The Next Two Weekends

We should know a lot more after this weekend's games and even more so after weekend. Since we had an unfortunately weak OOC schedule, we only have the better ECAC teams to judge against better competition. The Q win was nice, but they aren't the same strong team, like in recent years and we lost to them at home. We were okay at Harvard, but we did lose. Beating SLU, and looking good while doing it, was encouraging, but we need to do well against Harvard this weekend and Union next weekend.

Winning both puts us in a very good territory. Splitting is okay, but 2 losses means we might get into NCAAs, but not likely to go far. And we can't have a let down on the following nights.

I've enjoyed this season, but I'm still not sure. These next 2 weekends will tell me a lot.

I'm sure we will still have ups and downs. The wins against first Q and then SLU suggest to me that the floor for this team is now set as competitive for a bye. My lord I'd have taken that in October, when the TBRW prediction was 8th.

What we don't know is the ceiling, and really after the crash and burns of recent years we haven't had the luxury of even speculating in terms of ceilings.

The best news is averaging nearly three goals a game, spread out among players. Defense is essential to winning, but teams averaging fewer than two goals per game, no matter how well they defend, seldom go far in the playoffs.

Hooking
The best news is averaging nearly three goals a game, spread out among players. Defense is essential to winning, but teams averaging fewer than two goals per game, no matter how well they defend, seldom go far in the playoffs.

The Fiegl - Tschantz - {musical third} line looked very good this weekend. I think they will produce some offense that is essentially money for nothin'.

I saw Starrett playing with them a fair amount of time -- don't know if that was just uneven line changes or Mike shortening the bench.

Not sure if +/- actually means anything but Yates (+7) is up there with the leading defensemen (McCrea +9, McCarron +7, Kaldis +6, Smith +6).

IMO, we are where we are because of balance throughout the lineup. And that includes contributions from the defense, particularly McCarron who has been terrific. In recent years if we went down a goal or two I had little confidence that we'd be able to rally. Not so this season.

That being said, we've won a lot of one-goal games, so the margin for error is pretty slim. But I am optimistic about our chances to have a successful final 11 games of the regular season, which to me would be something like 7-4.

scoop85
That being said, we've won a lot of one-goal games, so the margin for error is pretty slim. But I am optimistic about our chances to have a successful final 11 games of the regular season, which to me would be something like 7-4.

Our losses are also all one-goal games, though, with the exception of the home Quinnipiac loss, which was 3-1.

We're playing a lot of close games!

Well let's take a look at the opponents for the nexr four.

Harvard-at home and who knows how this game ends up

Dartmouth-always a problem and haven't lost at Lynah in over 3 seasons now

Union-great top line at a rink that has been a challenge in recent years

RPI-nightmare season but Cornell hasn't won there since 2011


These two weeks will certainly be a test.

andyw2100

scoop85
That being said, we've won a lot of one-goal games, so the margin for error is pretty slim. But I am optimistic about our chances to have a successful final 11 games of the regular season, which to me would be something like 7-4.

Our losses are also all one-goal games, though, with the exception of the home Quinnipiac loss, which was 3-1.

We're playing a lot of close games!

Wasn't Q's 3rd goal an ENG? If so, it should be discounted substantially.

Swampy

andyw2100

scoop85
That being said, we've won a lot of one-goal games, so the margin for error is pretty slim. But I am optimistic about our chances to have a successful final 11 games of the regular season, which to me would be something like 7-4.

Our losses are also all one-goal games, though, with the exception of the home Quinnipiac loss, which was 3-1.

We're playing a lot of close games!

Wasn't Q's 3rd goal an ENG? If so, it should be discounted substantially.

No, but it was incredibly flukey--something like a pass from the corner that hit a Cornell player far away from any Q player and caromed into the net.

kinda like clarksons 3rd goal. that was a pass never going in but we deflected it in.. it may have been a nice pass to set up a goal but we will never know.