CU @ Colgate 2/8/14

[RichH]

Question for anyone who watched the Colgate video last night. Was it choppy? I've been trying to watch and capture the game. It's very jumpy, just stops, and won't reload.

I hope you're working with a "catch and release" policy.

Cornell beat a team that had kicked the crap out of Colgate (Brown). Then Colgate kicks the crap out of us. Such is life in the ECAC. I'm happy we haven't had many ass-kickings this season, and I hope we learn something from this one before the playoffs.

[Trotsky]

I'm happy we haven't had many ass-kickings this season, and I hope we learn something from this one before the playoffs.

Q was an ass-kicking that only taught us Q is better than we are.

Union was an ass-kicking but I'm hoping it taught us something (11 shots is bad, m'kay?).  We line up very well against them and I believe we can steal some points.  I also believe that game has the potential to be the most boring game in NCAA history if we do it right.  I would like to see us play snooker along the boards for 64 minutes and then spring Ferlin on a breakaway.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

I'm happy we haven't had many ass-kickings this season, and I hope we learn something from this one before the playoffs.

Q was an ass-kicking that only taught us Q is better than we are.

Union was an ass-kicking but I'm hoping it taught us something (11 shots is bad, m'kay?).  We line up very well against them and I believe we can steal some points.  I also believe that game has the potential to be the most boring game in NCAA history if we do it right.  I would like to see us play snooker along the boards for 64 minutes and then spring Ferlin on a breakaway.

[Snooker reference] God Bless Yogi Bear Plus Boo-Boo [/Snooker reference]

[ugarte]

General feeling? That 5-0-4 was more of a mirage than I think we, collectively, wanted to admit. The last game before the streak was a loss to a TERRIBLE BU team. (We outplayed them, but still.) During the streak we won one game by more than a goal, and that was because of an empty netter against a barely-.500 UNH team in Estero. Ties against Dartmouth and SLU and an escape against a falling-apart Harvard. The team wasn't "lucky" in any single game, necessarily, but the streak looks more like a quirk than evidence of a strong squad.

I don't know if any of you considered Cornell the sixth-best team in the country, but I didn't. I was happy to see them rise in the PWR (and I hope that the computer keeps liking them) but it all feels very tenuous. We are 8th in PWR and 5th in the ECAC standings. I know which one I think says more about the team's prospects. I don't think it "proves" anything about the coaching or the players, but this is a team that missed - and deserved to miss - the tournament in 2013. It is unlikely to me that they are better than a 3 seed and I'll be thrilled with a 4.

[Jim Hyla]

General feeling? That 5-0-4 was more of a mirage than I think we, collectively, wanted to admit. The last game before the streak was a loss to a TERRIBLE BU team. (We outplayed them, but still.) During the streak we won one game by more than a goal, and that was because of an empty netter against a barely-.500 UNH team in Estero. Ties against Dartmouth and SLU and an escape against a falling-apart Harvard. The team wasn't "lucky" in any single game, necessarily, but the streak looks more like a quirk than evidence of a strong squad.

I don't know if any of you considered Cornell the sixth-best team in the country, but I didn't. I was happy to see them rise in the PWR (and I hope that the computer keeps liking them) but it all feels very tenuous. We are 8th in PWR and 5th in the ECAC standings. I know which one I think says more about the team's prospects. I don't think it "proves" anything about the coaching or the players, but this is a team that missed - and deserved to miss - the tournament in 2013. It is unlikely to me that they are better than a 3 seed and I'll be thrilled with a 4.

Actually we are tied for fourth in the ECAC, and ninth in PWR. I will post it later, but we are 11 in the USCH0 poll.

[Trotsky]

General feeling? That 5-0-4 was more of a mirage than I think we, collectively, wanted to admit.

I think it was more a matter of not playing any of the top league teams over the stretch.  The first game of the streak was against Colgate (current 3), and we stole a tie in a game we were outplayed.  During the streak we missed Union and Q.  Then 'Gate ended us.  Basically: what you'd expect from a 4th place team.

So now we find out if we can actually challenge the teams we'll need to beat if we are going to win in Lake Placid.  If we lose to both Union and Q it will make it look like we're crashing, but that will be a mirage.  It will just mean we are playing to a 4th place level.

Since the 3, 4, 5, 6 are all rotating around a common point, what we're really fighting for is home ice in the QF against the odd man out.  If we go 4-2 down the stretch it will probably be good enough for a bye (by a hair).  If we blow more points to the other 4 opponents than we steal from Q/U, then we're looking at playing at Hamilton or Potsdam -- no effing thank you.

[ugarte]

General feeling? That 5-0-4 was more of a mirage than I think we, collectively, wanted to admit.

I think it was more a matter of not playing any of the top league teams over the stretch.  The first game of the streak was against Colgate (current 3), and we stole a tie in a game we were outplayed.  During the streak we missed Union and Q.  Then 'Gate ended us.  Basically: what you'd expect from a 4th place team.

So now we find out if we can actually challenge the teams we'll need to beat if we are going to win in Lake Placid.  If we lose to both Union and Q it will make it look like we're crashing, but that will be a mirage.  It will just mean we are playing to a 4th place level.

Since the 3, 4, 5, 6 are all rotating around a common point, what we're really fighting for is home ice in the QF against the odd man out.  If we go 4-2 down the stretch it will probably be good enough for a bye (by a hair).  If we blow more points to the other 4 opponents than we steal from Q/U, then we're looking at playing at Hamilton or Potsdam -- no effing thank you.

I take the standings corrections from Jim.

This seems a little off point, though. My point is that we flew up the PWR rankings despite not playing all that well because margin of victory doesn't factor in at all, and while SOS plays into RPI, a winning streak against garbage teams helps because PWR adjusts RPI so a good result against a bad team can't hurt you. Past performance does not guarantee future results but I wouldn't look at that streak and think anything about it can be maintained.

Hang on, everyone. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

[Swampy]

It always amazes me what can happen after one bad game.

After all these years, it shouldn't.  After every terrible game over the last 30+ seasons there has been an enormous overreaction.  It's an actual technique used in therapy for people (like me) who have runaway anxiety: assume the absolute worst to stop freefalling, then work backwards to what's likely.  Put a boundary around the fear.

There's nothing wrong with it, although it's a little irritating to be inevitably labeled as a Polyanna when pointing out the rather obvious fact that even the best teams sometimes pull a stinker, and making sweeping generalizations from a small sample size is logically suspect.

So I've read. I could go for a few more "stinkers" like that. (BTW, if one reads the article, does the losing team's strategy sound vaguely familiar? ::wtf:

[KGR11]

General feeling? That 5-0-4 was more of a mirage than I think we, collectively, wanted to admit.

I think it was more a matter of not playing any of the top league teams over the stretch.  The first game of the streak was against Colgate (current 3), and we stole a tie in a game we were outplayed.  During the streak we missed Union and Q.  Then 'Gate ended us.  Basically: what you'd expect from a 4th place team.

So now we find out if we can actually challenge the teams we'll need to beat if we are going to win in Lake Placid.  If we lose to both Union and Q it will make it look like we're crashing, but that will be a mirage.  It will just mean we are playing to a 4th place level.

Since the 3, 4, 5, 6 are all rotating around a common point, what we're really fighting for is home ice in the QF against the odd man out.  If we go 4-2 down the stretch it will probably be good enough for a bye (by a hair).  If we blow more points to the other 4 opponents than we steal from Q/U, then we're looking at playing at Hamilton or Potsdam -- no effing thank you.

I take the standings corrections from Jim.

This seems a little off point, though. My point is that we flew up the PWR rankings despite not playing all that well because margin of victory doesn't factor in at all, and while SOS plays into RPI, a winning streak against garbage teams helps because PWR adjusts RPI so a good result against a bad team can't hurt you. Past performance does not guarantee future results but I wouldn't look at that streak and think anything about it can be maintained.

Hang on, everyone. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

Thank god PWR isn't based on margin of victory.  That would destroy the aspirations of any defensive-minded coach.

You have an interesting point that we didn't dominate any of those games, and even had ties that felt like losses at Dartmouth and against SLU.  However, I don't think that means we're in the wrong spot as pairwise goes.  Right below us right now is Michigan, who has a common opponents record of 4-1-1 (75% win%), versus our 4-1 (80% win%).  If you look at those games, the only team they completely destroyed that we didn't was Niagara, 6-0.  They went 1-1 vs. UNO while we went 2-0 (all in close games), while they beat BU and we lost to BU (each game by 1 goal).  It also took them 2 overtime games to get a win and a tie out of UNH, while we got an empty net goal in our win over them.  And their Saturday night was worse than ours, since they got shut out by Penn State, which was just their 5th win of the season.

I have no idea how we compare to others, but I think that we are slightly better than Michigan and deserve to be seeded above them.

[Trotsky]

Thank god PWR isn't based on margin of victory.  That would destroy the aspirations of any defensive-minded coach.

Ratio of victory, on the other hand...

[RichH]

Thank god PWR isn't based on margin of victory.  That would destroy the aspirations of any defensive-minded coach.

That's CHODR (and CCHP, which is multiplicative). And you're right, as teams like Cornell & Wisconsin get docked heavily.

http://www.rpihockey.net/misc.rank1.shtml

[Josh '99]

General feeling? That 5-0-4 was more of a mirage than I think we, collectively, wanted to admit. The last game before the streak was a loss to a TERRIBLE BU team. (We outplayed them, but still.) During the streak we won one game by more than a goal, and that was because of an empty netter against a barely-.500 UNH team in Estero. Ties against Dartmouth and SLU and an escape against a falling-apart Harvard. The team wasn't "lucky" in any single game, necessarily, but the streak looks more like a quirk than evidence of a strong squad.

I don't know if any of you considered Cornell the sixth-best team in the country, but I didn't. I was happy to see them rise in the PWR (and I hope that the computer keeps liking them) but it all feels very tenuous. We are 8th in PWR and 5th in the ECAC standings. I know which one I think says more about the team's prospects. I don't think it "proves" anything about the coaching or the players, but this is a team that missed - and deserved to miss - the tournament in 2013. It is unlikely to me that they are better than a 3 seed and I'll be thrilled with a 4.

Actually we are tied for fourth in the ECAC, and ninth in PWR. I will post it later, but we are 11 in the USCH0 poll.

To me it's a bit reminiscent of the early-mid aughts when the WCHA was destroying everyone and it seemed like every year there was a team that was 4th or 5th in the conference standings that wound up really high in the PWR and got a solid seed.  I'm not saying the ECAC right now is anywhere near as good as the WCHA was from 2003-05 or so, of course.

[Jordan 04]

Wasn't there a lengthy discussion a few months ago about the merits of plowing over the league, vs. finishing 3rd or 4th in a strong, nationally-ranked conference?  IIRC, most argued that the latter was to the benefit of the team, and a preferred path to, and through, the post-season.  Well, it seems that's squarely where we are with the '13-'14 squad.  We shall see how it ends.

[Robb]

Wasn't there a lengthy discussion a few months ago about the merits of plowing over the league, vs. finishing 3rd or 4th in a strong, nationally-ranked conference?  IIRC, most argued that the latter was to the benefit of the team, and a preferred path to, and through, the post-season.  Well, it seems that's squarely where we are with the '13-'14 squad.  We shall see how it ends.

I'm certain you're referring to the discussion that got really rolling with this post from Kyle.  Re-reading the whole thread is pretty funny, considering that some posting in the thread seemed to think Cornell may as well disband the program before the season even got going.  Where are those guys now that we've been in the top ten for a few weeks?

[ugarte]

Wasn't there a lengthy discussion a few months ago about the merits of plowing over the league, vs. finishing 3rd or 4th in a strong, nationally-ranked conference?  IIRC, most argued that the latter was to the benefit of the team, and a preferred path to, and through, the post-season.  Well, it seems that's squarely where we are with the '13-'14 squad.  We shall see how it ends.

I'm one of the guys in favor of the strong conference! I don't stress the loss to Union as much as the tie against SLU.