11/9 Union

[TimV]

That SLU Rookie scored as many goals in one game as our whole team did in the last three games.  But we're all still optimistic , right? Right???::cheer::

[TimV]

Thanks Marty.  I needed that.  Can I call you whenever I start to get nervous?  24-7?::scared::

[RichH]

My comments from the Union game revolve around the general flow of it. The 1st period was just awful hockey to watch on both sides.  Very little action took place and the puck spent the majority of the period pinned along the boards.  Neither team really had much going on. As a fan, you know that there will be stretches were not a whole lot goes right, and you wait for some sort of spark to pull them out of it and start generating some open-ice movement and possessions that generate scoring opportunities.  That happened for Union, not Cornell.  The entire game, when the puck was in CU's offensive zone, it was in two places: 5 feet from the blue line or in one of the corners. I'd love to see the shot sheet, because I can't think of more than 2-3 shots that came from anywhere near the circles.  Ryan's shot is really good right now, but the forwards are failing to generate any decent opportunities.

The lead-up to Union's 2nd goal was a textbook cycle. They controlled both corners for at least 30 seconds, and it had us running way out of position, and ended with a perfect set-up for the 2nd goal.  It's something I remember CU executing countless times.

On the plus side, Andy Iles performed well.

[Trotsky]

So here is what some people think of the NC trip.

The only thing I get out of that is Matt Carey looks like a douche.

[css228]

well in the past we only had the reputation of the program as an end of season contender to prop us up in the polls

but now that we have 3-4 real rabid Chicken Little's flooding the message boards with calls for the coach to be sacked, the team identity to be inverted, and predictions of the end of the world (we might as well just quit now, maybe make some space for Title IX compliance)... well now we practically look like a mid pack WCHA team!  You can only understand how confused the pollsters must be!

keep up the bellyaching and armchair PP quarterbacking, we will be in the top 10 despite a .500 record before you know it!

All of the numbers, such as shooting percentage (14.0%), power play shooting percentage (28.1%!) and PDO (Shooting Percentage + Save Percentage, Which currently stands at 1044 and regresses to the mean of 1000 HARD) indicate we've been lucky. As I said we play only 40 or so games, so we can possibly defy the percentages. But everyone should realize we're incredibly lucky not to be 1-5 right now. They have not played a single game of good hockey yet and have been bailed out mostly by luck. If we continue to play this way, it's going to be another long year, and we're probably going to miss out on a home playoff series again. That said I'd love to be wrong and see the odds defied OR BETTER YET see this team actually play good hockey and dominate the run of play. All I've been saying is that what we've been watching is not good hockey, and it is not a path to future success. We have been playing poorly. The results may not reflect it, but the process has been bad. I'm not going to blindly say this is a good team that should have good results when all the evidence points in another direction. I see this team and I see all of the problems that manifested themselves last year ready to pop up again. Last year we were a 3-2-1 team after 3 weekends that stole a few games where we got dominated, with unsustainable shooting percentages (particularly on the power play) and good goaltending. I learn from history. It doesn't matter how you dominate the run of play. The Red Wings and Kings have great Corsi + Fenwick numbers and play with puck possession, cycling and being strong in the corners, while the Blackhawks are about speed and skill. The key is that long term success correlates best with puck possession because unlike goals which are rare and random events, puck possession is a repeatable phenomenon. "The System" is irrelevant except in that it is not being executed well enough to win consistently, and hasn't been for most of the past four years.

[RichH]

We'll have company at MSG. Stop me if this doesn't sound incredibly familiar.

From http://www.collegehockeynews.com/news/2013/11/13_second_thoughts.php

Long story short, BU just never has the puck. That obviously makes it very difficult to win at hockey.
...
Even-strength shots in the game — BC put eight on Matt O'Connor on its four power plays — were therefore an astonishing 32-6. That's six shots in 39:31 of even-strength play, and for a team with BU's on-paper talent, that simply isn't anywhere near good enough.
...
The problem for BU is that this is no emergent issue. It has, in fact, been there since the start of the season. Sure, it won three of its first four games, but when you take power-play shots out of the equation, it mustered more than 20 just once.
...
In his opening comments following his first-ever game against BC, Quinn actually summed it up perfectly.

"If you're going to create offense, you've got to move the puck quickly, you've got to be ready," he said. "When the puck comes to you, you can't let it surprise you. You've got to be ready to shoot it, and we're not there yet. We're not there yet."

I hear that, BU.

[cuhockey93]

How many times are we going to fall for the effort being the problem?  At this point it has to be something else.

Not sure what you are referring to.  Talent?  There are 7 NHL draft picks on the roster.  Coaching ability?  Schafer is the most successful active ECAC coach.  Inflexibility?  That seems to be the gist of a lot of the comments for the last few seasons.  Maybe it is a genuine problem.

This was an awful weekend, though going into it I would have taken a point given that it might be the 1-2 teams in the conference.  Despite Clarkson (edit: and, it turns out, SLU too) playing well to start the year, next weekend there is no such excuse.  Those are teams we ought to beat, even on the road.

I don't really think you can call Schafer the most successful active ECAC coach when you got a guy that rebuilt a team, and just won a national championship... Schafer is the Lindy Ruff of college hockey. Calling him more successful than Keith Allain would be like calling Jeff Fischer more successful than Sean Payton because he's coached longer.

[Trotsky]

I don't really think you can call Schafer the most successful active ECAC coach when you got a guy that rebuilt a team, and just won a national championship... Schafer is the Lindy Ruff of college hockey. Calling him more successful than Keith Allain would be like calling Jeff Fischer more successful than Sean Payton because he's coached longer.

5 ECAC titles (and 10 appearances in the ECAC championship game) in 18 seasons is not merely longevity.  Prior to the 2013 annus mirabilis' 7, the ECAC had combined for 15 NCAA wins in the prior 17 seasons: 8 by Schafer and 7 by the rest of the 11 teams in the conference combined.

Yale, Quinnipiac and Union have all had wonderful short runs: 12 NCAA wins in the last 4 seasons (6 Yale, 3 Union, 3 Quinnipiac), and this challenges Schafer's claim as the most accomplished active coach.  We'll see what happens next -- if Allain, Bennett and Pecknold continue to dominate then you have a point.  If Cornell returns to their form under Schafer, wins ECAC titles, and challenges for late runs in the NCAAs, then he's still the It Girl of the ECAC.

[ugarte]

I don't really think you can call Schafer the most successful active ECAC coach when you got a guy that rebuilt a team, and just won a national championship... Schafer is the Lindy Ruff of college hockey. Calling him more successful than Keith Allain would be like calling Jeff Fischer more successful than Sean Payton because he's coached longer.

5 ECAC titles (and 10 appearances in the ECAC championship game) in 18 seasons is not merely longevity.  Prior to the 2013 annus mirabilis' 7, the ECAC had combined for 15 NCAA wins in the prior 17 seasons: 8 by Schafer and 7 by the rest of the 11 teams in the conference combined.

Yale, Quinnipiac and Union have all had wonderful short runs: 12 NCAA wins in the last 4 seasons (6 Yale, 3 Union, 3 Quinnipiac), and this challenges Schafer's claim as the most accomplished active coach.  We'll see what happens next -- if Allain, Bennett and Pecknold continue to dominate then you have a point.  If Cornell returns to their form under Schafer, wins ECAC titles, and challenges for late runs in the NCAAs, then he's still the It Girl of the ECAC.

Maybe so, but I give Allain credit for the speed and high point of his turnaround, particularly at a school without any real history of success. When both coaches retire, sure, that's when you make the final evaluation but that's just deflecting on cu93's point. As of today? Hard to argue that Allain hasn't been better and I don't think that disparages or diminishes Schafer's success in any way,

[Trotsky]

I give Allain credit for the speed and high point of his turnaround, particularly at a school without any real history of success.

Oh heck yeah, it's been amazing, and even if they crater he'll always have the ring.  All I'm trying to say is that there have been times during Schafer's tenure when it looked like another ECAC team was laying down a foundation to eclipse Cornell as the consistent NCAA contender (Vermont, Harvard, SLU, Clarkson, Princeton) and each time those teams fell off the map.  What's unusual with the current situation is they actually won, so they may be here to stay.  If your window of comparison begins with 2013, then Cornell is no better than Brown.  If it begins in 2012, we do have an NCAA win during that time -- it isn't as if our current streak of mediocrity is long.

Everybody understands the only way to get the peasants to put down their pitchforks is to win.  To paraphrase Bill Parcells, "you are what your record says you are and Harvard sucks."

[Towerroad]

I don't really think you can call Schafer the most successful active ECAC coach when you got a guy that rebuilt a team, and just won a national championship... Schafer is the Lindy Ruff of college hockey. Calling him more successful than Keith Allain would be like calling Jeff Fischer more successful than Sean Payton because he's coached longer.

5 ECAC titles (and 10 appearances in the ECAC championship game) in 18 seasons is not merely longevity.  Prior to the 2013 annus mirabilis' 7, the ECAC had combined for 15 NCAA wins in the prior 17 seasons: 8 by Schafer and 7 by the rest of the 11 teams in the conference combined.

Yale, Quinnipiac and Union have all had wonderful short runs: 12 NCAA wins in the last 4 seasons (6 Yale, 3 Union, 3 Quinnipiac), and this challenges Schafer's claim as the most accomplished active coach.  We'll see what happens next -- if Allain, Bennett and Pecknold continue to dominate then you have a point.  If Cornell returns to their form under Schafer, wins ECAC titles, and challenges for late runs in the NCAAs, then he's still the It Girl of the ECAC.

Maybe so, but I give Allain credit for the speed and high point of his turnaround, particularly at a school without any real history of success. When both coaches retire, sure, that's when you make the final evaluation but that's just deflecting on cu93's point. As of today? Hard to argue that Allain hasn't been better and I don't think that disparages or diminishes Schafer's success in any way,

I think that, given the maximum tenure of a college hockey player is 4 years (let's leave the lax discussion out of this), the last 4 years should weigh much more heavily than what a team did before that. By that standard over the last 4 years we have 1 NCAA win vs an average of 4 for the above teams. It is hard to argue over the last 4 years that we were better than they were/are.

The coach deserves to be judged on his entire record when he/she retires. Until then old mantra "What have you done for me lately" was never truer, just ask Joe Torre or Terry Francona.

[Trotsky]

The coach deserves to be judged on his entire record when he/she retires. Until then old mantra "What have you done for me lately" was never truer, just ask Joe Torre or Terry Francona.

While this is what happens, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's rational.  Presumably, you retain a coach if he gives you a better chance to attain your goals than any practical alternative.  The coach's entire record is useful for determining how his teams are likely to do in the future.

[Towerroad]

The coach deserves to be judged on his entire record when he/she retires. Until then old mantra "What have you done for me lately" was never truer, just ask Joe Torre or Terry Francona.

While this is what happens, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's rational.  Presumably, you retain a coach if he gives you a better chance to attain your goals than any practical alternative.  The coach's entire record is useful for determining how his teams are likely to do in the future.

That would be true if coaching, the game and the game environment were static. However that is not the case. The game is evolving with more emphasis on passing and skating and less on hitting. The league has adapted to the "the system" and the pool of talent has also evolved. Change is constant and so is the need to adapt.

[Rosey]

The coach deserves to be judged on his entire record when he/she retires. Until then old mantra "What have you done for me lately" was never truer, just ask Joe Torre or Terry Francona.

While this is what happens, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's rational.  Presumably, you retain a coach if he gives you a better chance to attain your goals than any practical alternative.  The coach's entire record is useful for determining how his teams are likely to do in the future.

That would be true if coaching, the game and the game environment were static. However that is not the case. The game is evolving with more emphasis on passing and skating and less on hitting. The league has adapted to the "the system" and the pool of talent has also evolved. Change is constant and so is the need to adapt.

In other words: past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.

[Trotsky]

That would be true if coaching, the game and the game environment were static. However that is not the case. The game is evolving with more emphasis on passing and skating and less on hitting. The league has adapted to the "the system" and the pool of talent has also evolved. Change is constant and so is the need to adapt.

It's still true, otherwise any time a team dropped from 1st to 3rd the coach would be fired because, well, obviously the game has passed him by.

There is not a big enough sample to determine whether (a) The System is outmoded, and (b) if so then Schafer can't adapt strategy and personnel to a more successful model.  Everything beyond saying "SSS" is at this point just applying a pre-existing narrative to a couple data points.

In other words: I don't know yet, and you don't either.