Future Coaching?

[css228]

Yale plays a similar style if not quite as aggressive, or at least did while I was still in school.

No longer.  Yale plays a solid D game that starts from Lyons and radiates out through stay at home D-men.  They are playing Schafer hockey now.

Boooooooooooo

[Trotsky]

Yale plays a similar style if not quite as aggressive, or at least did while I was still in school.

No longer.  Yale plays a solid D game that starts from Lyons and radiates out through stay at home D-men.  They are playing Schafer hockey now.

Boooooooooooo

Seems to me Allain fits the style to his personnel.  I think it's pretty admirable that he won it all with firewagon hockey and has now gotten back to the NC$$ using Schafer hockey.

[KeithK]

Yale plays a similar style if not quite as aggressive, or at least did while I was still in school.

No longer.  Yale plays a solid D game that starts from Lyons and radiates out through stay at home D-men.  They are playing Schafer hockey now.

Boooooooooooo

I'm curisou what you would have thought watching Schafer's teams a dozen years ago when we played a very defense oriented schem and were very successful. Nothing wrong with wanting to watch a particular style that you find appealing.

[KeithK]

Yale plays a similar style if not quite as aggressive, or at least did while I was still in school.

No longer.  Yale plays a solid D game that starts from Lyons and radiates out through stay at home D-men.  They are playing Schafer hockey now.

Boooooooooooo

Seems to me Allain fits the style to his personnel.  I think it's pretty admirable that he won it all with firewagon hockey and has now gotten back to the NC$$ using Schafer hockey.

Agreed.  Schafer clearly prefers to fit players into his system, which makes him less adaptable.

[css228]

Yale plays a similar style if not quite as aggressive, or at least did while I was still in school.

No longer.  Yale plays a solid D game that starts from Lyons and radiates out through stay at home D-men.  They are playing Schafer hockey now.

Boooooooooooo

I'm curisou what you would have thought watching Schafer's teams a dozen years ago when we played a very defense oriented schem and were very successful. Nothing wrong with wanting to watch a particular style that you find appealing.

I mean that was how hockey was played back then. I watched the Flyers despite them being coached by Ken Hitchcock. Was never a big fan but he got results (ish). If clutch and grab is what wins games, then clutch and grab, but hockey is a lot better for having left that era behind. The moment that team took a turn for the worse (mostly Bobby clarke's fault) I was glad to see Hitch let go and the job given to John Stevens. I guess I generally dislike conservative styles because they constrain players to the point where they almost lose the joy of playing, and the habituate players to not take risks. If taking a calculated pinch to sustain a cycle and create a chances is good process, then it shouldn't be punished even if the player falls trying to make a play, turns the puck over, and the opponents score on a break. That's a major philosophical disagreement I have with conservative coaches like Schafer and Michel Therrien. Good coaches and leaders put their players in positions where they're empowered to succeed, not where they're being asked to not fail. The thing about that Subban play is that Subban is doing what makes P.K. Subban a Norris Trophy winning defenseman. Did he screw up sure, but Therrien hurt his chances of a comeback far more by stapling his best player to bench for the remainder of that game.

As for the other comments on adapting the style to fit your players, I agree its a good thing to be able to do that, but you should also have the ability to recruit guys that fit your style. For example I would never try to run the system I suggested with the kinds of big, but not particularly mobile dmen that Schafer has tended to recruit. In an aggressive system like that skating and positioning are by far the two most important aspects of the game. Although I would not call what Hakstol's teams at UND or the his current team in Philly perform firewagon hockey. Its kinda like a full court press in basketball, in that it only works if you pressure as a complete unit and have a ton of structure to your game (which means admittedly Yale was not the best comparison). As a side note, its not like all of Haktsol's teams had a TJ Oshie or a Johnathan Toews. Some years they did dial back aspects of the pressure to compensate for relatively lesser talent, but the basic concepts of the system remained the same. And they had a lot of success even in years where they didn't have that star 1st round draft pick.

I should add, that sometimes you do need to use a 1-2-2 forecheck to mix things up. If you give opponents the same look all night at the NCAA level, they are going to be good enough to pick you apart.

[marty]

Yale plays a similar style if not quite as aggressive, or at least did while I was still in school.

No longer.  Yale plays a solid D game that starts started from Lyons and radiates out through stay at home D-men.  They are playing Schafer hockey now.

FYP::banana::

Thinking of him doing this ::drive:: with his signing bonus.

[Trotsky]

So, I know exactly how I want Cornell to play hockey, having now watched the Royals take the Mets apart last night, again, just like they did in the WS.

That constant pressure and intensity and keeping your head in every second of the game and scrapping for every tiny advantage and not letting up for an instant; good god, it just shatters lesser teams mentally.  It's exhausting just watching it, let alone having to deal with it on the ice.

The only hockey team I've ever seen do that was the 85 RPI national champions.  Take that, season with some decent talent (which we have) and backstop it with a goalie who can save you for the handful of D breakdowns that you will give up (which we have... at least I think), and it will produce wins.  And a helluva lot of fun. And maybe a heart attack on the bench.

[BearLover]

So, I know exactly how I want Cornell to play hockey, having now watched the Royals take the Mets apart last night, again, just like they did in the WS.

That constant pressure and intensity and keeping your head in every second of the game and scrapping for every tiny advantage and not letting up for an instant; good god, it just shatters lesser teams mentally.  It's exhausting just watching it, let alone having to deal with it on the ice.

The only hockey team I've ever seen do that was the 85 RPI national champions.  Take that, season with some decent talent (which we have) and backstop it with a goalie who can save you for the handful of D breakdowns that you will give up (which we have... at least I think), and it will produce wins.  And a helluva lot of fun. And maybe a heart attack on the bench.

Every team, Cornell especially, is already trying to do this.

[Dafatone]

So, I know exactly how I want Cornell to play hockey, having now watched the Royals take the Mets apart last night, again, just like they did in the WS.

That constant pressure and intensity and keeping your head in every second of the game and scrapping for every tiny advantage and not letting up for an instant; good god, it just shatters lesser teams mentally.  It's exhausting just watching it, let alone having to deal with it on the ice.

The only hockey team I've ever seen do that was the 85 RPI national champions.  Take that, season with some decent talent (which we have) and backstop it with a goalie who can save you for the handful of D breakdowns that you will give up (which we have... at least I think), and it will produce wins.  And a helluva lot of fun. And maybe a heart attack on the bench.

The Mets may have been okay (in both the WS and last night) if Cespedes could catch a freakin' ball.  Or if Duda (who normally throws just fine, despite all this talk about his bad defense, which is really just his glove) made a better throw.  Or if they could figure out how to beat Edinson Volquez (It's not hard!  Just don't swing!  NOTHING he throws is in the strike zone ever!  Seriously.)

But I see your point.  This year's hockey team at least felt like it had the potential to maybe sometimes score, such as at the end of regulation in that Brown game where a loss would have been a disaster (and a tie was pretty bad, too).

[css228]

So, I know exactly how I want Cornell to play hockey, having now watched the Royals take the Mets apart last night, again, just like they did in the WS.

That constant pressure and intensity and keeping your head in every second of the game and scrapping for every tiny advantage and not letting up for an instant; good god, it just shatters lesser teams mentally.  It's exhausting just watching it, let alone having to deal with it on the ice.

The only hockey team I've ever seen do that was the 85 RPI national champions.  Take that, season with some decent talent (which we have) and backstop it with a goalie who can save you for the handful of D breakdowns that you will give up (which we have... at least I think), and it will produce wins.  And a helluva lot of fun. And maybe a heart attack on the bench.

Every team, Cornell especially, is already trying to do this.

I disagree with that premise, although it may stem from a different interpretation. What he's implying to me is the type of high pressure system attack points at blue line system that he's been advocated, as opposed to a more Torts/Schafer/90s-2000s Devils clog the neutral zone, block shots, collapse around the goalie. Basically he's talking about the hockey equivalent of running the old Arkansas 40 minutes of hell full court press defense.

[BearLover]

You might be right--I interpreted the post more literally to mean just relentless/scrappy effort for the full 60 minutes--something Schafer preaches in every press conference.  

For the record, the Royals are poorly managed and make tons of in-game mistakes.  They are overly aggressive in their swinging and baserunning and although it happened to not cost them against the Mets in the WS and last night, they are by no means the beacon of managerial tactics.

[css228]

You might be right--I interpreted the post more literally to mean just relentless/scrappy effort for the full 60 minutes--something Schafer preaches in every press conference.  

For the record, the Royals are poorly managed and make tons of in-game mistakes.  They are overly aggressive in their swinging and baserunning and although it happened to not cost them against the Mets in the WS and last night, they are by no means the beacon of managerial tactics.

Yeah but Hockey is also a completely different game than baseball. In baseball the goal is to conserve outs, since you only get 27 of them. In hockey, you're arguably less penalized for any single mistake unless it ends up in the back of your net.

[ugarte]

For the record, the Royals are poorly managed and make tons of in-game mistakes.  They are overly aggressive in their swinging and baserunning and although it happened to not cost them against the Mets in the WS and last night, they are by no means the beacon of managerial tactics.

{driffffffft}

The Royals are zigging when the rest of the league is zagging but it's not like there isn't a plan. They build their team on almost a little league model: they value putting the ball in play above pure OBP skills and let their aggressive baserunning act as defensive pressure. They swing a lot and while you'd think that would mean a lot of strikeouts, it turns out that with a high-contact team it means a ton of foul balls and high pitch counts and the benefits of chasing the starter.

The more you watch them the more it makes sense, though it's a strategy that requires very specific roster construction. The computer models still don't appreciate the Royals because they make no sense in light of how we usually think about the game now. The formula is going to be hard to replicate - and maybe so hard that it isn't worth trying - but they're going to be very good again this year.

Anyway, I think about this article (in part about how eventually statistics redeemed old scouting opinions regarding catcher defense that the statheads had dismissed as nonsense but mostly about humility) all the time when I think about the Royals' emphasis on contact, speed and defense (and a shut-down bullpen). The outsider statheads will eventually catch up to what the Royals are doing and reduce it to numbers. The insiders already have the calculations under lock and key.

[Dafatone]

For the record, the Royals are poorly managed and make tons of in-game mistakes.  They are overly aggressive in their swinging and baserunning and although it happened to not cost them against the Mets in the WS and last night, they are by no means the beacon of managerial tactics.

{driffffffft}

The Royals are zigging when the rest of the league is zagging but it's not like there isn't a plan. They build their team on almost a little league model: they value putting the ball in play above pure OBP skills and let their aggressive baserunning act as defensive pressure. They swing a lot and while you'd think that would mean a lot of strikeouts, it turns out that with a high-contact team it means a ton of foul balls and high pitch counts and the benefits of chasing the starter.

The more you watch them the more it makes sense, though it's a strategy that requires very specific roster construction. The computer models still don't appreciate the Royals because they make no sense in light of how we usually think about the game now. The formula is going to be hard to replicate - and maybe so hard that it isn't worth trying - but they're going to be very good again this year.

Anyway, I think about this article (in part about how eventually statistics redeemed old scouting opinions regarding catcher defense that the statheads had dismissed as nonsense but mostly about humility) all the time when I think about the Royals' emphasis on contact, speed and defense (and a shut-down bullpen). The outsider statheads will eventually catch up to what the Royals are doing and reduce it to numbers. The insiders already have the calculations under lock and key.

Their defense is amazing, their bullpen is absurdly ridiculous, and their lineup has no holes and a few very underrated bats.

[KeithK]

Anyway, I think about this article (in part about how eventually statistics redeemed old scouting opinions regarding catcher defense that the statheads had dismissed as nonsense but mostly about humility) all the time when I think about the Royals' emphasis on contact, speed and defense (and a shut-down bullpen).

Thanks for that link. Great read.