Clarkson @ Cornell 03/10-3/12?/17

[upprdeck]

you start to get tired when you cant get the puck cleared and you cant get a forecheck giong either. We got the puck in deep like 1 period in 3 games and dominated that period..

[Trotsky]

We were chasing the play a lot of the time, which usually means tiredness.  Rauter though -- my God, talk about rising to a challenge.

[Dafatone]

I'm salivating at the thought of having all our defensemen healthy.  Who would you even scratch out of mccarron, wedman, bliss, Smith, kaldis, mccrea, and nuttle?

Graduation will scratch McCarron.:-/

Yeah.  I meant in an injury-free fantasy world.

Still, that's a very solid six to begin with next year.

[Trotsky]

I'm salivating at the thought of having all our defensemen healthy.  Who would you even scratch out of mccarron, wedman, bliss, Smith, kaldis, mccrea, and nuttle?

Graduation will scratch McCarron.:-/

Yeah.  I meant in an injury-free fantasy world.

Still, that's a very solid six to begin with next year.

This is assuming Bliss' injury isn't career threatening.

Smith / Kaldis / McCrae is a solid core for the defense and they'll all be here for two more full seasons.  Add that we're deep enough on forward to be rolling four decent lines right now, and the big question mark is going to be goaltending.

[Jim Hyla]

I'm salivating at the thought of having all our defensemen healthy.  Who would you even scratch out of mccarron, wedman, bliss, Smith, kaldis, mccrea, and nuttle?

Graduation will scratch McCarron.:-/

Yeah.  I meant in an injury-free fantasy world.

Still, that's a very solid six to begin with next year.

This is assuming Bliss' injury isn't career threatening.

Smith / Kaldis / McCrae is a solid core for the defense and they'll all be here for two more full seasons.  Add that we're deep enough on forward to be rolling four decent lines right now, and the big question mark is going to be goaltending.

I thought I heard that he dropped out of school to retain eligibility for 2 more years. Anyone got more data?

[Hooking]

Chasing the puck is more tiring than passing the puck. On the bright side, chasing the puck is fine conditioning for both your defensive and offensive players. After the Clarkson series Cornell skaters should be in magnificent skating condition.

[Dafatone]

Thinking a bit more about this past weekend and how Cornell was fortunate to survive it, I'm starting to worry that Cornell has actually just been really lucky this entire season.  Our advanced stats are not good.  Meanwhile, the advanced stats of the other teams ranked highly in the PWR are almost universally strong--and in nearly every case better than ours.  We've had this debate enough on here, but now we have a full season's sample of games to work with, and Corsi etc. really do seem highly correlated with overall success.  Outside of the advanced stats, though, until this past weekend, we've looked pretty consistently good...

My theory on advanced stats is that they (at least, corsi/Fenwick) don't factor in shooting accuracy or goalie play.  On the NHL level, where everyone can shoot accurately and all goalies are at least very good, this is less of an issue.  But we've seen some Cornell teams that can't put the puck on net (oh, Cole bardreau, if only you could shoot) much at all.

A few legit snipers and a very good goalie make a big difference.

Then again, I haven't seen a single Cornell season without a good goalie (freshman scrivens / Davenport would probably be the low point), so it's hard to compare.

[Trotsky]

Then again, I haven't seen a single Cornell season without a good goalie (freshman scrivens / Davenport would probably be the low point), so it's hard to compare.

The Edmands/Fawcett years were indeed a sight to behold.

[arugula]

Then again, I haven't seen a single Cornell season without a good goalie (freshman scrivens / Davenport would probably be the low point), so it's hard to compare.

The Edmands/Fawcett years were indeed a sight to behold.

Edmands/Fawcett.  I started throwing up at the mention.  Different world then.  As great as Dadswell was, he routinely allowed 3-4 goals.  Of course Edmands/Fawcett routinely allowed 5-6.

[Trotsky]

Then again, I haven't seen a single Cornell season without a good goalie (freshman scrivens / Davenport would probably be the low point), so it's hard to compare.

The Edmands/Fawcett years were indeed a sight to behold.

Edmands/Fawcett.  I started throwing up at the mention.  Different world then.  As great as Dadswell was, he routinely allowed 3-4 goals.  Of course Edmands/Fawcett routinely allowed 5-6.

Two goals in particular define the Edmands/Fawcett era for me.  One was a high hop from the red line with nobody around that went through the wickets.  The other was a deflection that went straight up, eldued the rafters, and plunked off the back of the goalie's head and into his net.  He never saw it.  Dadswell ("But Mom's Terrific" ) showed the difference a great goalie can make all by his lonesome.

1985 save percentage:

.898 Dadswell
.847 Fawcett
.804 Edmands

[BearLover]

Thinking a bit more about this past weekend and how Cornell was fortunate to survive it, I'm starting to worry that Cornell has actually just been really lucky this entire season.  Our advanced stats are not good.  Meanwhile, the advanced stats of the other teams ranked highly in the PWR are almost universally strong--and in nearly every case better than ours.  We've had this debate enough on here, but now we have a full season's sample of games to work with, and Corsi etc. really do seem highly correlated with overall success.  Outside of the advanced stats, though, until this past weekend, we've looked pretty consistently good...

My theory on advanced stats is that they (at least, corsi/Fenwick) don't factor in shooting accuracy or goalie play.  On the NHL level, where everyone can shoot accurately and all goalies are at least very good, this is less of an issue.  But we've seen some Cornell teams that can't put the puck on net (oh, Cole bardreau, if only you could shoot) much at all.

A few legit snipers and a very good goalie make a big difference.

Then again, I haven't seen a single Cornell season without a good goalie (freshman scrivens / Davenport would probably be the low point), so it's hard to compare.

Yes, but shooting accuracy (something Cornell has never particularly excelled at) and goalie play (Gillam's save % is actually lower/the same as most  other top teams' goalies) can't account for the (pretty big) disparity between Cornell's advanced stats and those of basically all the other teams around them in the PWR.  That's not to say Gillam hasn't been very good--he probably saved us last weekend--but if we were truly limiting other teams' chances to shots from outside that Gillam can see, this would be reflected in an exceptional save %, instead of just a very good one.

[arugula]

True.  Funny though that the .898 sp that made Dadswell a life saver then, would have him playing in DIII now.  Just a completely different game.  My senior year, Nieuwendyk averaged two points a game.  Crazy.

[scoop85]

My sense from last weekend was that we were in survival mode and the team played very tight against an aggressive team that was not a great match-up for us. My expectation is that we'll play better on Friday, which of course doesn't guarantee a win against a very good team.

[Tom Lento]

Thinking a bit more about this past weekend and how Cornell was fortunate to survive it, I'm starting to worry that Cornell has actually just been really lucky this entire season.  Our advanced stats are not good.  Meanwhile, the advanced stats of the other teams ranked highly in the PWR are almost universally strong--and in nearly every case better than ours.  We've had this debate enough on here, but now we have a full season's sample of games to work with, and Corsi etc. really do seem highly correlated with overall success.  Outside of the advanced stats, though, until this past weekend, we've looked pretty consistently good...

My theory on advanced stats is that they (at least, corsi/Fenwick) don't factor in shooting accuracy or goalie play.  On the NHL level, where everyone can shoot accurately and all goalies are at least very good, this is less of an issue.  But we've seen some Cornell teams that can't put the puck on net (oh, Cole bardreau, if only you could shoot) much at all.

A few legit snipers and a very good goalie make a big difference.

Then again, I haven't seen a single Cornell season without a good goalie (freshman scrivens / Davenport would probably be the low point), so it's hard to compare.

Yes, but shooting accuracy (something Cornell has never particularly excelled at) and goalie play (Gillam's save % is actually lower/the same as most  other top teams' goalies) can't account for the (pretty big) disparity between Cornell's advanced stats and those of basically all the other teams around them in the PWR.  That's not to say Gillam hasn't been very good--he probably saved us last weekend--but if we were truly limiting other teams' chances to shots from outside that Gillam can see, this would be reflected in a truly exceptional save %, instead of just a very good one.

Of course, Gillam might really be an average or above-average collegiate goaltender in terms of individual ability, in which case a very good save % would still be the result of limiting chances to low percentage shots. This doesn't change your point about the disparity in possession metrics but it does make a difference in how you view Cornell's chances of repeating these outcomes given a similar quality goaltender.

Personally, and as always based strictly on numbers, I suspect Cornell's record this season is on the lucky end - even if you allow for more systematic variance in advanced metrics in the college game such extreme outliers are always suspicious. How lucky has this season been, and how likely is Cornell to regress to the mean vs elevating its baseline, are the real questions. On the one hand, game to game Cornell has almost certainly been lucky to win as often as they have given the possession numbers. On the other hand, so many defensive injuries can really alter a team's play. It might very well be that with a healthy D the possession numbers would've been a lot better for this team, so their luck might've just balanced things out. No way to know, really, but hopefully we get to find out with a healthy team next year, and hopefully that team starts controlling possession to such an extent that they just win all of their games. Hey, I can hope, right?

Anyway, I got curious, so I looked up the advanced metrics for the last 3 years (all CHN has) - this year's team put up by far the highest PDO of the three - 103 even strength, 104.25 close. This is the strongest stats-based argument for the "this team was really lucky" position. For reference, last year's team - same goaltender and a lot of the same scorers - put up a 101.26 and 102 close PDO. Two years ago it was just below 98.4 even strength and 97.4 close, although of course the scoring personnel was quite different. Either this team has some kind of magical mix of NCAA-beating talent and execution in terms of scoring/save efficiency, or we should expect a PDO closer to 100 and a record more reflective of possession numbers next year. The smart money is on the latter - it's just hard to imagine a team that is so efficient when they have the puck and so effective at containing high quality scoring chances and yet does not control overall relative shot totals.

[BearLover]

Thinking a bit more about this past weekend and how Cornell was fortunate to survive it, I'm starting to worry that Cornell has actually just been really lucky this entire season.  Our advanced stats are not good.  Meanwhile, the advanced stats of the other teams ranked highly in the PWR are almost universally strong--and in nearly every case better than ours.  We've had this debate enough on here, but now we have a full season's sample of games to work with, and Corsi etc. really do seem highly correlated with overall success.  Outside of the advanced stats, though, until this past weekend, we've looked pretty consistently good...

My theory on advanced stats is that they (at least, corsi/Fenwick) don't factor in shooting accuracy or goalie play.  On the NHL level, where everyone can shoot accurately and all goalies are at least very good, this is less of an issue.  But we've seen some Cornell teams that can't put the puck on net (oh, Cole bardreau, if only you could shoot) much at all.

A few legit snipers and a very good goalie make a big difference.

Then again, I haven't seen a single Cornell season without a good goalie (freshman scrivens / Davenport would probably be the low point), so it's hard to compare.

Yes, but shooting accuracy (something Cornell has never particularly excelled at) and goalie play (Gillam's save % is actually lower/the same as most  other top teams' goalies) can't account for the (pretty big) disparity between Cornell's advanced stats and those of basically all the other teams around them in the PWR.  That's not to say Gillam hasn't been very good--he probably saved us last weekend--but if we were truly limiting other teams' chances to shots from outside that Gillam can see, this would be reflected in a truly exceptional save %, instead of just a very good one.

Of course, Gillam might really be an average or above-average collegiate goaltender in terms of individual ability, in which case a very good save % would still be the result of limiting chances to low percentage shots. This doesn't change your point about the disparity in possession metrics but it does make a difference in how you view Cornell's chances of repeating these outcomes given a similar quality goaltender.

Personally, and as always based strictly on numbers, I suspect Cornell's record this season is on the lucky end - even if you allow for more systematic variance in advanced metrics in the college game such extreme outliers are always suspicious. How lucky has this season been, and how likely is Cornell to regress to the mean vs elevating its baseline, are the real questions. On the one hand, game to game Cornell has almost certainly been lucky to win as often as they have given the possession numbers. On the other hand, so many defensive injuries can really alter a team's play. It might very well be that with a healthy D the possession numbers would've been a lot better for this team, so their luck might've just balanced things out. No way to know, really, but hopefully we get to find out with a healthy team next year, and hopefully that team starts controlling possession to such an extent that they just win all of their games. Hey, I can hope, right?

Anyway, I got curious, so I looked up the advanced metrics for the last 3 years (all CHN has) - this year's team put up by far the highest PDO of the three - 103 even strength, 104.25 close. This is the strongest stats-based argument for the "this team was really lucky" position. For reference, last year's team - same goaltender and a lot of the same scorers - put up a 101.26 and 102 close PDO. Two years ago it was just below 98.4 even strength and 97.4 close, although of course the scoring personnel was quite different. Either this team has some kind of magical mix of NCAA-beating talent and execution in terms of scoring/save efficiency, or we should expect a PDO closer to 100 and a record more reflective of possession numbers next year. The smart money is on the latter - it's just hard to imagine a team that is so efficient when they have the puck and so effective at containing high quality scoring chances and yet does not control overall relative shot totals.

This is a great post.