wish, (and we see 1-2 guys like Gaudreau/Eichel dominate each year), so you keep repeating it here, but it isn't happening. Overall scoring in the NCAA has plateaued, and it isn't returning to the '80s & '90s levels no matter how much you want that to happen.

If you're saying that Cornell would be better served turning into 1992-93 Maine, I would agree with you. Wouldn't every team's fans like that? It's not going to happen.

But I've never said any of that. Are you confusing me with someone else? I've always advocated for being solid on both ends of the ice, never for firewagon hockey.

BearLover

RichH

BearLover

I've seen flashes of these quick puck movement, fast in transition attacks even from other ECAC teams (e.g., Harvard this season, Q sometimes too), and it has been those plays that Cornell cannot handle. Teams that can do that consistently may not be common, but they are out there, and Cornell has never shown the ability to beat them.

I'm not buying the "the college game has changed" to a free-wheeling high-octane offensive sniper-centric model argument. I think that's your wish, (and we see 1-2 guys like Gaudreau/Eichel dominate each year), so you keep repeating it here, but it isn't happening. Overall scoring in the NCAA has plateaued, and it isn't returning to the '80s & '90s levels no matter how much you want that to happen.

If you're saying that Cornell would be better served turning into 1992-93 Maine, I would agree with you. Wouldn't every team's fans like that? It's not going to happen.

But I've never said any of that. Are you confusing me with someone else? I've always advocated for being solid on both ends of the ice, never for firewagon hockey.

It's very possible. I go away from this board for several days in the offseason and then read quickly through dozens of posts, so I get people mixed up & can't find stuff I know I've read. My apologies.

RichH
Overall scoring in the NCAA has plateaued, and it isn't returning to the '80s & '90s levels...

Year    Team               Scoring Margin
---------------------------------------
02      SCSU               1.90
03  4   Cornell            2.33
04      North Dakota       2.24
05      Cornell            1.91
06 *    Minnesota          1.56
07  4   Notre Dame         1.74
08      Miami              2.17
09  4!  BU                 1.91
10 *4!  BC                 1.60
11      Yale               2.14
12  4   Union              1.66
13      Minnesota          1.48
14 *4   BC                 1.75
15      Michigan Tech      1.87

* = top scoring margin without defense in top ten
4 = made Frozen Four
! = Champeens!

Whether or not overall scoring is going down, I think I'm seeing, without any sort of display of statistical rigor, that scoring margins are going down. I have no idea what to say about that.

But, some things I think:

(1) Holy Cross shocked '06 Minnesota; Union stomped '14 BC. '10 BC out-fire-wagoned '10 Yale 9–7. Ahead of Yale 9–4 with about thirteen to go in the third, they let Yale back within two. If there had been five more minutes in that game, who knows? They then headed to Detroit and blew Miami and then Wisconsin off of Ford Field.

(2) Michigan Tech has a legitimate chance to make the Frozen Four this year, and that makes me kind of happy. Yet you'd think that them being the top scoring margin team would make it more of a lock. Seems not to be the case.

(3) If you're not BC or Minnesota, you might as well build out from a stingy defense.

Scersk '97

(3) If you're not BC or Minnesota, you might as well build out from a stingy defense.

Blasphemy!

Jim Hyla

MattS
My litmus test on Schafer or any HC or any leader is can a better one be brought in.

I agree.

There must be a coach out there who is willing to come to CU for the pay, willing to deal with restrictions, and can do a better job. I'm not sure who that is but other programs seem to he able to get them. Why not CU.

You go on to say Schafer should be replaced, but you don't have any idea who it should be. "There must be" isn't an answer.

A couple of years before Schafer came, many of us were hoping that we could get him. He had shown to be a good recruiter and was respected for his knowledge. Indeed he turned out to be what we needed then.

So if he needs replacing now, who is the obvious candidate? Up to now I haven't seen anyone give that name. Maybe he exists, but just saying he must, doesn't make it so.

Re-read my second paragraph.

MattS

Jim Hyla

MattS
My litmus test on Schafer or any HC or any leader is can a better one be brought in.

I agree.

There must be a coach out there who is willing to come to CU for the pay, willing to deal with restrictions, and can do a better job. I'm not sure who that is but other programs seem to he able to get them. Why not CU.

You go on to say Schafer should be replaced, but you don't have any idea who it should be. "There must be" isn't an answer.

A couple of years before Schafer came, many of us were hoping that we could get him. He had shown to be a good recruiter and was respected for his knowledge. Indeed he turned out to be what we needed then.

So if he needs replacing now, who is the obvious candidate? Up to now I haven't seen anyone give that name. Maybe he exists, but just saying he must, doesn't make it so.

Re-read my second paragraph.

I did. Here it is:

Disclaimer: I don't know anything about the inner workings of how HC are hired, dismissed, or paid at CU. So my statements might be unrealistic.

So, I'll agree, your statements might be unrealistic. I might even go stronger than "might", but that would just be my opinion. Like you, and I dare say everyone else who posts here, I don't know anything about those issues either. So I'm not going to say there must be another, better coach out there.

I'll still be in the stands in 2022, regardless of who is behind the bench.

Hopefully the change we want to se is already on the way in our future commits, since it seems like the pipeline between commitment and actually making a contribution to the program is now four full years (2 years in the prospect pipeline and then 2 years for the incoming class to take control of the team through maturation). Next year's definitive (Junior) class was recruited back in 2012. If Mike goes out and changes recruiting today we won't see the results really affect the team until 2020 or so.

Jim Hyla

MattS

Jim Hyla

MattS
My litmus test on Schafer or any HC or any leader is can a better one be brought in.

I agree.

There must be a coach out there who is willing to come to CU for the pay, willing to deal with restrictions, and can do a better job. I'm not sure who that is but other programs seem to he able to get them. Why not CU.

You go on to say Schafer should be replaced, but you don't have any idea who it should be. "There must be" isn't an answer.

A couple of years before Schafer came, many of us were hoping that we could get him. He had shown to be a good recruiter and was respected for his knowledge. Indeed he turned out to be what we needed then.

So if he needs replacing now, who is the obvious candidate? Up to now I haven't seen anyone give that name. Maybe he exists, but just saying he must, doesn't make it so.

Re-read my second paragraph.

I did. Here it is:

Disclaimer: I don't know anything about the inner workings of how HC are hired, dismissed, or paid at CU. So my statements might be unrealistic.

So, I'll agree, your statements might be unrealistic. I might even go stronger than "might", but that would just be my opinion. Like you, and I dare say everyone else who posts here, I don't know anything about those issues either. So I'm not going to say there must be another, better coach out there.

I certainly think there is a better coach out there. Mike is not the best coach in the world or even the U.S. so I do think a better coach could be found. I don't know with any authority who that person is. I do have my own ideas, I just do not know how feasible my ideas are which is why I put the disclaimer in my post and did not offer any new coach suggestions.

Scersk '97
(3) If you're not BC or Minnesota, you might as well build out from a stingy defense.

I'm not so sure that's still the case. Even if it is, I'd rather lose at Lynah by a score of 4-3 than 1-0. I think the "it's all your fault" chant is the most intimidating chant we have and I'd rather hear it as much as possible. Of course, I'm an offense and speed freak in any sport.

Looking at the last 10 national champs (of which there have been 8 different schools) offense appears to be carrying the game. 6 of the last 10 champs have had an offense which ranked higher nationally than its defense, which doesn't seem to be that big a deal. However, only once in the past 7 years had a champion had a higher defensive rank than its offense. The average goals scored per game for the last 10 champs is 3.60 with only one team averaging less than 3 goals per game (Yale, 2.89). The average goals against for those champs is 2.30 with only one team holding its opponents to less than 2 per game (Wisconsin, 1.84).

Maybe it's just cyclical, but it seems like the rules will continue to favor offensive play going forward.

ithacat

Scersk '97
(3) If you're not BC or Minnesota, you might as well build out from a stingy defense.

I'm not so sure that's still the case. Even if it is, I'd rather lose at Lynah by a score of 4-3 than 1-0. I think the "it's all your fault" chant is the most intimidating chant we have and I'd rather hear it as much as possible. Of course, I'm an offense and speed freak in any sport.

Looking at the last 10 national champs (of which there have been 8 different schools) offense appears to be carrying the game. 6 of the last 10 champs have had an offense which ranked higher nationally than its defense, which doesn't seem to be that big a deal. However, only once in the past 7 years had a champion had a higher defensive rank than its offense. The average goals scored per game for the last 10 champs is 3.60 with only one team averaging less than 3 goals per game (Yale, 2.89). The average goals against for those champs is 2.30 with only one team holding its opponents to less than 2 per game (Wisconsin, 1.84).

Maybe it's just cyclical, but it seems like the rules will continue to favor offensive play going forward.

You can't get from that bag of meaningless numbers to an assertion that rules will continue to favor offensive play going forward. You can't even get from there to an assertion that the rules have been favoring offensive play over the last 10 years. 6 of the last 10 is roughly half, so that tells you nothing regardless of the direction. 1 of the last 7 sounds impressive in favor of offense, except it means nothing if those teams all had top 10 offenses and top 15 defenses. 3.60 GFA certainly sounds high in the context of current season scoring for Cornell, but in 2003 the Big Red averaged 3.69 goals per game.

I don't feel like looking this up, but maybe someone out there will do this for me:

Plot mean, median, top quartile, and top 10% (i.e., p90) goal scoring for NCAA D-1 teams during the Schafer era. X axis year, Y axis GFA for each data series. Include Cornell, just for shits and giggles, or perhaps to bemoan the fact that 2003 was really the only consistently effective team offense in the Schafer era (disclaimer - I don't know if that's actually true, but I suspect it was - 2005-06 and 2009-10 both had sub-3 GFAs despite some good scorers at the top of the lineup).

Do the same for goals allowed.

Then maybe we can talk about cyclical scoring trends and rule changes and whatnot. My hypothesis: all of the "pro-offense" rule changes people keep going on about and the "fundamental change in the way the game is played" that has "passed Schafer by" has had basically zero impact on actual scoring.

These charts won't test that hypothesis directly, but they'll at least be a more reasonable indicator than the cherry-picked numbers or blind assertions that go along with all of these arguments about larger trends in the way the game is played.

Tom Lento
bemoan the fact that 2003 was really the only consistently effective team offense in the Schafer era (disclaimer - I don't know if that's actually true, but I suspect it was - 2005-06 and 2009-10 both had sub-3 GFAs despite some good scorers at the top of the lineup).

2005-06 yes (2.83), but 2009-10 was 3.15. 2004-2005 was 3.20. Cornell is currently scoring way too few goals per game to even come close to competing at a nationally competitive level.

BearLover

Tom Lento
bemoan the fact that 2003 was really the only consistently effective team offense in the Schafer era (disclaimer - I don't know if that's actually true, but I suspect it was - 2005-06 and 2009-10 both had sub-3 GFAs despite some good scorers at the top of the lineup).

2005-06 yes (2.83), but 2009-10 was 3.15. 2004-2005 was 3.20. Cornell is currently scoring way too few goals per game to even come close to competing at a nationally competitive level.

Wow, is that really a surprise to anyone? Even Coach Schafer said he tried changing the checking to generate more offense, it just didn't work.

BearLover
Cornell is currently scoring way too few goals per game to even come close to competing at a nationally competitive level.

Absurd hyperbole. Cornell was one tie away last year of getting an at-large bid, and the number of times we're in the discussion for at-large bids is a majority of the years. Parity of the national landscape also serves to sink this statement.

RichH

BearLover
Cornell is currently scoring way too few goals per game to even come close to competing at a nationally competitive level.

Absurd hyperbole. Cornell was one tie away last year of getting an at-large bid, and the number of times we're in the discussion for at-large bids is a majority of the years. Parity of the national landscape also serves to sink this statement.

Cornell also usually scores considerably more goals each year. Even last year they scored over 1/2 more goals per game.

Here is the trend, based on data as far back as I can find:

2015: 1.84
2014: 2.41
2013: 2.44
2012: 2.86
2011: 2.53
2010: 3.15
2009: 2.56
2008: 2.83
2007: 2.90
2006: 2.83
2005: 3.20
2004: 2.66
2003: 3.69
2002: 3.37
2001: 2.21
2000: 3.25
1999: 3.10

Notably, there is a general downward trend. Also notably, 2015 is stunningly low--by far the worst Cornell has ever been at scoring under Schafer. So I don't retract my statement that we are scoring at way too low a rate to be close to competitive on a national level. This year may have been aberrational--but last year was equally aberrational in that we almost made the tournament despite being +3. 2009 was the only year we made the tournament without scoring at least one more GPG.

BearLover
Notably, there is a general downward trend. Also notably, 2015 is stunningly low--by far the worst Cornell has ever been at scoring under Schafer. So I don't retract my statement that we are scoring at way too low a rate to be close to competitive on a national level. This year may have been aberrational--but last year was equally aberrational in that we almost made the tournament despite being +3. 2009 was the only year we made the tournament without scoring at least one more GPG.

Well, geez. Here's the thing...I can never tell about which timeframe you're making each of your arguments. Sometimes it's over a 4-year span. Sometimes 10. Sometimes its the selected range where Yale was kicking ass. Sometimes, like this instance, it's one season.

We got shut out 7 times. I don't think it's any big revelation to anybody why this season sucked. We lost scoring, we needed to replace that lost scoring, and it didn't happen.

There is a downward trend, but it's not that strong. The slope is -0.053 goals per year with a R2 of 0.3351. If I start the data set in 2008 (where visually I might see a little change in the trend) the slope goes to -0.11 with a R2 of 0.5024. (Excel "statistics".) This year strongly affects these results, doubling the manitude of the slope in both cases. We need more data to see whether this year was an outlier or not.

Of course, what really matters is goals relative to the rest of the NCAA. But you didn't give me that data to play with.

RichH

BearLover
Notably, there is a general downward trend. Also notably, 2015 is stunningly low--by far the worst Cornell has ever been at scoring under Schafer. So I don't retract my statement that we are scoring at way too low a rate to be close to competitive on a national level. This year may have been aberrational--but last year was equally aberrational in that we almost made the tournament despite being +3. 2009 was the only year we made the tournament without scoring at least one more GPG.

Well, geez. Here's the thing...I can never tell about which timeframe you're making each of your arguments. Sometimes it's over a 4-year span. Sometimes 10. Sometimes its the selected range where Yale was kicking ass. Sometimes, like this instance, it's one season.

We got shut out 7 times. I don't think it's any big revelation to anybody why this season sucked. We lost scoring, we needed to replace that lost scoring, and it didn't happen.

Well, yeah, I guess I can be vague, but you can generally assume that when I talk about lengths of time, I am referring to all recent years, with each year closer to the present weighted more heavily than the last. So here I was referring to all recent years, but with the most emphasis on 2015, and next most on 2014, etc.

KeithK
There is a downward trend, but it's not that strong. The slope is -0.053 goals per year with a R2 of 0.3351. If I start the data set in 2008 (where visually I might see a little change in the trend) the slope goes to -0.11 with a R2 of 0.5024. (Excel "statistics".)

You mean goals per game per year, right? Assuming the rest of the NCAA is constant, even the first number is a fairly strong trend, no?

BearLover

KeithK
There is a downward trend, but it's not that strong. The slope is -0.053 goals per year with a R2 of 0.3351. If I start the data set in 2008 (where visually I might see a little change in the trend) the slope goes to -0.11 with a R2 of 0.5024. (Excel "statistics".)

You mean goals per game per year, right? Assuming the rest of the NCAA is constant, even the first number is a fairly strong trend, no?

Yes, goals per game per year ( i just fit the numbers you posted).

I'm not sure one twentieth of a goal is that significant given the noise. The 2008-15 number is much more so. Of course, we don't know (unil someone bothers to look) whether the rest of the league is static.

KeithK

BearLover

KeithK
There is a downward trend, but it's not that strong. The slope is -0.053 goals per year with a R2 of 0.3351. If I start the data set in 2008 (where visually I might see a little change in the trend) the slope goes to -0.11 with a R2 of 0.5024. (Excel "statistics".)

You mean goals per game per year, right? Assuming the rest of the NCAA is constant, even the first number is a fairly strong trend, no?

Yes, goals per game per year ( i just fit the numbers you posted).

I'm not sure one twentieth of a goal is that significant given the noise. The 2008-15 number is much more so. Of course, we don't know (unil someone bothers to look) whether the rest of the league is static.

collegehockeystats.net only has all of D1 starting in '02-'03 ('02 is missing hockey east, and before that i'd have to pull each conference individually, which i'm not gonna do. so feel free to excluse '02 if you want.)

NCAA Average Scoring Offense (gpg):

2002: 3.06
2003: 3.12
2004: 2.90
2005: 2.87
2006: 2.91
2007: 2.88
2008: 2.74
2009: 2.79
2010: 2.92
2011: 2.91
2012: 2.79
2013: 2.72
2014: 2.80
2015: 2.69

BearLover
Notably, there is a general downward trend.

Full history.

IMHO, this is a far more important stat.

2002-2015 scoring offense, cornell vs. d-1 average:

From what I saw, Cornell's problem this year wasn't "scoring" exactly, it was an overall inability to use sticks. The passing was inaccurate, so it is no surprise that they also couldn't hit the net. The end boards at Lynah took more abuse this year than they probably have in years.

pfibiger
2002-2015 scoring offense, cornell vs. d-1 average

Thanks very much for doing this, pfibiger. That's the exact data I've craved this week, but didn't have the time/patience to find myself.

RichH

pfibiger
2002-2015 scoring offense, cornell vs. d-1 average

Thanks very much for doing this, pfibiger. That's the exact data I've craved this week, but didn't have the time/patience to find myself.

Be interesting to look at

1) scoring differential vs. just scoring and
2) redoing the graph above with only tourney teams included in the average set.

If anyone wants the set of excel sheets to monkey around w/ this, let me know

Trotsky

BearLover
Notably, there is a general downward trend.

Full history.

IMHO, this is a far more important stat.

Yup, if you score more of the goals than your opponents, you're more likely to have the better record.

Jim Hyla

Trotsky

BearLover
Notably, there is a general downward trend.

Full history.

IMHO, this is a far more important stat.

Yup, if you score more of the goals than your opponents, you're more likely to have the better record.

It also brings home just how traumatic 1993 was. I saw 20 games that year. Why couldn't I see 20 games ten years later?

BearLover

Tom Lento
bemoan the fact that 2003 was really the only consistently effective team offense in the Schafer era (disclaimer - I don't know if that's actually true, but I suspect it was - 2005-06 and 2009-10 both had sub-3 GFAs despite some good scorers at the top of the lineup).

2005-06 yes (2.83), but 2009-10 was 3.15. 2004-2005 was 3.20. Cornell is currently scoring way too few goals per game to even come close to competing at a nationally competitive level.

Right, sorry, estimation fail.

RichH

pfibiger
2002-2015 scoring offense, cornell vs. d-1 average

Thanks very much for doing this, pfibiger. That's the exact data I've craved this week, but didn't have the time/patience to find myself.

Seconded. Also, I'm updating my hypothesis: either the rule changes haven't impacted (mean) scoring, or else (mean) scoring in college hockey was really headed into the shitter.

pfibiger - I wouldn't mind seeing the raw data. I don't know if I'll get to it but I might try to visualize balance between offense and defense against season outcomes.

Absolutely. Here's the spreadsheet:

[dl.dropboxusercontent.com]

And you were a gentleman to not start the plot at 2005, else Cornell's regression line would be steeper still.

Fascinating use of kinda-big data.

.... it seems like the rules will continue to favor offensive play going forward.

I agree. It is extremely difficult to score while skating backwards.

pfibiger
Absolutely. Here's the spreadsheet:

[dl.dropboxusercontent.com]

Thanks, The R squared does not tell the whole story. The t stats on the regression coefficients are significantly different at well beyond the 99% level. There is a significant diffference between Cornell's scoring trend and D1 College Hockey as a whole.

Correlation is not causation. The cause is still open to discussion, the difference is not.

Towerroad

pfibiger
Absolutely. Here's the spreadsheet:

[dl.dropboxusercontent.com]

Thanks, The R squared does not tell the whole story. The t stats on the regression coefficients are significantly different at well beyond the 99% level. There is a significant diffference between Cornell's scoring trend and D1 College Hockey as a whole.

Correlation is not causation. The cause is still open to discussion, the difference is not.

It looks like (which is TOTALLY a scientific term) we'd be right around the national trend if we dropped this most recent season. I mean, we'd also be right around there if we dropped a peak from a decade ago, and "just throw out this outlier" is an easy way to ruin stats, but to the extent that we tried and failed to do something different this year that could in theory be reversed, the drop in scoring across D1 makes our own drop at least look not as precipitous, although still pretty precipitous.

Dafatone

Towerroad

pfibiger
Absolutely. Here's the spreadsheet:

[dl.dropboxusercontent.com]

Thanks, The R squared does not tell the whole story. The t stats on the regression coefficients are significantly different at well beyond the 99% level. There is a significant diffference between Cornell's scoring trend and D1 College Hockey as a whole.

Correlation is not causation. The cause is still open to discussion, the difference is not.

It looks like (which is TOTALLY a scientific term) we'd be right around the national trend if we dropped this most recent season. I mean, we'd also be right around there if we dropped a peak from a decade ago, and "just throw out this outlier" is an easy way to ruin stats, but to the extent that we tried and failed to do something different this year that could in theory be reversed, the drop in scoring across D1 makes our own drop at least look not as precipitous, although still pretty precipitous.

Dropping this year does impact Cornells Coefficient. It improves from -0.086 to -0.071 (ie each year on average we averaged 0.086 goals per game less than the previous year) but the D1 trend is only -0.023. There is still a significant difference. Either way our rate of decline is 3X worse than the national trend.

This year may have been an abberation but going back to the "old way" has a solid history and it is not encouraging.

Projections are a tricky business but we could be in real trouble in 20 years or so.

Towerroad
Projections are a tricky business but we could be in real trouble in 20 years or so.

When we're scoring -2.5 goals per game?

Trotsky

Towerroad
Projections are a tricky business but we could be in real trouble in 20 years or so.

When we're scoring -2.5 goals per game?

If you believe the trend will persist, then in 20 years we would be scoring 1.4 to 1.8 fewer goals per game than we are now. In effect there would be no reason to even find guys that can skate, just 400 lb man mountains that can adsorb shot after shot. Gang them up in front of the goal and let the other side tire itself out shooting. Perhaps a random rebound would find it's way into the oppositions net since the other side would have no need for a sieve.

Like I said, projections can be tricky.

Towerroad

pfibiger
Absolutely. Here's the spreadsheet:

[dl.dropboxusercontent.com]

Thanks, The R squared does not tell the whole story. The t stats on the regression coefficients are significantly different at well beyond the 99% level. There is a significant diffference between Cornell's scoring trend and D1 College Hockey as a whole.

Correlation is not causation. The cause is still open to discussion, the difference is not.

What? You can't make an assertion like that on 10 high variance data points for a team average metric compared with 10 data points representing a national average. For one thing, this is totally un-normalized. Cornell's numbers are, well, Cornell's numbers against Cornell's record. The league average is the global average across all teams. It is NOT the expected goal scoring for a league average team against Cornell's schedule, which is more or less what you'd need to draw meaningful conclusions about Cornell's offensive execution during that time span.

The best you can discern from this is Cornell's overall pattern is to be somewhere around a league average offense. That's it. Really.

Also, everyone keeps talking about 2015 dragging the slope down as an outlier year, but nobody has yet pointed out that 2003 does the same. These numbers are very noisy, and comparing slopes of raw averages over time is not going to help you understand much about what's going on or, at this data volume, even if anything meaningful is going on.

So here's the same graph, comparing Cornell to ECAC average scoring. So we're closer to comparing scoring performance against common opponents. It was fascinating to watch ECAC teams pingpong from the top to the bottom of the list. Other than a run of 5 or so years where Yale was always at the top, one year Dartmouth would be #4 in the country, the next year they were #55. Pretty much everyone other than Cornell bounced around a bunch. While which team was at the top or bottom changed, that's a pretty flat line.

Tom Lento

Towerroad

pfibiger
Absolutely. Here's the spreadsheet:

[dl.dropboxusercontent.com]

Thanks, The R squared does not tell the whole story. The t stats on the regression coefficients are significantly different at well beyond the 99% level. There is a significant diffference between Cornell's scoring trend and D1 College Hockey as a whole.

Correlation is not causation. The cause is still open to discussion, the difference is not.

What? You can't make an assertion like that on 10 high variance data points for a team average metric compared with 10 data points representing a national average. For one thing, this is totally un-normalized. Cornell's numbers are, well, Cornell's numbers against Cornell's record. The league average is the global average across all teams. It is NOT the expected goal scoring for a league average team against Cornell's schedule, which is more or less what you'd need to draw meaningful conclusions about Cornell's offensive execution during that time span.

The best you can discern from this is Cornell's overall pattern is to be somewhere around a league average offense. That's it. Really.

Also, everyone keeps talking about 2015 dragging the slope down as an outlier year, but nobody has yet pointed out that 2003 does the same. These numbers are very noisy, and comparing slopes of raw averages over time is not going to help you understand much about what's going on or, at this data volume, even if anything meaningful is going on.

Sorry, but you can make those inferences at least on a statistical basis.

First of all, there are 14 data points for each series. I would like more data, who would not, but the stats work at some basic level.

Secondly, both coefficients are meaningfully differenct from the null hypothesis of 0 and differ from each other by meaningfull amounts.

As for differing variance. Yes they differ and they should but neither data set demonstrates heteroskedasity so there is no bias in the standard error of estimate.

You can make too much of this sort of analysis but you can't dismiss it. Our trend over the period is significantly different from the D1 average trend.

Towerroad

Tom Lento

Towerroad

pfibiger
Absolutely. Here's the spreadsheet:

[dl.dropboxusercontent.com]

Thanks, The R squared does not tell the whole story. The t stats on the regression coefficients are significantly different at well beyond the 99% level. There is a significant diffference between Cornell's scoring trend and D1 College Hockey as a whole.

Correlation is not causation. The cause is still open to discussion, the difference is not.

What? You can't make an assertion like that on 10 high variance data points for a team average metric compared with 10 data points representing a national average. For one thing, this is totally un-normalized. Cornell's numbers are, well, Cornell's numbers against Cornell's record. The league average is the global average across all teams. It is NOT the expected goal scoring for a league average team against Cornell's schedule, which is more or less what you'd need to draw meaningful conclusions about Cornell's offensive execution during that time span.

The best you can discern from this is Cornell's overall pattern is to be somewhere around a league average offense. That's it. Really.

Also, everyone keeps talking about 2015 dragging the slope down as an outlier year, but nobody has yet pointed out that 2003 does the same. These numbers are very noisy, and comparing slopes of raw averages over time is not going to help you understand much about what's going on or, at this data volume, even if anything meaningful is going on.

Sorry, but you can make those inferences at least on a statistical basis.

First of all, there are 14 data points for each series. I would like more data, who would not, but the stats work at some basic level.

Secondly, both coefficients are meaningfully differenct from the null hypothesis of 0 and differ from each other by meaningfull amounts.

As for differing variance. Yes they differ and they should but neither data set demonstrates heteroskedasity so there is no bias in the standard error of estimate.

You can make too much of this sort of analysis but you can't dismiss it. Our trend over the period is significantly different from the D1 average trend.

Back when I was in grad school my thesis advisor liked to go through a workflow where he would have his students compare zodiac signs to reported frequency of sexual intercourse. It turns out, statistically speaking, sagitarrians (I think, I'm not certain of the actual sign) got significantly more love than anybody else during the 1980s. Of course this was garbage - the samples involved were small enough that a chance shift in gender distribution caused reports from people born under that sign to have a significantly higher value than one would expect based strictly on population averages. Everything looked good in that analysis, too, but the data was still shit.

What you've just done is to quote your statistics 101 textbook and tell me, tautologically, that there is a statistically significant difference between two measures and therefore those measures are, statistically speaking, significantly different. What I'm telling you is that while that's true, it's also meaningless, because a comparison of the general aggregate against an individual team is inherently problematic.

The ECAC-only charts are a bit more reasonable for interpretation, but they still aren't properly normalized. Also, raw GFA is, by itself, a pretty bad measure. Maybe I'll actually take some time to look at some normalized trends and try to get a useful comparison together. I'm more interested in goal difference trends and evaluating the relative importance of offense to defense in general, particularly for the top 15-20% of teams, but maybe I can find a way to render Cornell-only results meaningful as anything other than an interesting sideline for all of us here.

None of this really has anything to do with next year, so I'll stop here unless I have some data that might be predictive of next year's results. If I do the general analysis I'm thinking about maybe I'll move it to a new thread where we can geek out about badly normalized team aggregate metrics.

Tom Lento

Towerroad

Tom Lento

Towerroad

pfibiger
Absolutely. Here's the spreadsheet:

[dl.dropboxusercontent.com]

Thanks, The R squared does not tell the whole story. The t stats on the regression coefficients are significantly different at well beyond the 99% level. There is a significant diffference between Cornell's scoring trend and D1 College Hockey as a whole.

Correlation is not causation. The cause is still open to discussion, the difference is not.

What? You can't make an assertion like that on 10 high variance data points for a team average metric compared with 10 data points representing a national average. For one thing, this is totally un-normalized. Cornell's numbers are, well, Cornell's numbers against Cornell's record. The league average is the global average across all teams. It is NOT the expected goal scoring for a league average team against Cornell's schedule, which is more or less what you'd need to draw meaningful conclusions about Cornell's offensive execution during that time span.

The best you can discern from this is Cornell's overall pattern is to be somewhere around a league average offense. That's it. Really.

Also, everyone keeps talking about 2015 dragging the slope down as an outlier year, but nobody has yet pointed out that 2003 does the same. These numbers are very noisy, and comparing slopes of raw averages over time is not going to help you understand much about what's going on or, at this data volume, even if anything meaningful is going on.

Sorry, but you can make those inferences at least on a statistical basis.

First of all, there are 14 data points for each series. I would like more data, who would not, but the stats work at some basic level.

Secondly, both coefficients are meaningfully differenct from the null hypothesis of 0 and differ from each other by meaningfull amounts.

As for differing variance. Yes they differ and they should but neither data set demonstrates heteroskedasity so there is no bias in the standard error of estimate.

You can make too much of this sort of analysis but you can't dismiss it. Our trend over the period is significantly different from the D1 average trend.

Back when I was in grad school my thesis advisor liked to go through a workflow where he would have his students compare zodiac signs to reported frequency of sexual intercourse. It turns out, statistically speaking, sagitarrians (I think, I'm not certain of the actual sign) got significantly more love than anybody else during the 1980s. Of course this was garbage - the samples involved were small enough that a chance shift in gender distribution caused reports from people born under that sign to have a significantly higher value than one would expect based strictly on population averages. Everything looked good in that analysis, too, but the data was still shit.

What you've just done is to quote your statistics 101 textbook and tell me, tautologically, that there is a statistically significant difference between two measures and therefore those measures are, statistically speaking, significantly different. What I'm telling you is that while that's true, it's also meaningless, because a comparison of the general aggregate against an individual team is inherently problematic.

The ECAC-only charts are a bit more reasonable for interpretation, but they still aren't properly normalized. Also, raw GFA is, by itself, a pretty bad measure. Maybe I'll actually take some time to look at some normalized trends and try to get a useful comparison together. I'm more interested in goal difference trends and evaluating the relative importance of offense to defense in general, particularly for the top 15-20% of teams, but maybe I can find a way to render Cornell-only results meaningful as anything other than an interesting sideline for all of us here.

None of this really has anything to do with next year, so I'll stop here unless I have some data that might be predictive of next year's results. If I do the general analysis I'm thinking about maybe I'll move it to a new thread where we can geek out about badly normalized team aggregate metrics.

I don't think we actually disagree. I used to teach stats and build econometric models in a different life and doing parametric stats on modest datasets is of limited value. On the other hand the data you have is the data you have.

The only conclusion that I come to is that given the Coaches statement about going back to the old ways and the very clear scoring trend there is no reason to believe that Cornell is going to be a goal scoring powerhouse next year. We probably did not need fancy or not so fancy stats to tell us that but it is the off season

I look at this data and see a powerhouse squad from 2002 to 2003 which scored a lot (relatively speaking) followed by a trend that is pretty cose to that for the ECAC average from 2004 through 2014, then finally an out of family low value in 2015.

Is it fair to only look at 2004-2014 to assess the overall trend instead of 2002-2015? Or 1996-2015? *shrug* There's so much variability here that one can make up whatever model he wants to try to learn something but it's not like there's a clear underlying process we're identifying.

I think everyone here is concerned about the extreme lack of scoring this year and would agree that if it were to continue that Cornell will not be competitive going forward. I'm not convinced that the 2015 offensive numbers were due to a structural problem in the program. I would fully expect the team to regress back to the longer term trend and if so I think the team will be very competitive in 2016. t is definitely true that Schafer is almost certainly not going to ever field an offensive powerhouse. but as others have suggested, this year's defense and a middle of the pack offense probably puts us in the tournament.

KeithK
I look at this data and see a powerhouse squad from 2002 to 2003 which scored a lot (relatively speaking) followed by a trend that is pretty cose to that for the ECAC average from 2004 through 2014, then finally an out of family low value in 2015.

Is it fair to only look at 2004-2014 to assess the overall trend instead of 2002-2015? Or 1996-2015? *shrug* There's so much variability here that one can make up whatever model he wants to try to learn something but it's not like there's a clear underlying process we're identifying.

I think everyone here is concerned about the extreme lack of scoring this year and would agree that if it were to continue that Cornell will not be competitive going forward. I'm not convinced that the 2015 offensive numbers were due to a structural problem in the program. I would fully expect the team to regress back to the longer term trend and if so I think the team will be very competitive in 2016. t is definitely true that Schafer is almost certainly not going to ever field an offensive powerhouse. but as others have suggested, this year's defense and a middle of the pack offense probably puts us in the tournament.

I think the proper time span is probably 2000-2015 which would be teams that were all recruited and trained by Schafer. You are correct, the slope is heavily influenced by the performance of the teams in the early 2000's. But the reality is that our offense has been well below the national average for 4 of the last 5 years.

I agree with your assessment that the a team with a top 10 defense and middle of the pack offense has a good shot at the tournament. That belies the fact that we have a long way to go to get to an average offense and begs the question of whether there are defensive tradeoffs that would have to be made to improve the scoring. The gap between us and the national average is on the order of 0.5 goals per game (1 goal every 2 games). The big question is what do you have to do to achieve this not trival improvement. Nothing about our recent history suggests that we have an answer to that question.

Towerroad
I agree with your assessment that the a team with a top 10 defense and middle of the pack offense has a good shot at the tournament. That belies the fact that we have a long way to go to get to an average offense and begs the question of whether there are defensive tradeoffs that would have to be made to improve the scoring. The gap between us and the national average is on the order of 0.5 goals per game (1 goal every 2 games). The big question is what do you have to do to achieve this not trival improvement. Nothing about our recent history suggests that we have an answer to that question.

We had a 0.5 goal per game drop this past season. While there may have been some structural reasons for that drop (Schafer has said he tried certain things that didn't work) I suspect that a lot of that drop (most of it?) was random variation. We had a bad year. I think that w'll score a bunch more goals next year due to regression, maybe enough to put us back near the middle of the pack offensively.

Does this mean that the coaching staff should sit back and trust that things will be better next year? Of course not. But I think that we as fans should hesitate before overreacting to hat might be a one year outlier.

KeithK

Towerroad
I agree with your assessment that the a team with a top 10 defense and middle of the pack offense has a good shot at the tournament. That belies the fact that we have a long way to go to get to an average offense and begs the question of whether there are defensive tradeoffs that would have to be made to improve the scoring. The gap between us and the national average is on the order of 0.5 goals per game (1 goal every 2 games). The big question is what do you have to do to achieve this not trival improvement. Nothing about our recent history suggests that we have an answer to that question.

We had a 0.5 goal per game drop this past season. While there may have been some structural reasons for that drop (Schafer has said he tried certain things that didn't work) I suspect that a lot of that drop (most of it?) was random variation. We had a bad year. I think that w'll score a bunch more goals next year due to regression, maybe enough to put us back near the middle of the pack offensively.

Does this mean that the coaching staff should sit back and trust that things will be better next year? Of course not. But I think that we as fans should hesitate before overreacting to hat might be a one year outlier.

Before the .5 GPG drop we were already awful on offense, though--last year just happened to be spectacularly bad. Regression to our shitty mean isn't something we want. Plus, the defense may regress too.

KeithK
But I think that we as fans should hesitate before overreacting to what might be a one year outlier.

2015 may have sharpened the concern, but it has been building long before this year.

There's no reason why a team can't have a punishing defense and then rely on counter attacks and exploitation of forced errors. But the offense might have been hurt paradoxically by the absence of defensively solid players. At their best, you always knew a Schafer team was going to force the opponent to cough up the puck again and again in their own end, at worst disrupting their breakout and at best giving us turnovers with a clear route to the net. The last few years, it's been the opponent who has been doing that to us. We used to "get bigger" as the game went along and the opponent was ground into dust by constant harassment. Now we look like a wheezing big guy who just ran 5 miles, weak as a kitten and mentally fragile.

I'm not asking for Moulsons. I'll settle for Bâbys (Babies?).

Oh, I'm not saying everything is rosy. But we're on here analyzing trends in offensive production and extrapolating to utter gloom and doom. Which I think is overreacting, particularly when trends are heavily influenced by one year that looks like an outlier.

BearLover

KeithK

Towerroad
I agree with your assessment that the a team with a top 10 defense and middle of the pack offense has a good shot at the tournament. That belies the fact that we have a long way to go to get to an average offense and begs the question of whether there are defensive tradeoffs that would have to be made to improve the scoring. The gap between us and the national average is on the order of 0.5 goals per game (1 goal every 2 games). The big question is what do you have to do to achieve this not trival improvement. Nothing about our recent history suggests that we have an answer to that question.

We had a 0.5 goal per game drop this past season. While there may have been some structural reasons for that drop (Schafer has said he tried certain things that didn't work) I suspect that a lot of that drop (most of it?) was random variation. We had a bad year. I think that w'll score a bunch more goals next year due to regression, maybe enough to put us back near the middle of the pack offensively.

Does this mean that the coaching staff should sit back and trust that things will be better next year? Of course not. But I think that we as fans should hesitate before overreacting to hat might be a one year outlier.

Before the .5 GPG drop we were already awful on offense, though--last year just happened to be spectacularly bad. Regression to our shitty mean isn't something we want. Plus, the defense may regress too.

Incidentally, 0.5 GPG is almost exactly the difference between Ferlin/Lowry's goal scoring production last year and Ferlin/Lowry's goal scoring production this year. I don't think this season was structural because it looks an awful lot like bad luck. It's entirely possible that a fully healthy senior class plus Ferlin scores at around the national average.

The 4 out of 5 bad years on offense isn't necessarily an alarming long term trend. It starts with a hangover year after a hugely talented class departed in 2010, and then you've got, essentially, one bad recruiting cycle. Is Cornell's performance over the last 3-5 seasons cause for concern? Sure. I think it's totally legitimate to be concerned, in 2015, that Schafer is not capable of returning the team to its winning ways of 2002-2010. But at the moment I don't think it makes a lot of sense to declare the program dead so long as Schafer is at the helm, which is the general tenor of a lot of the discussion these days.

I'd expect 2016 to be an improvement over this year on the offensive end, if only because it can't get much worse, but given the returning scoring on the team I think league average is about the *best* you can hope to get.

The interesting question, for me, is whether 2016 is a 2.2 - 2.1 goal difference kind of year with some promise on the horizon* or an effective repeat of this year with no clear talent spark in the freshman/sophomore classes to provide substantial hope for the near future.

* think Cornell, 2000-2001: 33 games, 16-12-5, 73 goals scored, 72 goals allowed, hugely talented sophomore class

Trotsky

Towerroad
Projections are a tricky business but we could be in real trouble in 20 years or so.

When we're scoring -2.5 goals per game?

Paul Ehrlich would be proud!

All I can say at this point is that it's a shame that jtwcornell91 doesn't check in here more often. Because this thread.

Heym I fit this line to these two points, and OMG MY R-SQUARED IS ONE!!!! IT MUST MEAN SOMETHING!!1!1!

RichH
All I can say at this point is that it's a shame that jtwcornell91 doesn't check in here more often. Because this thread.

Because this thread needs him(?).

Jim Hyla

RichH
All I can say at this point is that it's a shame that jtwcornell91 doesn't check in here more often. Because this thread.

Because this thread needs him(?).

"Because noun". Language evolution.

Kyle Rose

Jim Hyla

RichH
All I can say at this point is that it's a shame that jtwcornell91 doesn't check in here more often. Because this thread.

Because this thread needs him(?).

"Because noun". Language evolution.

Eh. It's just a dropped/implied "of". It's a language shift, sure, but it's not as big a deal as some people make it out to be. At least in my opinion.

Dafatone

Kyle Rose

Jim Hyla

RichH
All I can say at this point is that it's a shame that jtwcornell91 doesn't check in here more often. Because this thread.

Because this thread needs him(?).

"Because noun". Language evolution.

Eh. It's just a dropped/implied "of". It's a language shift, sure, but it's not as big a deal as some people make it out to be. At least in my opinion.

Agreed, but why do people care so much in the first place? I'm sure the highest-minded English teacher nowadays would sound like an uneducated bumpkin to Victorian elites. Language changes all the time.

Dafatone

Kyle Rose

Jim Hyla

RichH
All I can say at this point is that it's a shame that jtwcornell91 doesn't check in here more often. Because this thread.

Because this thread needs him(?).

"Because noun". Language evolution.

Eh. It's just a dropped/implied "of". It's a language shift, sure, but it's not as big a deal as some people make it out to be. At least in my opinion.

or an implied "exists" or perhaps "is important." ...because bacon [exists | is important].

Yes, my friends, it is the off season.

Trotsky
Yes, my friends, it is the off season

already.

Kyle Rose
Agreed, but why do people care so much in the first place? I'm sure the highest-minded English teacher nowadays would sound like an uneducated bumpkin to Victorian elites. Language changes all the time.

Just because language changes doesn't mean people have to like it.

KeithK

Kyle Rose
Agreed, but why do people care so much in the first place? I'm sure the highest-minded English teacher nowadays would sound like an uneducated bumpkin to Victorian elites. Language changes all the time.

Just because language changes doesn't mean people have to like it.

Get off my lawn!

Off season already like off lawn

But I don't like

[www.collegehockeynews.com]

Big Ten woes as only one team advances and it's not Michigan (nor Wisconsin).

The models above probably get at the basic result. If one wants to do a more complete analysis, a mixed model could be specified with random regressions of goals on years estimated for each NCAA team, conceptualized as deviations around an overall fixed regression [Henderson, Biometrics 1982, 38, 623-640]; teams also would be included as levels of a random classification factor. Cornell could be held out and estimated as an additional fixed regression. Then the homogeneity of the 2 fixed regressions could be tested; whether mean goals are different at a pre-specified year (e.g., 2015) also could be tested or, better, a simultaneous region (a range of years) of significant mean goal difference could be estimated.

Extensions: Instead of a single overall fixed regression, estimate one for each league (and for independents), where the above approaches could compare, for example, Cornell to the ECAC average. Instead of using goals for a season, use goals for each game (perhaps overkill), adding games as an additional random factor; this model would likely best be specified in terms of count data, with a log link and Poisson or negative binomial error. Nonlinear models could be looked at, although the scatter over the somewhat limited number of years doesn't suggest nonlinearity.

The conclusion may not be much different, but any tests of significance would be better based. By inspection, as others have commented, Cornell's 2003 and 2015, particularly in combination, look like pretty influential points. Whether one thinks low goal scoring is Cornell's future depends quite a lot on how much this season was a special case.

Setting statistical models aside, I don't think recent lack of success is as much style, speed, or match-ups as some seem to think. It's greater parity overall and the fading of Cornell's traditional advantages. While it should not be difficult to get back to ECAC top 4, although there are now many more contenders, it's likely going to be difficult to do much more.

In a moneyball sense, Cornell has had several competitive advantages over the decades, none of which really holds now: Canadian recruiting; emphasis on defense (followed subsequently by Union and now pretty much the whole ECAC); rink atmosphere (fading steadily); winning tradition (too far in the past and no longer readily distinguishable from other ECAC teams).

I fail to see how the "rising tide" scenario remotely helps Cornell. We're in competition with more teams for the same players. Our advantage was much greater when we could say that we (along with Harvard) were the place to have national hockey success and prestigious education.

Where is the advantage coming from ongoing to be something better than an average upper-half ECAC team, for Schafer or any coach? I think the problem is deeper than the coaching. Is it really likely that he has lost the ability to coach? Maybe it's harder to get the current college-age players to buy in to what's needed (does the Schafer system require more in this regard than others?).

It would seem it comes down more to recruiting. I suppose it's possible Schafer has lost some of the needed energy in that area, and the assistant coaches may well be less good recruiters than some in the past. But this relates directly to the loss of advantages over other ECAC teams. Maybe it's also partially a matter of emphasis: Cornell has recruited NHL prospects as well or better than others; Yale, a few years ago, constructed a great college team, which is sometimes slightly different. The point about Cornell players being younger now than in some years past and than for some other teams now (while a good thing) could be having an effect. Larger recruiting classes should help, protecting against early departures and injuries and increasing the chances of finding a player who really develops.

If someone like Greg is now at least open to thinking about a coaching change, things really have shifted. I suppose I almost am, too. But in discussions about changing baseball managers--and this would be the same--I'm usually saying to watch out what one wishes for (except in certain very obvious cases where a change has to be made); things could and likely will be worse. It doesn't seem there's any obvious alternative where the likelihood of improvement is greater than not. I suppose most of us wouldn't mind seeing what Nieuwendyk could do, if he ever wanted that kind of job. But it seems certain he wouldn't take it in a situation where Schafer was dismissed.

For those who wanted Harvard to beat Quinnipiac, one should never want them to be only a game away from winning another ECAC championship; they've now edged closer to our total.