Buh-bye, seniors

[Tom Lento]

The belief that you can have 5 shots on goal in a period, get up 1-0, and ride that 40 more minutes to a win is just not going to happen.

Were we watching the same game?  Cornell carried the play in the 2nd period on Friday, put a lot of pressure on in the offensive zone, and had 11 shots to show for it in the period. They were certainly not playing "ride it out" hockey in that period.

What happens when you fall behind a couple goals?  

I guess you come back.

And then you do it again.

And then just for shits and giggles, you keep doing it.

And then if at that point people still believe that your team/system is dead in the water after 2 goal deficits, then I guess you just give up trying to show otherwise.

What's the common thread in all those box scores you posted?  The opposing team only scored 2 goals each time.  2 goals isn't that much.  

Another common thread?  Cornell got knocked out the next round in all three cases.  They used up their offense coming from 2 goals behind and had nothing left for the next night.

The last noteworthy common thread?  In the three games following those you mentioned, Cornell scored a total of THREE GOALS, THREE GOALS IN THREE GAMES.  That ain't "gettin it done" in my opinion, and it speaks to Schafer's inability to recruit or coach a team that can consistently score even TWO GOALS (TWO F'ING GOALS!!!) in consecutive tournament games.  

It's a pattern and it's not changing anytime soon under this system.  If you consider a 7-8 record in the tournament a success, than yes, we've been tremendously successful coming out of a 4th rated conference.  But if you measure success by Frozen Four's and National Championships, like Schafer and his staff have promised time and time again, then it's ludicrous to accept these results.

You're not going to win NCAA Championships averaging 2 goals in the first 2 games of the regional.  Bottom line.  And, with the exception of 2003, that's all the Schafer system has been able to muster in 15 years.

Used up our offense?  I wasn't aware that you had a set amount of offense to spread over a weekend.

And as has been pointed out (in this thread or one of the other ones) Wisconsin won it all doing exactly what we do.

Somebody must have stolen our Precious Bodily Fluids.  ::wank::

Well played.

[Tom Lento]

Also bear in mind that, per KRACH (i.e., a better ranking system than PWR), UNH should actually have been a slim favorite going into this year's game, despite the fact that Cornell was the higher seed per PWR.

I don't think past records has much to do with Friday's game, the team we saw was much different from the team that played two weekends ago.

On the other hand, I'm not trying to jump on the bandwagon or anything, but I would like to see a change in our offensive strategy. Schafer's "system" needs the performance and cooperation of every shift and almost every man in order to work because that strategy only succeeds if the every shift applies constant pressure in the opposing side. Compared to run and gun teams, they only need a few good scorers to be on their game each night in order to put points on the board because teams will inevitably transition. Defense is just something they use to delay the other team's scoring, which UNH did because we didn't score "below expectations" that night. It takes much more discipline and consistency for Schafer's system to work and I think that's why we have those flops during the year. Teams like Yale only needs 2 or 3 of their top 6 scorers to perform each night and they will have a competitive game.

Do you seriously believe that Yale could get away with a bad game from one of its top two lines? Yale, with its complete and total lack of defense and goaltending and an entire system predicated on sustaining an aggressive forecheck, generating chances off turnovers, and relying on its forwards to disrupt the other team's ability to move the puck across all three zones? Maybe they could get away with it against Brown, (ok, maybe not even against Brown), but I think it's pretty clear that they couldn't get away with a bad game from any portion of their top lines against a team like BC. Yale made a few mistakes in the middle of that game and all of a sudden it was 9-4 and BC was packing their bags for Detroit with 10 minutes left to play. Watching that game the outcome wasn't in doubt after the first part of the third period - and I don't think Yale's forward lines played badly for more than maybe a few minutes in the second and a few minutes in the third. I'd hate to think of what it would have been like if 1/3 to 1/2 of Yale's top forward talent didn't play well for the *entire* game.

All you're saying is when two good teams play each other, the one that doesn't get consistent execution is likely to lose. I don't see what that has to do with the system or style of play.

[ajh258]

Do you seriously believe that Yale could get away with a bad game from one of its top two lines? Yale, with its complete and total lack of defense and goaltending and an entire system predicated on sustaining an aggressive forecheck, generating chances off turnovers, and relying on its forwards to disrupt the other team's ability to move the puck across all three zones? Maybe they could get away with it against Brown, (ok, maybe not even against Brown), but I think it's pretty clear that they couldn't get away with a bad game from any portion of their top lines against a team like BC. Yale made a few mistakes in the middle of that game and all of a sudden it was 9-4 and BC was packing their bags for Detroit with 10 minutes left to play. Watching that game the outcome wasn't in doubt after the first part of the third period - and I don't think Yale's forward lines played badly for more than maybe a few minutes in the second and a few minutes in the third. I'd hate to think of what it would have been like if 1/3 to 1/2 of Yale's top forward talent didn't play well for the *entire* game.

All you're saying is when two good teams play each other, the one that doesn't get consistent execution is likely to lose. I don't see what that has to do with the system or style of play.

I am not advocating that we turn into Yale, because a team needs good goaltending in order to consistently win. However, we do need to work on the way we transition and attack, which is the main point of my comment. Our current system is great for tiring down our opponents, but it's not putting enough points on the board. If Yale's defense is that pathetic, why can't we outscore them even once this year? It's because we always either dump it into the other end and have to fight for control with a new line or we pull back and reorganize, but then they will have all their defenders in position.

I don't think a gun and run strategy could get away with only one good line every night, but it's definitely possible, especially against teams like ours who don't score as much. All they need is one successful breakaway or a 2-on-1 and it could change the momentum dramatically on against a team that has been working hard to keep the puck contained in the opposing end. On the other hand, the success of our offensive strategy requires all 5 players to execute at the same time, over the entire game, every game. If one player fails, it could change into a turnover very easily and we are at the jeopardy of the other team. When enough of these scoring chances occur, it turns into goals, and that's what teams look for when they play against us.

So can we expect all of our players to perform every night over the entire season at all times? No. So what could we do to take advantage of our excellent defense? Change our offensive strategy. When run and gun teams are not firing on all cylinders, they can still win games because a few of their players will convert. I don't think every player on UNH was on their game last weekend - they had a few key plays making the goals and assists. When we are not, we see the entire team break down from a turning point, just like what happened against Dartmouth and Princeton.

[JasonN95]

ajh, I think Cornell's excellent defense is in large part due to the calculating way the offense is run. The team puts a priority on keeping the puck in the offensive zone and waits for its scoring opportunities; if there isn't one, the team doesn't try to force the puck on net or take a bad shot, it puts it back down low and works the other team over while trying to create a chance and all the while denying the opposition any. That offensive style minimizes transitional play for the other team that catch our defense at a disadvantage. You make it sound like Schafer, since the team has had defensive success, decided to turn off the offense spigot and content himself with just playing defense. Run and gun will have a detrimental impact on the defense, one that I expect would result in a net-loss in the goals-per-game differential and win/loss record given the type of player Cornell can generally bring in.  Consider NoDak.  There's no argument after the two game series that they have more individual talent than Cornell. In a skills contest the outcome would be embarrassingly in favor of NoDak. But I argued on here that Cornell played as good or better than NoDak the second night as a team and lost a game I thought they "should" have won. NoDaks players were zipping around and the puck was in Cornell's end more --it sure looked dazzling at times-- but Cornell's team play was such that NoDak really didn't have many quality scoring chances whereas I though Cornell, which had to wait for its moments, had more and better ones.

[Lowell '99]

Jordan, just for fond memories, you also forgot this one.