LP Games

[ugarte]

I'm SO happy the ECAC is better now!  I'm really going to be pulling for Union in the NCAA's!!

Keep on keepin' on.

[Icy]

Tough loss for Cornell.  Let's face it, Union has a great team.  

I hope they win the whole thing now.  

Looking forward to 2015 season.  If no one leaves Cornell early, the team should be outstanding.

Thank you Andy Iles, Craig Esposito, Roger Craig, Armand de Swardt, Kirill Gotovets, and Dustin Mowrey.

[BearLover]

I'm SO happy the ECAC is better now!  I'm really going to be pulling for Union in the NCAA's!!

Keep on keepin' on.

Yeah?  I was getting tired of losing to the #2 team in the country in the NCAA's.  Now we can forgo having to do that by losing to the #2 team in the country in the ECAC's!

[Dafatone]

Tough loss for Cornell.  Let's face it, Union has a great team.  

I hope they win the whole thing now.  

Looking forward to 2015 season.  If no one leaves Cornell early, the team should be outstanding.

Thank you Andy Iles, Craig Esposito, Roger Craig, Armand de Swardt, Kirill Gotovets, and Dustin Mowrey.

Agreed.  I thought we played really well (that first goal shouldn't have gotten through, but Iles made a lot of huge saves) and Union just outplayed us.  Somewhere in the 3rd, it dawned on me that we'd had almost no odd-man rushes all game.  Good job by Union to clog the neutral zone and get back on defense.

[BearLover]

Looking forward to 2015 season.  If no one leaves Cornell early, the team should be outstanding.

Cornell finished the year with a plus-FOUR goal differential.  That is not a characteristic of an outstanding team.  That is a characteristic of a middling team that gets to take the rest of March off.  

For reference, the goal differential of Union is plus-FIFTY-SEVEN.
The goal differential of Q is plus-SIXTY-FIVE.

U and Q are leaps and bounds ahead of CU.  Why do you expect Cornell to be any better next year?

[Dafatone]

Looking forward to 2015 season.  If no one leaves Cornell early, the team should be outstanding.

Cornell finished the year with a plus-FOUR goal differential.  That is not a characteristic of an outstanding team.  That is a characteristic of a middling team that gets to take the rest of March off.  

For reference, the goal differential of Union is plus-FIFTY-SEVEN.
The goal differential of Q is plus-SIXTY-FIVE.

Cornell is leaps and bounds behind U and Q.  Why do you expect Cornell to be any better next year?

Are you actually just trolling at this point?

If a team keeps most of its top players, you can expect them to improve.  That gets a duh.

As to your point above about #2 teams, you might want to look up what happened last time Cornell played a #2 overall in the NCAAs, way back in 2012.

[RatushnyFan]

^^ Goal differential probably is a better indication of lop-sided scores and overall offensive explosiveness than winning.  17-10-5 is a reasonable record.  We have an outstanding class of 2015 - Ferlin, Ryan, Lowry and McCarron were our top four scorers.  Bardreau (6th in scoring) is simply a great two-way hockey player.  There's only one senior leaving who was a top 10 scorer........our second leading senior scorer this year was a solid defenseman with 4 points.

That said, until we're a few games into the season who knows how good our new goaltending will be? To me, that will be the question.  I think it's clear that we'll be good defensively, we have an emerging (established? take your pick) star in scoring defenseman Ryan, and we have balanced scoring with a lot of class of 2015 senior leadership.

[Dafatone]

^^ Goal differential probably is a better indication of lop-sided scores and overall offensive explosiveness than winning.  17-10-5 is a reasonable record.  We have an outstanding class of 2015 - Ferlin, Ryan, Lowry and McCarron were our top four scorers.  Bardreau (6th in scoring) is simply a great two-way hockey player.  There's only one senior leaving who was a top 10 scorer........our second leading senior scorer this year was a solid defenseman with 4 points.

That said, until we're a few games into the season who knows how good our new goaltending will be? To me, that will be the question.  I think it's clear that we'll be good defensively, we have an emerging (established? take your pick) star in scoring defenseman Ryan, and we have balanced scoring with a lot of class of 2015 senior leadership.

Well, the top scorers are skewed by Mowrey's injury (and we, unsurprisingly, took a bit of a turn south right around when he went out).  But yeah, goalie's the biggest issue.  That and whether everyone stays.

[ugarte]

^^ Goal differential probably is a better indication of lop-sided scores and overall offensive explosiveness than winning.  17-10-5 is a reasonable record.  We have an outstanding class of 2015 - Ferlin, Ryan, Lowry and McCarron were our top four scorers.  Bardreau (6th in scoring) is simply a great two-way hockey player.  There's only one senior leaving who was a top 10 scorer........our second leading senior scorer this year was a solid defenseman with 4 points.

That said, until we're a few games into the season who knows how good our new goaltending will be? To me, that will be the question.  I think it's clear that we'll be good defensively, we have an emerging (established? take your pick) star in scoring defenseman Ryan, and we have balanced scoring with a lot of class of 2015 senior leadership.

No, goal differential is a pretty good proxy for how good you really were. Blowouts are a good thing. Being on the right side of a bunch of them means that your wins reflect skill more than chance.

That said, I think the team is going to be pretty good next year if our goaltending - a huge unknown - holds up but the issues on offense this year were real. We had no margin for error.

[BearLover]

Looking forward to 2015 season.  If no one leaves Cornell early, the team should be outstanding.

Cornell finished the year with a plus-FOUR goal differential.  That is not a characteristic of an outstanding team.  That is a characteristic of a middling team that gets to take the rest of March off.  

For reference, the goal differential of Union is plus-FIFTY-SEVEN.
The goal differential of Q is plus-SIXTY-FIVE.

Cornell is leaps and bounds behind U and Q.  Why do you expect Cornell to be any better next year?

Are you actually just trolling at this point?

If a team keeps most of its top players, you can expect them to improve.  That gets a duh.

As to your point above about #2 teams, you might want to look up what happened last time Cornell played a #2 overall in the NCAAs, way back in 2012.

Yeah, they'll improve.  But what makes anyone think they'll actually be good?  17-10-5 is a solid record.  The problem is that Cornell was not a 17-10-5 team, as its goal differential demonstrates.

The #2 thing strengthens my argument: all you need to do is get in.  When we were the best team, we always got in.

Noooooooooooo.  This is NOT correct--in fact the total opposite is true.


I think Cornell will be fine next year.  My argument is, as it has always been, that an improved ECAC is not something we want.  It just doesn't work out that way when game win % is such a massive component of the PWR.  And that's not even considering all of the potential Cornell recruits U, Q, and Y are eating up.

[Dafatone]

Looking forward to 2015 season.  If no one leaves Cornell early, the team should be outstanding.

Cornell finished the year with a plus-FOUR goal differential.  That is not a characteristic of an outstanding team.  That is a characteristic of a middling team that gets to take the rest of March off.  

For reference, the goal differential of Union is plus-FIFTY-SEVEN.
The goal differential of Q is plus-SIXTY-FIVE.

Cornell is leaps and bounds behind U and Q.  Why do you expect Cornell to be any better next year?

Are you actually just trolling at this point?

If a team keeps most of its top players, you can expect them to improve.  That gets a duh.

As to your point above about #2 teams, you might want to look up what happened last time Cornell played a #2 overall in the NCAAs, way back in 2012.

Yeah, they'll improve.  But what makes anyone think they'll actually be good?  17-10-5 is a solid record.  The problem is that Cornell was not a 17-10-5 team, as its goal differential demonstrates.

The #2 thing strengthens my argument: all you need to do is get in.  When we were the best team, we always got in.

Noooooooooooo.  This is NOT correct--in fact the total opposite is true.


I think Cornell will be fine next year.  My argument is, as it has always been, that an improved ECAC is not something we want.  It just doesn't work out that way when game win % is such a massive component of the PWR.  And that's not even considering all of the potential Cornell recruits U, Q, and Y are eating up.

You know what's weird?  Despite being in (arguably) the strongest conference, we're tied for 16th in the pairwise and have the 13th best record.

[Rosey]

I was not at all surprised by the outcome... but I was actually pleasantly surprised by Cornell's performance. Union was clearly the superior team going into this game, but it didn't feel like Cornell was outclassed talent-wise. The problems I saw boil down to two things: (1) Cornell made more mistakes on defense, and (2) Union created more scoring opportunities.

To the second point, one thing I liked about Union was how they always had some guy trailing the man going in deep on the chase: if that guy got to the puck first, he just dinked it back to the teammate he knew was there behind him, which led to at least one goal and several other great opportunities in the slot and right around the crease.

Until Cornell got tired late in the third, I felt like their breakouts and passing were just as good as Union's, and I would be willing to bet puck possession time was similar for both teams. The difference was that Union created scoring opportunities when they had the puck deep in our zone, whereas Cornell's approach seems mostly to be "get it in the zone and pray something good happens"... which, as it so happens, sounds an awful lot like their ineffective power play, as well.

I feel like the D will improve next year, but their biggest hurdle IMO is creating more scoring opportunities.

[RatushnyFan]

Noooooooooooo.  This is NOT correct--in fact the total opposite is true.

I looked at the NHL standings to get another view, point taken, I retract that statement. Teams like Philly and Montreal have very average goal differentials and are in position to make the playoffs but certainly the true Cup contenders all seem to have +40-70 goal differentials. Philly could do some damage but I'll be shocked (and dismayed!) if they win. But there's a pretty damned strong correlation between goal differential and standings position.

I'm still going to go to bed believing that Cornell was 17-10-5, though. ;-)

[scoop85]

I was not at all surprised by the outcome... but I was actually pleasantly surprised by Cornell's performance. Union was clearly the superior team going into this game, but it didn't feel like Cornell was outclassed talent-wise. The problems I saw boil down to two things: (1) Cornell made more mistakes on defense, and (2) Union created more scoring opportunities.

To the second point, one thing I liked about Union was how they always had some guy trailing the man going in deep on the chase: if that guy got to the puck first, he just dinked it back to the teammate he knew was there behind him, which led to at least one goal and several other great opportunities in the slot and right around the crease.

Until Cornell got tired late in the third, I felt like their breakouts and passing were just as good as Union's, and I would be willing to bet puck possession time was similar for both teams. The difference was that Union created scoring opportunities when they had the puck deep in our zone, whereas Cornell's approach seems mostly to be "get it in the zone and pray something good happens"... which, as it so happens, sounds an awful lot like their ineffective power play, as well.

I feel like the D will improve next year, but their biggest hurdle IMO is creating more scoring opportunities.

I think you nailed it -- Union just better at getting higher quality scoring chances.

When we got to within 3-2, I really thought we had a great chance to pull it out.  Giving up that goal on the next shift was just a back-breaker.

[Josh '99]

*sigh*.