What's going on with this year's team?

[Scersk '97]

We outshot both Yale and SLU "close."

Small sample size, relatively better competition than you're allowing. (The ECAC is better overall this year.)

As far as Clarkson goes, good thing we have a great goalie; yet, I bet the late 90s Clarkson teams used to "out-Corsi" us too——same result.

When all else fails, we've got the D.

PS On KRACH, I've found it pretty accurate after Christmas break. Let's see where we are then.

[css228]

We outshot both Yale and SLU "close."

Small sample size, relatively better competition than you're allowing. (The ECAC is better overall this year.)

As far as Clarkson goes, good thing we have a great goalie; yet, I bet the late 90s Clarkson teams used to "out-Corsi" us too——same result.

When all else fails, we've got the D.

PS On KRACH, I've found it pretty accurate after Christmas break. Let's see where we are then.

As I said its a really small sample size. but against competition that has a CF% close of 50 or greater (Brown, Yale, Clarkson, SLU, Q, BU) our CF% close is 47.3% (172 CF, 192 CA), but our record is 3-1-2.

Against Colgate (46.2% CF close), Princeton (46.8%), and Niagara (43.5%) who are absolutely the definition of terrible teams, or CF% close is 57.2% (167 CF 125 CA). Our record, as it should be when you dominate possession like we have against these teams, is 5-0-0.

All I'm saying is that while the first paragraph is a small sample size, that is an absolutely unsustainable trend. Our PDO is 105.6. Now maybe in college you can sustain a slightly higher shooting percentage and save percentage, but do you really want to bet that we're going to shoot 12% all season (the average is somewhere between 8-9%) AND get .940 goaltending? I don't. This seems like a team tailor made to come back to earth a bit when the competition gets better. Our true talent is probably closer to 50% CF close than the early possession stats that made us look like LA. On the bright side, at least our season is only 27 games long, so we've banked good results on luck for at least 50% of the year.

[KeithK]

I think the takeaway from the stats you're presenting is that we've overachieved somewhat. Considering what we expected from this squad that's almost certainly true. I wouldn't take the results so far to mean that we are a true talent top 10 team (yet). How we do in the second half will depend on how quickly the guys get healthy and how the younger players continue to develop.

One thing: I suspect that with the shorter season that a team has a better chance to float by with lesser fundamentals.  What you can't sustain through 80 games at the pro level might work for 20-30.

[upprdeck]

until we actually play a stretch of games with the kids we hoped would be starting not sure you can use any stats to guess at how it will all play out. using puck possession stats when you are trying to survive with D is not always good..

we played last weekend with 4-5 kids who probably shouldnt have been on the ice they were so banged up but we needed to fill out a lineup

we cant even fully practice right now we have so few bodies, lets hope a few weeks off helps.

[Trotsky]

cool albeit depressing stuff

Sorry to be a horrible killjoy.

You can't kill the record, so no worries.  ::crazy::

Are you calculating the analytics yourself or are they tracked someplace?  I'd love to see our Corsi / Fenwick.

Oh, and for the Gen Pop, here is a nice rundown on puckanalytics.  PDO is new to me.

[LGR14]

http://www.collegehockeynews.com/stats/#adv

[ugarte]

I'm not going to lie I'm incredibly skeptical of this team. Before the BU game we looked like a good possession team, but we had only played 2 teams with decent possession stats (Yale and Q, who is ) and we went 0-1-1 in those matchups. The rest of the teams were in the bottom 3rd in both CF% and CF% close (which is a better metric by far than PWR or KRACH to compare a team). Since then our possesion stats have gone in a freefall. We currently stand at 47.7% CF and 51.2% CF close. The first might be due to score effects, and the second number isnt bad, but before the BU game it was 53.7% CF close which screams to me that we were beating up on bad teams and now that we've actually had to play a run of good possession teams (BU, Clarkson, and SLU) our possession numbers have basically looked like we've iced a top pair Andrew MacDonald and Dan Girardi. Admittedly, we won the two against Clarkson and SLU, but we pretty much stole both. We're basically a little fluky puck luck away from being winless over any team with a CF% greater than 50%. That doesn't scream good team. It screams at best slightly above average team that has the potential to come apart in the 2nd half of the year.

Sorry to be a horrible killjoy.

I honestly wish there was more of this here. It's not positive but it isn't Chicken Little bullshit. And it really isn't all that far away from what most of us say/believe anyway.

I don't think anyone is convinced that we're a top 10 team. I'd guess that the eLF crowd is pleasantly surprised with the results to date, expecting some slippage, figuring there is a good chance to snag an at-large ahead of schedule with the freshmen and hoping that the full squad is healthy at the end of the year to make a run.

This wasn't supposed to be the year for great things. It was supposed to be a rebuilding year and we've been a skating infirmary. That's what your stats say to me. No reason to think that makes you a killjoy.

[BearLover]

Does CF Close include special teams play?  Because Cornell has been taking more penalties than its opponents, and it has been consistently leading in games.  CF Close, despite ignoring large score disparities, still includes the time when Cornell is leading by 1 goal--which has been the case far more often this season than them being down by 1 goal.  So it's likely Cornell's numbers would be a bit higher if they weren't nearly always ahead and weren't taking more penalties than their opponents.  

With that said, though, one need only watch the 3rd period and OT of the BU game to know Cornell has a long way to go before it's an elite team.

[KGR11]

Because Cornell has been taking more penalties than its opponents, and it has been consistently leading in

Going off on a tangent. I think Cornell's penalty stats are an interesting story this year. We are 50/60 in terms of penalty minutes, yet, as you said, are penalized more often per game than our opponents (4.4 vs 3.2 penalties). Granted, 5 of our 11 games have come across teams that have fewer penalty minutes. Either way, I love that we have so few penalty minutes and that we haven't committed a major or game misconduct penalty yet.

Another interesting stat: opponents' save percentage. So far this season it's at an atrocious 88.1%. If that represented one goalie, they would rank 78/80 in the NCAAs. Last year, the oppoents' save percentage was 92.9%. Is this increased accuracy a fluke, a trend attributable to a new class, the result of revised coaching or practice techniques, or something else?

[Dafatone]

Because Cornell has been taking more penalties than its opponents, and it has been consistently leading in

Another interesting stat: opponents' save percentage. So far this season it's at an atrocious 88.1%. If that represented one goalie, they would rank 78/80 in the NCAAs. Last year, the oppoents' save percentage was 92.9%. Is this increased accuracy a fluke, a trend attributable to a new class, the result of revised coaching or practice techniques, or something else?

All of the above!  We have better shooters/finishers, and we had a class of relatively terrible finishers leave.  Certainly, there's some luck to it as well.  88.1% is terrible, but 92.9% was great.

[Trotsky]

Shot charts would tell, but I've had the impression that we're not shooting from the perimeter as much as prior seasons.  We've seemed to be able to penetrate defenses, even up the middle, and get rushes and shots from closer in.  The Kubiak line especially seems to be built to do this.   Hilbrich still menaces the goalie and tries to screen, but the other lines have gotten low and out in front.

OTOH we may just be playing really bad defensive teams.  :-P

[Trotsky]

Trying to jog my memory I came across this.  Heckuva job on the first paragraph, USCHO copy editors.

[Roy 82]

I feel that the stats like time of possession, shots, CF etc. can be skewed against a team that jumps out to an early lead. I would like to see adjusted stats that reflect that a team with a healthy lead would naturally be expected to take fewer shots etc. I haven't checked our stats on that but at least against Q and BU we jumped out to an early lead and probably collapsed into a defensive shell. Are they better teams? Probably. But would we have been a bit more agressive to the puck if we were down a goal? Probably.

[RichH]

The thing that has a seed of concern germinating in my brain is that the whole "we're going to get the puck on net a lot more" thing seems to be losing momentum. Shots are down and there's some more hesitation when there's offensive zone traffic compared to the first few weeks. That and we're starting to panic again when an opponent sends a strong forecheck into our face on the breakout. Falling into old habits is my only fear, other than more injuries.

OTOH, there are bodies established in front of the net consistently, and we're getting the pucks deflecting and tipping way more often than last season.

[Jim Hyla]

Regardless with what is going on, this quote from this week's USCHO ECAC column is worth remembering.

Cornell heads into its holiday break on a seven-game unbeaten streak, its best since 2012. At 8-1-2, the Big Red are only three wins shy of their win total from last year.

Read more: http://www.uscho.com/2015/12/09/yale-looks-for-players-to-step-forward-and-finish-off-scoring-chances/#ixzz3trlRstV1