Yale 11/23

[Give My Regards]

Was this the first time Cornell has beaten the defending national champion since the 1990 ECAC Quarterfinals?

It's possible.   Between this and this the research beckons!  

Well, since you asked so nicely... yes, this is Cornell's first win over the defending NCAA champ since 1990.  This is also the first time Cornell has hosted the defending champ since 1990, which correlates nicely with this being the first time an ECAC team won the title since 1989.

Here are Cornell's games against the defending NCAA champion since then:

1/1/94    L 4-1  vs Maine, Mariucci Classic consolation
11/21/95  L 7-1  at BU
1/7/97    T 3-3  at Michigan
12/27/97  L 5-1  vs North Dakota, Grand Rapids Tournament
11/28/09  T 3-3  vs BU, Madison Square Garden

[Trotsky]

Cool thank you!

[dag14]

I am going to take a flyer and posit that Coach Schafer doesn't put together his game plan based on hockey analytics.  If he thinks his players can beat a team to the puck, he will dump and chase.  Last night he was right.

[Cop at Lynah]

The save of the game was the shot Knisley stopped that was heading into an open net.  That was a game changer for sure.

[css228]

Yikes. I tried to write the post on my phone and posted prematurely. I'll try again from the beginning.

I am fairly, but not intimately, familiar with the hockey analytics you're writing about, and I want to raise a couple of caveats.

First, shot attempts are merely a proxy for puck possession. We use it because that's the most freely available data. Shot attempts are a good proxy---better than I had thought intuitively---but it's still only a proxy. When Rodger Craig or Tony Bergin scrapes the puck along the boards in the offensive zone, the puck is 160 feet away from our net. For that time and the next few seconds, the other team isn't scoring. (Then again, until Rodger can turn those extend possessions into scoring chances, neither are we.) In addition, CORSI can be manipulated by specific strategies. As Adam Wodon would write, given equal offensive zone time, a Guy Godowsky coached team would have more shot attempts than teams that are more selective with their shots. There is no publicly available way to compensate accurately for this.

Second, it's not very surprising that dump ins yield fewer shots than carrying the puck into the offensive zone. But, given the limited number of studies of this, how much of the correlation can we say is causation? The decision to dump or carry is impacted tremendously by player personnel and positioning. I can't think of a time in tonight's game when I thought that Cornell unwisely chose to dump the puck in when the team could have carried the puck into the zone with a high likelihood of success. The Bardreau and Mowrey lines didn't seem remotely reluctant to carry the puck into the Yale zone.

Overall, I was very pleased with the team's puck management. I counted only two defensive turnovers by defensemen in the first two periods. Against Yale, that's terrific. There were six more in the third period, many of which came in the last several minutes. Fortunately, none of those ended up in the back of the Cornell net.

On the second note. Of course the decision to dump is impacted by position, but theres actually been analysis showing that the old Soviet strategy of holding onto the puck going back and regrouping, then trying to gain the zone with possession, will lead to more shots than dumping. But are there times when dumping is the right play? Absolutely, when its a choice between a turnover at the blue line or a turnover below the goal line by all means dump and chase, but if you have the regroup option, or you can carry in that's the right choice. Furthermore if you're a handsy guy like Ferlin or Bardreau (and those are the two that do this the most), why not try to beat a single defender if the opening looks like it's there. I'm not suggesting the Craig or our other fourth liners should be carrying and shooting all the time, Craig's surprsing hands on the union goal 2 years ago notwithstanding.

[Trotsky]

Post-game interview, evidently held in an FBI interrogation room.

The players have the musical taste of 12-year old girls.

[Josh '99]

You are right.  We were outshot 31-29.  What other facet of the game did we not control?  Time of possession?  Hits?  PP?  PK?  Not only was this our best game so far this season, this was the best game I have seen a Lynah since I can't remember when.  Gives one hope for the rest of the season.

Well the shots weren't really the problem. You're going to give up shots when you're leading the entire ed game, especially in the 3rd period. If you looked at all shot attempts I'm pretty sure the corsi numbers would be close if not in our favor. I'd say our zone entries could be better. We definitely carried and passed in more often than usual, but there was still too much dump and chase. You generate more shots on carry in and pass ins than dump ins and shoot ins. The PK was great and the power play was very good I'm most worried about our zone exits from the defensive zone. We get the puck out, but without possession far too often. More and more evidence is showing that the most important zone in hockey is the neutral zone. We played well there, but did not dominate it by any stretch of the imagination. Still a good game against a good team. If we play like this we'll have a good season. If we go back to what we were doing before this is a .500 team at best.

Corsi is probably not the best metric for what Schafer is trying to accomplish. If you listen to him talk about such things, he's wants the team to limit shots to be from the periphery at bad angles. Is there any metric that actually takes the shooter's location into account?

Unfortunately no there is not, because shot quality has been found to be less correlated with success and just taking shots. While some shots are clearly better than other shots, there is no evidence that a team can consistently game after game create better quality shots in a way that would appreciably affect shooting percentages. The idea of shot quality is appealing, but at the end of the day a puck bouncing around is a matter of chance. Its a matter of luck whether or not you get that flat puck in the slot with a clear lane, and you can't really count on that appearing.It's better to be the LA Kings or the Chicago Blackhawks (two of the best possession teams in the NHL the last few years) than it is the Maple Leafs. Therefore shooting more is inherently better, because the more shots you take, the better chances you will get. Its essentially the problem we saw on the odd man rushes today, trying to force a cute saucer pass instead of ripping a shot low at the pads and driving the net for a rebound. There are a lot of good articles on the subject, but I like this one in particular. I mean its completely possible that Schafer and the Leafs have created some system where shot quality has become a repeatable phenomenon, but none of the evidence at the moment supports the idea that shot quality trumps just shooting.

I am fairly, but not intimately, familiar with the hockey analytics you're writing about, and I want to raise a couple of caveats.

First, shot attempts are merely a proxy for puck possession. We use it because that's the most freely available data. Shot attempts are a good proxy---better than I had thought intuitively---but it's still only a proxy. When Rodger Craig or Tony Bergin scrapes the puck along the boards in the offensive zone, the puck is 160 feet away from our net. For that time and the next few seconds, the other team isn't scoring. (Then again, until Rodger can turn those extend possessions into scoring chances, neither are we.) In addition, CORSI can be manipulated by specific strategies. As Adam Wodon would write, given equal offensive zone time, a Guy Godowsky coached team

This brought a smile to my face - haven't thought about Tony Bergin in quite a while.

[cbuckser]

his brought a smile to my face - haven't thought about Tony Bergin in quite a while.

Then I can bring this thread full circle. Among the four losses to defending national champions between March 1990 and last weekend that Give My Regards kindly listed was the 11/21/95 shellacking at BU. My strongest memory of that game is watching Tony Bergin waive bye-bye at a BU player after an altercation, apparently not realizing that he, too, was about to get DQ'd.