Weekend v. Colgate

Friday: embarrassing 1-1 OT finish against a team that was 0-9-1 in league play before tonight.

Is it bad that I want this season to be over?

It's always irritating to blow a lead late and lord knows they've done it a lot this year, but getting a tie on the road should never be considered embarrassing. If they can come back and win Saturday it will have been a good weekend. Also, Garman played very well, Nicholls and Whitney were back and got loads of ice time, and coach seemed to suggest that Espo would be back next weekend, so there was plenty of good news mixed in.

(Scoring just once against Colgate's brutal D certainly wasn't good news, granted.)

I wouldn't say embarassed, but definitely dissappointed. Colgate has the worst PK in the ECAC. With a 5 minute major in the first period, Cornell should have scored at least one goal.

Saturday's game is an obvious must win.

we are about 1 good weekend away from being top 4 in the league. a win tonight makes us 4-1-1 with 3 of them on the road.. not being a great year doesnt mean it cant be a good year

upprdeck
we are about 1 good weekend away from being top 4 in the league. a win tonight makes us 4-1-1 with 3 of them on the road.. not being a great year doesnt mean it cant be a good year

If by 1 good weekend, you mean a ton of upsets, maybe. But we have 5 losses and a tie, there are 6 teams better than that, only one of whom we play next weekend. Two or three good weekends are more reasonable, and I don't see anything so far to give me good feelings about that chance. Hopefully I'm wrong, but a 5 or 6 seed seems more hopeful.

Standings:

                         Conference Only                    Overall
                    Pts  GP  Record  Win%  GF- GA   GP  Record  Win%  GF- GA
 1 Yale              20  11 10- 1- 0 .909  47- 22   18 16- 2- 0 .889  87- 38
 2 Dartmouth         15  11  7- 3- 1 .682  38- 18   18 11- 5- 2 .667  66- 44
   Union             15  11  7- 3- 1 .682  30- 22   25 15- 7- 3 .660  90- 52
   Princeton         15  12  7- 4- 1 .625  34- 28   18 11- 6- 1 .639  56- 39
 5 Rensselaer        12  11  6- 5- 0 .545  30- 27   23 14- 6- 3 .674  66- 50
   Quinnipiac        12  13  5- 6- 2 .462  31- 37   25 12-10- 3 .540  65- 72
 7 Clarkson          11  10  5- 4- 1 .550  28- 40   22 11- 9- 2 .545  63- 71
   Brown             11  11  5- 5- 1 .500  31- 35   18  7- 7- 4 .500  59- 64
   Cornell           11  11  5- 5- 1 .500  27- 24   18  7- 9- 2 .444  48- 49
10 St. Lawrence       6  10  3- 7- 0 .300  23- 33   22  7-11- 4 .409  59- 65
11 Harvard            4  12  2-10- 0 .167  23- 40   17  3-14- 0 .176  31- 56
12 Colgate            2  11  0- 9- 2 .091  23- 39   23  3-18- 2 .174  58- 75

Assume Yale, SLU, Harvard and Colgate have made their respective beds. That leaves this fight for 2-9:

Dartmouth         15  11  7- 3- 1 .682  38- 18
Union             15  11  7- 3- 1 .682  30- 22
Princeton         15  12  7- 4- 1 .625  34- 28
Rensselaer        12  11  6- 5- 0 .545  30- 27
Quinnipiac        12  13  5- 6- 2 .462  31- 37
Clarkson          11  10  5- 4- 1 .550  28- 40
Brown             11  11  5- 5- 1 .500  31- 35
Cornell           11  11  5- 5- 1 .500  27- 24

Among those, Dartmouth looks categorically better and Clarkson worse, assume this is the fight for 3-8:

Union             15  11  7- 3- 1 .682  30- 22
Princeton         15  12  7- 4- 1 .625  34- 28
Rensselaer        12  11  6- 5- 0 .545  30- 27
Quinnipiac        12  13  5- 6- 2 .462  31- 37
Brown             11  11  5- 5- 1 .500  31- 35
Cornell           11  11  5- 5- 1 .500  27- 24

So these six teams are all in a fight for 2 bye seeds with about 10 games to play and some separation based on first half sins:

Union             ---
Princeton         0.5
Rensselaer        1.5
Brown             2.0
Cornell           2.0
Quinnipiac        2.5

Naturally, whatever the metric the last sentence is always, "Just win, baby."

Anybody know how the women are doing at Colgate?

we win tonight and we are 1 game behind princeton. we get clarkson at home. Quin we pass if we win tonight. we can get to 5th in a game. sweep next week and we could be in 4th already. whether we are good enough to be 4th is to be debated. other than Yale the other teams are no better than 2 games ahead.

Yale & Dartmouth lost this afternoon. And in other news it's cold outside.

I didn't think the bulldogs and the sluts were playing this afternoon.

Yale won. The post by me on Saturday was due to a web error. They did play at 7.

marty
Yale & Dartmouth lost this afternoon. And in other news it's cold outside.

I didn't think the bulldogs and the sluts were playing this afternoon.

Clarkson v. Brown had a 4 PM start. Clarkson won 3-1 according to the score update forum on USCHO.

Congratulations to Tyler Roeszler. First hat trick for a Cornell player since Greening in 2008. He now leads the team with 8 goals.

The only thing separating this team from a top-4 finish is its god-awful power play. We've got the 4th-best team defense in the league and the 6th-best team offense, that with most of our goals coming even strength. From Thomas's game story in the Journal:

"Basically, coach has been harping us about getting to the net," Axell said. "We've gotta have net presence. ... Puck just bounced in front of there and I just knocked it in. The rest is history."

Yeah, basically that. Do that. The bread and butter of Cornell scoring over the last 15 years or so.

BigRedHockeyFan
Congratulations to Tyler Roeszler. First hat trick for a Cornell player since Greening in 2008. He now leads the team with 8 goals.

Career total his first three seasons: 6. Fingers crossed for a Rob Levasseur/Ross Lemon/Geoff Bumstead style senior season.

Roeszler is showing a lot of poise in front of the net. Really looked good on Saturday. He sneaks in, makes his shots and gets out of there. Lets hope for lots more. Here's some video:

[ecachockey.com]

Brian Sullivan
I have come to the conclusion that the league’s most undervalued team right now is Cornell: the Big Red are 3–6–2 (.364) in one-goal games, compared to a .474 overall winning percentage. That’s a considerable difference in performance, and combined with the fact that the Red are +6 in ECAC goal differential (and +2 overall), I am led to believe that Cornell is the most likely team to make a jump in the standings in the coming weeks.

[www.uscho.com]

I like Brian's optimism, but tying Colgate this year invalidates any statistical analysis.

are we not also about several 3rd period goals goals away from having won about 10 out of 11 games since the Colgate comeback in NOV..
not that we deserve it but leading all those games in the 3rd has to be looked at in some positive light.. the teams of the last 10 years probably take that 6-3-2 record and make it 10-1 as we for the longest time never lost those games..

even if we had gone and won 2 of those late collapses. 8-2-1 would be seen as a big positive. just the colgate tie would mean win Fri and we are in 3rd in a down year for the program by all accounts..

"It's a long season and you gotta trust it."

Looking ahead:

Likely win (3): at Harvard, St. Lawrence, Harvard

Likely loss (4): at Dartmouth, at Union, at RPI, at Yale

Anybody's game (3): Clarkson, Dartmouth, at Brown

Let's see where they stand after this weekend.