How good is this year's team?

On the one hand they are 8-3-2 and ranked #9. #1 in team defense, #9 in team offense. They have excellent goaltending again.

On the other hand they are have lost/tied all of the quality out of division opponants (except Maine).

Is this year's team capable of what the '03 squad accomplished?

On another note, the Ivy league scheduling limitaitons seem to be a major disadvantage. They have only played 13 games compared to 15-20 for most of the teams in other conferences. This combined with the inability to offer real scholarship $s would seem to present major obstacles to keeping up with the national competition.

What do you guys think?

i wont touch the scholarship issue, i am sure others will.
as for how good they are, time will tell. I think they are a solid team capable of doing well and making a dent in the NC$$s but staying out of the penalty box will be key. finishing strong will give them a shot at an at large bit but if they are able to do so I am not sure. Last year I said that this team would be almost as good as the FF team but we shall see. and about the games, our student athletes are students first, as compared to some other schools...

Ivy League football was once nationally competitive...until academic/scholarship limitations quickly created a huge divide. Lets hopew this does not happen in pucks.

I'm a little concerned about the intangibles. In '02 the Red lost a heartbreaker to UNH in the NCAA quarterfinals. In '03 they built upon that (and lost a heartbreaker to UNH in the Frozen Four). My point? The '03 team knew they could do it. All we needed was a lead and the defence more or less guaranteed a win.

I'm not sure if this year's team is playing with the same level of confidence to know they should be there. Perhaps if they win out (or lose 2 more at most) they'll get to that point.

[Q]jy3 Wrote:
as for how good they are, time will tell. I think they are a solid team capable of doing well and making a dent in the NC$$s but staying out of the penalty box will be key. [/q]For what it's worth, I think the huge number of penalties the team took down in Florida was an aberration due to officiating that was a bit... overzealous... and not due to bad team discipline. I wouldn't read too much into it.

Is the statement false if you have to put a qualifier at the end?

When have we not been competitive on the road? Maybe the second game of the MSU series and that's it.

I went into this season pessimistic because of our age but our young guys are the real deal. Is this years team capable of what the '03 team did? Maybe (honestly, the '05 team is no where near the '03 team, experience-wise--that team was fully matured--but it is approaching the '03 team in terms of talent), but next years team will look a lot like this years team and they'll be much more rehearsed playing on the road. Think '02 -> '03.

Bottom line, we looked extremely competitive against BC and Maine, two scholarship powerhouses, even though we were penalized like I have never seen before. We will give every team we play a run for their money and we are a favorite in the ECAC(HL). We are in a position to be successful.

Does anyone really think that the difference in games played makes much difference by the time we reach the second half of the schedule? Yes, in November the Ivies are at a disadvantage playing against teams that have been playing together for a month. Everyone has been playing for at least two months now - I would think it would've evened out by now.

1-2-1 against MSU, BC and Maine isn't great but it's not horrible. Especially since we had chances to win both of the games that we lost. (We were outplayed against MSU, but had plenty of solid chances to score goals and the final was only 2-0). I think this year's team is still a step behind the top teams but can play with 'em.

[Q]atb9 Wrote:
Bottom line, we looked extremely competitive against BC and Maine, two scholarship powerhouses, even though we were penalized like I have never seen before.[/q]Everybody was penalized like nobody's business in Florida. We had plenty of power plays to go along with all the penalties we took. If anything, as goood as special teams typically are under Schafer, you'd think that might've worked to our advantage.

You could argue that the lack of games causes more injuries or prevents them...if we play teams of our ability (the MSU's and BU's) that are in better game-playing condition (hitting, awareness, etc) early in the season, we are risking injury. By playing less games, there is less of an opportunity for players to get injured in game playing situations.

The main problem with the lack of games is our inability to play a significant breadth of major teams since we need those few early season, out of conference games to strengthen our legs. But again it's an easily made, dual-faced argument. If we lose a cupcake game early in the season to a team that would normally be below us had we been on equal footing, that loss can loom large so we don't we go for it and play the big boys anyways? We usually are very happy if we get four, strong out-of-conference games between Thanksgiving weekend and the FCC. This creates a smaller resume come NCAA selection time...a smaller sample size by which we are judged. Looking at the OOC schedules of the non-ivies in the ECAC, it looks like we miss out on a big OOC opponent (or two) early in the season and a few cupcakes after winter break to get our legs going again. In the end, I don't think we miss out too much since in recent history the ivies have competed well with the non-ivies and there is no discernable discrepancy between the ivies and non-ivies.

[Q]atb9 Wrote:

Maybe (honestly, the '05 team is no where near the '03 team, experience-wise--that team was fully matured--but it is approaching the '03 team in terms of talent), but next years team will look a lot like this years team and they'll be much more rehearsed playing on the road. Think '02 -> '03.

[/q]

I agree with you. I think it's better to compare this team, with its powerful Junior class, with the '02 team than the '03 team. Hopefully we're good enough to make the NCAAs, but would have to pull off a major upset or two to get to the Frozen Four. This team needs to make the NCAA tourney to have the experience for a shot at a NC next year.

Let me explain further....long breaks tend to really hurt your special teams (BC had 18 days between games, we had 24). Add in BCs relentless pressure to the rust of our special teams and you have an inept man advantage. The fact that we kept the game so close and that we were so competitive is amazing.

The BC game was fairly even in terms of penalties, so I wasn't too taken aback by that game. What really surprised me was the following day when I think we only had four power plays during the Maine game where as they had, what, 10? There was a significant discrepancy during the second game.

There are way too many unknowns to say whether this is a great or merely a pretty good team. McKee's upside is still an unknown -- he has yet to show that he can singlehandedly carry the team, or to show that he can't. The youngsters' early returns are good, and Pokulok and Sawada may be All-Americans in a couple of years... or they may be nothing special. And the New Improved Whizbang Offense has already suffered an awful slump, and may only work against weak opponents.

Right now the knowns are:
+ the defensive system, on both sides of the blue line, is again monotonously excellent
+ the penalty kill is solid (at this point this is practically a logical corrollary to the D's rating)
+ the team has tremendous depth, so losing a star for a game here and there won't cripple them, with the possible exception of McKee

Odds as of today (IMHO):

85/15 First Round Bye
80/20 Albany
30/70 ECAC Title

40/60 NCAA Bid
15/85 NCAA Advance
05/95 Frozen Four

[Q]Greg Berge Wrote:


Odds as of today (IMHO):

85/15 First Round Bye
80/20 Albany
30/70 ECAC Title

40/60 NCAA Bid
15/85 NCAA Advance
05/95 Frozen Four[/q]

I agree with your odds, except I would put the NCAA bid up to 65/35 and correspondingly bump up the NCAA advance and FF chances.

If you say we have a 30% chance of winning the ECACs and only 40% chance of making the NCAAs, you're implying the chance for an at large bid is very small. By also saying we have an 85% shot at a first round bye means the Red are going to play well in conference the rest of the way. If they do, I think the chance of getting an at large bid is very good, considering that the ECAC has a much better inter-conference record compared to the recent past.

[Q]KeithK Wrote:
1-2-1 against MSU, BC and Maine isn't great but it's not horrible. Especially since we had chances to win both of the games that we lost. (We were outplayed against MSU, but had plenty of solid chances to score goals and the final was only 2-0). I think this year's team is still a step behind the top teams but can play with 'em.[/q]
Well said. I agree. This team may have the potential to be very good, but also have the potential to be not so great. They'll be competitive most of the time, but winning seems to be another thing. A bit more experience under their belts this season and they may pick it up, but they may not. They have a potential for a run, but also the potential to fizz out. We'll see.

[Q]DeltaOne81 Wrote:

KeithK Wrote:
1-2-1 against MSU, BC and Maine isn't great but it's not horrible. Especially since we had chances to win both of the games that we lost. (We were outplayed against MSU, but had plenty of solid chances to score goals and the final was only 2-0). I think this year's team is still a step behind the top teams but can play with 'em.[/Q]
Well said. I agree. This team may have the potential to be very good, but also have the potential to be not so great. They'll be competitive most of the time, but winning seems to be another thing. A bit more experience under their belts this season and they may pick it up, but they may not. They have a potential for a run, but also the potential to fizz out. We'll see.[/q]

Gotta tighten up in our own end. Plenty scary last night.

 

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Al DeFlorio '65