All-Ivy Teams

Doug Murray - Ivy League Player of the Year

Five other Big Red skaters honored.

[ivyleaguesports.com]

Didn't scan for the usual Ivy League office typos

great find grady. am not surprised with the results really tho i might have voted differently (tho who really cares how i would vote ) congrats to all six. am surprised that Lenny didn't at least get an honerable mention seeing as he is the #1 goalie in the country. as for the other ivy's members - am still confused why Dom Moore is getting all these kudos when he and Harvard as a whole have been playng like crap as of late!

LeNeveu: 1.51 GAA (#1) .??? SV% (#?)
Underhill: 1.93 GAA (#2) .917 SV% (#4)

Dave's save % was outside the top 8 and I'm too lazy to figure it out, but it really got hammered in the Dartmouth game. Possible the voting was skewed by that, but more likely it's just senioritis. Kind of a 4-year nod to Undy.

LeNeveu did have five Ivy games:

W 4-1 at Brown
W 4-0 at Princeton
L 3-5 Dartmouth
W 2-0 Brown
W 3-2 Yale

4-1-0, 1.60 GAA, 2 Shut outs.

That seems pretty good to me.

First of all, these selections are voted on (supposedly) based only on Ivy-league games over the entire season. Just because Harvard went on a slide late, shouldn't effect what they accomplished over the entire season, stats-wise. Nowak and Moore were 2-3 in Ivy scoring, and certainly earned the spots they got.

If anything, Chris Baldwin of Dartmouth and Tim Pettit of Harvard probably have the most reason to feel jilted as Baldwin had 10 Ivy points and Pettit was the #2 Ivy goal scorer, while Vesce (2-6-8) and Bâby (not on the leader list) got honorable mention. (I'm not complaining). Probably due to their impact on Cornell's championship. (Herrington of Dartmouth also had 10 points but he had only 1 lousy, stinkin' stupid, frustrating Ivy goal. )

As far as goaltenders, Danis and Underhill tied in voting for first team. Danis was #1 in Save % and #3 in GAA. Underhill was #4 in SV% and #2 in GAA. Stathos was #3 in Sv% (and faced by far the most # of shots) and #7 in GAA. LeNeveu didn't rank in the top 9 of SV%, but was #1 in GAA. He also had the fewest # of minutes played in Ivy games. So it looks like the "senior effect" had something to do with it. Stathos also had that final-day shutout of Harvard, which probably got him some votes.

Congrats to Murray and the other Cornellians honored. Let's hope there are more accolades coming.

Stats accessible from this page: [ivyleaguesports.com]

Maturo and Gillings over Harrington and Baldwin for Dartmouth? Hmmm...I could see Maturo up there even after cooling down in the last 6-8 games, but Gillings over either of the other 2 guys? I don't see it. Who voted on this thing?

Saw the Ivy League stats page yesterday, and they're wrong. (I know, big surprise) It looks like they left out the second Yale game when they put together Lenny's stats. He should have 298:08 for minutes played, 8 goals allowed, and a GAA of 1.61. His save percentage in Ivy games was 0.914, so he should be on that list just behind Lombard. I Emailed the Ivy site; we'll see if anything happens...

If he gets elevated to a tie for second team, he should buy you an age-appropriate beverage.

What, like Metamucil? Oh, you mean appropriate to LeNeveu's age...

Beeeej

Higgins had a very good season. I still don't understand how he won the ROY vote unanimously when LeNeveu had the best GAA in the NCAA this year.

Well, I figger it's one (or both) of the following:

1.) Games played.

2.) "Show me the points, baby!"

zg88 wrote:

1.) Games played.

Perhaps I'm making too subtle a distinction about it but I'm thinking that it isn't "David didn't play enough games" but rather a "Chris had an impact night in and night out" kind of thing.

Chris Higgins singlehandedly made Yalies forget that Hobey Baker finalist Jeff Hamilton was gone. While David has a great career ahead of him in net for the Big Red, he simply wasn't able to have the same impact as Higgins did for Yale given David's spliting time with Matt.

Of course, the final weekend of the regular season didn't hurt either. With under 2:36 in the 3rd and down by one, Higgins scored 2 back to back goals in 83 seconds to give the Bullgdogs a 4-3 win over Harvard. Not a bad final image to leave with the committee.

John, I agree, "Chris had an impact night in and night out," but can it also be argued that Dave's 9-1-1 conference record put more meaningful "points" on the board than any other freshman in the ECAC. Does anyone know how many games Higgins out right won for Yale (b/c we can chalk up 19 pts thanks to Lenny)?


oppppsss. . .Yale only had a 20 point season. . .)

St. Lawrence 20
Yale 20
LeNeveu 19
Union 19
Vermont 7

Ben,

I kind of have to disagree with you here. While Leneveu was in net for 19 of our points, he alone didn't win the game. I would imagine that our D, O, and ST's had at least something to do with the wins.

I think Leneveu will get the recognition he deserves next year.

Well, except he won't be a freshman next year. Didn't Higgins go 7 games without a goal or something like that down the stretch?

Yeah. He went 7 games without a goal and 5 without a point. Of course, 2 of those double goose-egg games were against streaking Cornell and Colgate and he did tally 3 assists against Dartmouth and 1 assist against SLU.

By way of comparison, Paolini also had a 7 game stretch with a single goal (v. Yale) and a single point (Clarkson).

So I'm guessing it is just a statistical quirk that shouldn't be over analyzed.

USCHO has a neat stats page I've never noticed before:

Chris
[www.uscho.com]

Sam
[www.uscho.com]

(Rereading my original post it came across as much more of a rah-rah Higgins post than I intended. My bad... )

But LeNeveu didn't go 9-1-1 for Cornell. He went 4-1-1. Or at least that's what his record was in Ivy games.

You can also think in terms of replacement value (though I don't know if the voters did this). Higgins may have been Yale's best player. Without him their offense might have been a lot worse than it was. Without LeNeveu Cornell would.... probably have been right in the same place with Underhill in net (albeit a lot more worried about next year).

John, I agree, "Chris had an impact night in and night out," but can it also be argued that Dave's 9-1-1 conference record put more meaningful "points" on the board than any other freshman in the ECAC.

Also keep in mind that this is the Ivy League award. The only stats that count are the Ivy stats, so the 9-1-1 record is moot for this award. (Keith beat me to this point as I was composing) Higgins was far and away the leading scorer in Ivy games as a freshman.

But don't be surprised if the ECAC ROTY goes to Higgins also. Lenny split games and people can point to Cornell's vaunted defense as a nice thing to play behind as a freshman. Higgins was pretty much the reason Yale made the playoffs. Off the top of my head (and not knowing much about Yale's season), Higgins scored the goal that tied Cornell at Yale, and scored 2 to beat Harvard last Friday. In addition, Higgins finished 3rd in the ECAC in scoring and was #2 in goals (13-14-27) as a freshman. There isn't another freshman in the top 20 in scoring.

Offensive numbers are big when determining post-season awards. Lenny would probably be ROTY almost any other year, but Higgins had a monster year. Although Lenny got 19 points, how many of those would you say Underhill would've gotten? (OK, Keith beat me to this point as well) For Yale, there was nobody else to put the puck in the net. Lenny will definitely get G on the All-ECAC Rookie team, with Underhill and Danis getting 1st and 2nd team.

I predict Danis gets the Dryden award, Higgins gets ROTY. Cornell will more than likely score the Defensive Defensman and Defensive Forward awards and (I hope) Coach of the Year. (I have a feeling RPI will take home the POTY). And I'll gladly trade individual awards for a Whitelaw cup.

The stats on the Ivy League page are updated, except they still have LeNeveu with 6 goals allowed on the GAA page, rather than 8. Oh well, at least the GAA is right, and Lenny still leads the league.

Wouldn't mind a single-malt scotch, especially if it were LeNeveu's age (and maybe even more so if it were mine )

And Beeeej... go away, or I'll smack you with my cane

I'll smack you back with mine! Of course, mine's only temporary. )

Beeeej

Now this is what I'm talking about. . .I'm glad my oversight has started a productive discussion. I realize that this award is just for Ivy play. . .I love it when we can get into a friendly debate. You have all made valid points though I still disagree with one.

"In addition, Higgins finished 3rd in the ECAC in scoring and was #2 in goals (13-14-27) as a freshman. There isn't another freshman in the top 20 in scoring. "

Other than Quinnipiac freshman goalie Jamie Holden in 10th (playing in the extremely weak MAAC) Dave finished the season statistically as the number one collegiate goalie in the country as a frosh (.936 SV% & 1.50 GAA). If that's not impressive I don't know what is. Yes, our defense is surely responsible for some of that, but you have to give credit where credit is do. HE is a Damn good goalie!!! I am not trying to make an argument against Higgins more than I am simply making a "pro" Leneveu pitch. So please forgive me for putting this under the Higgins thread. Generally, goalies get passed over for these kind of awards for this exact reason (scoring goals is somehow more important than stopping them). . .but that's just my opinion. Let's just send the Eli back home to New Haven and worry about the awards when they reeeeaaaaallllyyy matter in about two weeks.

If the award were for Most Valuable Rookie, then I think replacement value should be the guiding factor for choosing the award winner. Because it is Rookie of the Year, I believe that quality of play is more important.

I guess I will weigh in with my actual opinion. I think Higgins deserved the award since Lenny was a platoon goalie. I am still surprised that not a single voter disagreed with me, or let Lenny's non-Ivy stats weigh in his favor.

Unless the Ivy web site specifically defines the term ROTY, I think the distinction between ROTY and MVR is rather fuzzy. MVP is always something that's hard to define. I see your point though Craig.