Ridiculously Early Playoff Speculation

Yeah, I know there's still eight games left to be played (seven for Harvard and Dartmouth), but I feel like looking ahead...

If no team's performance over the last eight games is drastically different from their performance thus far, then I'd say it seems likely that our first-round playoff matchup will be against Princeton, SLU, Yale, RPI, Brown, or UVM. (I don't think we or Union will slip far enough for us to draw them.) Vermont would need to turn things around in order to even make the playoffs (7 points so far, RPI in 10th with 11), but the other five teams are logjammed with 10, 11, or 12 points. Out of those five teams, who would you want (or not want) to see Cornell play, and why?

To answer my own question, unless something strange happens this weekend, Princeton seems the best chance for an easy first-round series, based on the way the game went at Princeton in the fall.

Yale stifled our offense pretty effectively at the Whale in the fall, and has played us pretty evenly over the past few years, dating back to the debacle in the spring of '98. Still, I think in a series at Lynah, I wouldn't worry about them TOO much; Higgins and Lombard might push it to three games, though.

Despite our recently completed regular-season sweep of Brown, we've all noticed their giant-killing tendencies already this year. I also predicted earlier this year that they'll win their quints on the road this spring, and I stand by that prediction, so I'd rather not see them at Lynah.

SLU has beaten the Red at Placid in each of the last two years, and a playoff win over them would be some nice payback. However, having seen them last weekend, they're a better team than their record would indicate. They've also got a better goal differential than all of the teams listed above, as well as Union and Colgate, and their 48 goals for are just one less than our 49, the most for any team with 14 games played, so they can score. (Dartmouth has 53 and Harvard has 49, both with 15 GP.) Still, I think the road to the title for whoever wins it will lead through SLU, and I'd rather see them at Lynah than in Placid, where they would have great fan support. (But given my choice, I'd rather not see them at all.)

And of course, the enigma that is RPI. Plainly put, if Murley and Cavosie are both healthy (I read somewhere that Cavosie has a minor injury, and Murley missed games earlier in the year), I don't want to play them. On a tenth place team, those two are first and third in the league in scoring. While the team defense kept those two in check admirably in the first meeting, if RPI's offense gets hot, they're capable of scoring five goals on us like they did against BU, or six like they did against UNH. (Cavosie and Murley combined for 7 goals and 2 assists in those two games, and almost brought the Engineers back from a 6-1 deficit at Walter Brown.) They WILL score, and I'd rather they didn't do it against us.

So, there's my rambling and probably ill-informed and poorly-formulated opinion. Discuss.

Josh Herman wrote:

I'd say it seems likely that our first-round playoff matchup will be against Princeton, SLU, Yale, RPI, Brown, or UVM... Out of those five teams, who would you want (or not want) to see Cornell play, and why?

Yale stifled our offense pretty effectively at the Whale in the fall... Still, I think in a series at Lynah, I wouldn't worry about them TOO much; Higgins and Lombard might push it to three games, though.

I'd least like to see Yale in the playoffs. They didn't just "stifle our offense pretty effectively" but outright shut us down for 59 minutes. And I don't just mean on the score board. After the first goal :25 seconds into the game, we never had any offense to speak of. We had 4 total shots in the 2nd period for godsake. Even when we did get a rare, quality shot, like Iggy's shot in the waning moments in the 3rd, Lombard stopped it easily. Their aggressive 2 man forecheck, coupled with their speed was highly effective against our offense

Don't forget that this Yale squad also lost to BU 4-3 in OT, lost to UMinn-Duluth, Miami and UNH by 1 (1+ENG v. UNH) on the road, and split with OSU (L3-2, W6-2!) on the road.

A 6-13-2 team with 65 GF and 62 GA is just waiting to turn the corner and wallop some people. Given this, I'm guessing we won't have to face them in the first round as I suspect they will finish 4-7th in the league. While Yale has no depth, their first two lines can play with anybody in the league. Lombard's ability to steal games, in conjunction with Hellemeyer and Higgins means that Yale is poised to upset a home seed in the 1st round.