When we scored the game winning goal today at 1:09 of the overtime, I remembered that the game winning goal in Albany against Harvard was scored at 1:23 of overtime. So I ran some numbers in excel from this season's box scores and found that there are two particular minutes within a period where Cornell scores a good portion of their goals (1:00 to 1:59 and 19:00 to 19:59). I understand the higher number of goals in the last minute because of empty net goals etc., but the bias on the first minute is interesting.
(http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/jan35/goalsmin.JPG)
Kudos for crunching those numbers, Justin. It really is fascinating to look at; I guess it doesn't take us too long into a period to "feel the other team out" before we take it to them. Funny as well that while the 2nd minute of the period is our 2nd most productive, the first minute is our least productive.
Obviously, Coach Schafer has to address the team about minutes 11, 14, and 18 too. Just unacceptable! :-P
Also, it takes 30 seconds or so for the other team to commit a penalty putting us on the power play.
The lack of production in the first minute seems consistent with our style. Scoring very early in the period is more likely for a team that plays a high tempo game; they would be more likely to win the opening faceoff and then score quickly on the rush into the offensive zone. Cornell's offense relies more on grinding and cycling, which takes a little more time to generate goals.
This is all just speculation, of course. But the logic makes sense to me (it had better, since otherwise I'm just wasting bandwidth...)
I'm wondering what the Goals Against chart looks like...
Here's the chart for goals against by minute. The worst times for us in terms of goals against are 8:00-8:59, 10:00-10:59, and 18:00-18:59. Those three one-minute ranges account for almost 35 percent of our goals allowed.
(http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/jan35/ga-min.JPG)
Looks like it's time for a chi-squared test to see if there's any statistical significance to that...
Breakdown of GWG by line and defense pairing:
Vesce line: 8
McRae line: 6
Pegoraro line: 5
Abbott line: 5
Murray/Downs: 2
McRae/Bell: 2
Cook/Wallace: 2
Enough balance?
Goals allowed per month
November: 11 (5 by Dartmouth)
December: 8
January: 10
February: 10
March: 7
Here's another stupid little graph I made....
Interestingly, Murphy was not the worst ref for us this year.
(http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/jan35/wonbyref.JPG)
*Note: Our tie, I counted it as 1/2 a win and 1/2 a loss. Also, it's definitely not statistically significant. Just interesting to look at.
These are great. ;-) Man, I love silly stats. (Obviously)