Yale 2 at Cornell 1 (OT) postgame

[Towerroad]

This is my first post, but I have been reading and following Big Red Hockey on and off since the 60's.

I can't fault the players for the Yale performance. They were recruited to play a certain style of hockey and they have been playing the game they were coached to play.

The "Schafer System" consistently builds teams that are as good as any hockey team in college hockey on defense. This system has permitted us to reach the NCAA tournament most years. It has not moved us into the status of an elite college hockey program such as BC, BU, CC, Denver, NDak or the the handful of others that regularly occupy the top ten at the end of the season.

Last night was a classic example. We held one of the best offensive teams in the country to 1 goal in regulation. What we did not do was play offense. The passes were picked off with alarming regularity and when we dumped the puck into the offensive end we were beat to the puck by a faster better puck handling team. The last 2 periods we had a total of 8 shots on net. You can't plan on winning a hockey game when your opponent out-shoots you 2.5:1. Our Power Play is predictable and not very effective.

Don't get me wrong, I bleed as RED as any of you. But, if we want to join the college hockey elite we need to adapt to the new realities that speed and puck handling are at least as important as solid defense. Yale did not build their team to beat Cornell, they built their team to win hockey games.

Reshaping a team that has better balance is a multi year task and requires that prospective student/athletes that have the sorts of speed and puck handling talents want to come to Ithaca and be assured that they will not be asked to "give up the body" and become another cog in the CU defensive meat grinder. It is a big task and I am not sure if Mike Shafer, in spite of all he has done for CU hockey, can do it or whether it is a goal worth pursuing.

[Trotsky]

Great points and welcome to posting.  The Schafer system is very successful in conference and it's been pretty successful in the NCAAs as well.  It doesn't line up well against teams of exceptional finesse and speed in the same way that a tank column doesn't have the maneuverability of mounted archers.  But (1) armor squishes cavalry most of the time, and (2) you can turn scrap metal into tanks, whereas you can't always find horses.

[ugarte]

This is my first post, but I have been reading and following Big Red Hockey on and off since the 60's.

I can't fault the players for the Yale performance. They were recruited to play a certain style of hockey and they have been playing the game they were coached to play.

The "Schafer System" consistently builds teams that are as good as any hockey team in college hockey on defense. This system has permitted us to reach the NCAA tournament most years. It has not moved us into the status of an elite college hockey program such as BC, BU, CC, Denver, NDak or the the handful of others that regularly occupy the top ten at the end of the season.

Last night was a classic example. We held one of the best offensive teams in the country to 1 goal in regulation. What we did not do was play offense. The passes were picked off with alarming regularity and when we dumped the puck into the offensive end we were beat to the puck by a faster better puck handling team. The last 2 periods we had a total of 8 shots on net. You can't plan on winning a hockey game when your opponent out-shoots you 2.5:1. Our Power Play is predictable and not very effective.

Don't get me wrong, I bleed as RED as any of you. But, if we want to join the college hockey elite we need to adapt to the new realities that speed and puck handling are at least as important as solid defense. Yale did not build their team to beat Cornell, they built their team to win hockey games.

Reshaping a team that has better balance is a multi year task and requires that prospective student/athletes that have the sorts of speed and puck handling talents want to come to Ithaca and be assured that they will not be asked to "give up the body" and become another cog in the CU defensive meat grinder. It is a big task and I am not sure if Mike Shafer, in spite of all he has done for CU hockey, can do it or whether it is a goal worth pursuing.

Great debut. I agree with all of this, with the caveat that Schafer has consistently built a top 10 team with this defensive style. IMHO, he builds the team he builds because it is hard to recruit the top athletes to come to Ithaca, so he instead finds the underappreciated grinders that will fit his system. It is similar, I think, to the way Boise State has built top 10 teams in football outside of the BCS.

[Trotsky]

Oh sure, be overt.  Metaphors are better.  Chicks dig catachresis.

[Towerroad]

I think we will pretty quickly get to a Chicken and Egg discussion but if Coach Schafers claim to fame is being able to develop players then why do they all become defense experts? How can we take that talent and move it to the other side of the ice?

Put another way. You are a hot shot 5'10 175 lb forward who is fast, has good hands, excellent stick work, a sniper eye and academically qualified. Why would you choose Cornell over Yale, Sucks, Princeton, Q or Union?

We have a reputation for better and worse and I fear that the game is moving in a direction away from our traditional strength. It is the old adapt or die thing.

Trotsky - Armor is much more effective with close air support and mobile infantry, alone it is vulnerable to a number of threats. Combined arms well managed are much more effective than a uni-dimensional forces.

[Scersk '97]

I think [Esposito's] vision and instincts are only surpassed by Riley and Jillson on the team. If he puts the work in during the offseason he could be a pretty dangerous and crafty player.

I had not yet exactly apprehended his youth, nor had I factored it in.  I'll agree with both your diagnosis and prescription.  Perhaps he'll turn into a better Barlow, who was himself a type of player that we hadn't really had for some time.  (Dare I say, more Yale-ian?)

They're set up to dance, and we're set up to manhandle.  Why do we continue to let them lure us into their up and down game?  Should we meet them in the tournament, it's up to the players to play our game and the coaching staff to remind them incessantly to play within themselves.

Great line. Interestingly, however, the only period Cornell appeared in the game (scoreboard aside) was when they played up and and down. The rest of the game was really all downhill...unless you consider Cornell dumping the puck into the Yale zone for a line change up and down. :-)

I disagree.  The second period especially felt out of control to me.  Of course, that had a lot to do with the penalties, several of which I felt were pretty phantom, but I felt that we got sucked into an up and down style that puts an emphasis on skating with the puck in control, which (as I criticized Esposito for) does not seem to be our strong suit.  Sure, carry in when you've got the chance—too automatically dumping the puck has always been another one of our problems—but, save for R Nash, Greening, and D'Agostino, our players don't seem to possess that mix of skill, speed, and strength to skate through the neutral zone with the puck.

There were a few times that we set up a good cycle and had Yale running around in their own end, but that was mostly in the first.  (In particular, the Scali/Collins/Jillson line was giving Yale fits.  Too bad they don't have a scorer.)  To me, that's our bread and butter, no matter how transformational the team has seemed in the last few years.  And especially against teams that are somewhat lacking in size, that should be the type of game we should try to play.

Someone wrote above that we went into a shell, that we forgot to play offense after the first goal.  No, I think we forgot to play our kind of offense.  When we get the first goal against a good team like Yale, it's not a license to start playing up and down to extend the lead, as we might do against worse teams; rather, it's a directive to start cycling, cycling, cycling in order to wear them down for the third, when we might be able to open up a lead.

To end with a ridiculous metaphor, Yale is a team full of sharks, and we're a team full of bears.  (Hah!)  They treat us like a whale, circling and circling and taking us down with a number of tiny bites.  Against some teams, we might approximate killer whales, but we're never going to be as fast or lethal as those sharks.  But we, as the mindless killing machines that bears are, can rip apart anything as long as we can catch it.  So we need to let those sharks circle until they tire themselves out, until they let themselves get too close, until they do something stupid in an effort to prove just how flashy and fast they are.  Then, instead of sharks, they become salmon.  Salmon are tasty.

[scoop85]

Excellent discussion.  FWIW, it does appear that the next couple of recruiting classes have at least a few guys who show more offensive ability than we are accustomed to.

[Trotsky]

Trotsky - Armor is much more effective with close air support and mobile infantry, alone it is vulnerable to a number of threats. Combined arms well managed are much more effective than a uni-dimensional forces.

I would love the next recruiting class to include both air cav and arty.

[ugarte]

Trotsky - Armor is much more effective with close air support and mobile infantry, alone it is vulnerable to a number of threats. Combined arms well managed are much more effective than a uni-dimensional forces.

I would love the next recruiting class to include both air cav and arty.

Sorry, but the new SID Donald Rumsfeld has ordered that next year's team be leaner while retaining its effectiveness, so we will be skating four at a time and putting the savings into scouting.

[CU at Stanford]

Why is that we always get into a funk right as we are set to play Sucks?  It was painful to watch at Bright Arena last time around.  I am hoping that this coming Friday is not going to be repeat of last season.

LET'S GO RED!

[Jim Hyla]

I think we will pretty quickly get to a Chicken and Egg discussion but if Coach Schafers claim to fame is being able to develop players then why do they all become defense experts? How can we take that talent and move it to the other side of the ice?

Put another way. You are a hot shot 5'10 175 lb forward who is fast, has good hands, excellent stick work, a sniper eye and academically qualified. Why would you choose Cornell over Yale, Sucks, Princeton, Q or Union?

We have a reputation for better and worse and I fear that the game is moving in a direction away from our traditional strength. It is the old adapt or die thing.

Trotsky - Armor is much more effective with close air support and mobile infantry, alone it is vulnerable to a number of threats. Combined arms well managed are much more effective than a uni-dimensional forces.

The most important reason is that you have a chance to show yourself on the national stage. Until those coaches show they have a chance of winning a couple of NCAA games, that's our edge. Also the fact that a number of our players, who were not thought to have been superstars, are doing well in the NHL helps. As had been said by others, we get the somewhat under the radar players.

I'd change your comment around, until those programs show they can do well in the NCAA's, why would a recruit want to go to a one, if that, and done program? Those programs, at least some of them, can do well in the ECAC; but when they come up against similar or better talent in the NCAA's, will they continue to wilt. That has to be our edge.

[ugarte]

Put another way. You are a hot shot 5'10 175 lb forward who is fast, has good hands, excellent stick work, a sniper eye and academically qualified. Why would you choose Cornell over Yale, Sucks, Princeton, Q or Union?

Also the fact that a number of our players, who were not thought to have been superstars, are doing well in the NHL helps. As had been said by others, we get the somewhat under the radar players.

Another way to say that is, if the sniper wants to learn how to play defense, Cornell is a great place to do it.

[mnagowski]

I think [Esposito's] vision and instincts are only surpassed by Riley and Jillson on the team. If he puts the work in during the offseason he could be a pretty dangerous and crafty player.

To end with a ridiculous metaphor, Yale is a team full of sharks, and we're a team full of bears.  (Hah!)  They treat us like a whale, circling and circling and taking us down with a number of tiny bites.  Against some teams, we might approximate killer whales, but we're never going to be as fast or lethal as those sharks.  But we, as the mindless killing machines that bears are, can rip apart anything as long as we can catch it.  So we need to let those sharks circle until they tire themselves out, until they let themselves get too close, until they do something stupid in an effort to prove just how flashy and fast they are.  Then, instead of sharks, they become salmon.  Salmon are tasty.

And here I thought that Yale was our white whale...

[TimV]

My observation on this team: if we're playing a team that can outskate us, we basically get one goal and then go into a defensive shell.  Then we just fall back around Scrivens and let the opposition throw pucks at us.  We did this against BU, NoDak, Quinny, and now Yale.

It may have worked for the Lax team last year, but it's not working all that well for us.

I don't understand, Jeff.  Lacrosse played an uptempo, scoring style.  Goaltending was probably the weakest position on the team.  Unlike hockey, they had finishers. We missed the cage completely on 4-5 prime chances against Yale.

[Jim Hyla]

My observation on this team: if we're playing a team that can outskate us, we basically get one goal and then go into a defensive shell.  Then we just fall back around Scrivens and let the opposition throw pucks at us.  We did this against BU, NoDak, Quinny, and now Yale.

It may have worked for the Lax team last year, but it's not working all that well for us.

I don't understand, Jeff.  Lacrosse played an uptempo, scoring style.  Goaltending was probably the weakest position on the team.  Unlike hockey, they had finishers. We missed the cage completely on 4-5 prime chances against Yale.

Lax is a lot more regional than even hockey. Wait to see what happens if the Big Ten schools start actively recruiting in lax. Suddenly, with all that money to give, it'll be a whole lot harder. Wrestling can compete with the big schools because of a great coach, long tradition, and that the kids know they are not going to go pro. Hockey has to compete with the big boys and the pro aspects. A lot of players would rather go to an easier school and try to go pro. You can't do that in lax or wrestling. Each sport has it's own issues and you can't compare them.