An early look at 2019-2020

[arugula]

Right and then I wrote "more important not being ready for the tournament"

[BearLover]

Providence isn't that good that we should've been so stymied.  Other than perhaps the team was finally just plain spent.  But hat doesn't explain past years. No problem losing to demonstrably better teams, but Providence is not 4-0 better than us.  Frustrates the hell out me, all the NC$$ losses-UNH, Ferris, Bemidji--those are games you need to win.  Wisconsin makes my head hurt, but that was Wisconsin, no shame there

I think Providence is that good. They're in Hockey East, they have the second-longest active streak of making the NCAAs, they won a national championship five years ago, they have nine draft picks, they play smart. What I mean to say is, this is one of the best programs in the country and certainly one that is ahead of Cornell. Cornell is going to be disadvantaged against all of these big-time scholarship programs loaded with NHL talent. It's almost hard to believe that Cornell can compete with these teams at all, that they could thump Northeastern the day before. It's even somewhat hard to understand how they have largely had the better of Harvard, who recruits considerably better talent than Cornell does.

Now, there are ways around our lack of blue-chip prospects: targeting somewhat older, more developed players; recruiting good students who value an Ivy League education and want to stay four years; taking advantage of our defense-first system to attract some of the best goalies in the country--it helps when the position your school is best known for is the most important position in hockey. And I don't think the last few recruiting classes have been bad by any means, just not at the level of the schools we want to compete with. And when we have gotten elite players--Vanderlaan, Kaldis, Barron--they've been diamonds in the rough rather than heavily recruited prospects from top junior teams. As scoop85 said, we get a lot of B+ players, and the last two years when healthy we've been able to roll four lines that can score, six very capable defensemen, and a superb goalie.

For the near future, this means getting players like Barron to stay at least three years is a big deal. And next year's recruiting class looks deep, but they're replacing one of the best classes under Schafer. As others have alluded to, I expect Regush and Andreev to make the jump to top-six forward roles, the incoming freshmen defensemen to get a lot of playing time, and the team to again compete for an ECAC Championship and NCAA birth.

[Trotsky]

I think Providence is that good. They're in Hockey East, they have the second-longest active streak of making the NCAAs, they won a national championship five years ago, they have nine draft picks, they play smart. What I mean to say is, this is one of the best programs in the country and certainly one that is ahead of Cornell. Cornell is going to be disadvantaged against all of these big-time scholarship programs loaded with NHL talent. It's almost hard to believe that Cornell can compete with these teams at all, that they could thump Northeastern the day before.

Great post.

Teams with the longest current streaks of making the NC$$:

Code Select Expand

12 Denver
 6 Minn-Duluth
 6 Providence
 3 Cornell
 3 Notre Dame
 3 Ohio State


[adamw]

We pay for that in PWR

AW: Not true

My point wasn't that losing to a UMass would be better than beating Canisius for PWR purposes

AW: yeah that was in your point

Right and then...

AW: SMH

[Trotsky]

For the near future, this means getting players like Barron to stay at least three years is a big deal. And next year's recruiting class looks deep, but they're replacing one of the best classes under Schafer. As others have alluded to, I expect Regush and Andreev to make the jump to top-six forward roles, the incoming freshmen defensemen to get a lot of playing time, and the team to again compete for an ECAC Championship and NCAA birth.

Although it's not plug and play I can see Andreev take Starrett's slot and Regush take Vanderlaan's.  Ironic since Max plays similar to Mitch and Regush to Beau.

The more the season went on the more Regush looked like a great sleeper.  As good as Max looked early, Regush looked even better, and more complete, in crunch time.  Max was certainly impeded both in growth and then execution by his injury so I hope next year he can flourish uninterrupted.

Assuming scoop's 12 forwards and 6 defensemen returning, the freshman class is the quantitative measure of our depth, and Heisenberg has that as 5 forwards (Tupker x 2, Berard, O'Leary*, Malone)  and 5 defensemen (Malinski, Lagerstrom, Mitchell, Dervin, Muzyka).  That's a lot of guys to carry, but the past few seasons seem to indicate it's prudent.

* Both Heisenberg and Elite Prospects are projecting O'Leary for Fall 2019.

[scoop85]

For the near future, this means getting players like Barron to stay at least three years is a big deal. And next year's recruiting class looks deep, but they're replacing one of the best classes under Schafer. As others have alluded to, I expect Regush and Andreev to make the jump to top-six forward roles, the incoming freshmen defensemen to get a lot of playing time, and the team to again compete for an ECAC Championship and NCAA birth.

Although it's not plug and play I can see Andreev take Starrett's slot and Regush take Vanderlaan's.  Ironic since Max plays similar to Mitch and Regush to Beau.

The more the season went on the more Regush looked like a great sleeper.  As good as Max looked early, Regush looked even better, and more complete, in crunch time.  Max was certainly impeded both in growth and then execution by his injury so I hope next year he can flourish uninterrupted.

Assuming scoop's 12 forwards and 6 defensemen returning, the freshman class is the quantitative measure of our depth, and Heisenberg has that as 5 forwards (Tupker x 2, Berard, O'Leary*, Malone)  and 5 defensemen (Malinski, Lagerstrom, Mitchell, Dervin, Muzyka).  That's a lot of guys to carry, but the past few seasons seem to indicate it's prudent.

* Both Heisenberg and Elite Prospects are projecting O'Leary for 2019.

It must be a tough balancing act for the coaches to ensure sufficient depth (as we found out this year) and not having too many guys that can lead to a lot of disgruntled players and guys jumping ship. And of course it's hard to predict early departures to the pros.

[Trotsky]

It must be a tough balancing act for the coaches to ensure sufficient depth (as we found out this year) and not having too many guys that can lead to a lot of disgruntled players and guys jumping ship. And of course it's hard to predict early departures to the pros.

We saw that with Brakel this year, or anyway that was the rumor.  He might have missed his girlfriend or something.  It was deeply ironic that pretty much from the moment he left the wave of injuries would have made him a starter for the rest of the season.

Doing some TBRW cleanup and entry last night I was blown away by this: Luc Lalor and Chad Otterman would have graduated with this class.  Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

Ones who went away, sorted by Freshman year (with career GP):

19: Chase Brakel (6)
18:
17: Corey Hoffman (2)
16: Trent Shore (14), Luc Lalor (6), Chad Otterman (0)
15: Dan Wedman (69)
14: Clint Lewis (32), Eric Sade (0)
13: Gavin Stoick (24)
12: Kevin Cole (2), Vincenzo Marozzi (0)
11:
10: Chris Moulson (6), Jarred Seymour (1)
09: Mike Garman (22)
08: Jordan Berk (31), Jacob Johnston (4)
07: Tony Romano (29), Justin Milo (24), Matt Hedge (0)
06: Ryan Kindret (15), Matt Connors (0)
05: Matt McKeown (0)
04: Kevin McLeod (13), Jan Pajerski (4)
03:
02:
01: Kelly Hughes (22), Scott Krahn (18), Jason Kuczmanski (11)
00:
99: Alex Gregory (41)
98: David Hovey (62), Niels Heilmann (23), Brian Telesmanic (24), Tyler Sutherland (4)
97: Levi Clegg (5)
96: Keith Peach (34), , Jesse Sampair (9), Jeff Maxwell (2)

I don't recall how many of these guys walked or were pushed, how many were disciplinary problems or academic casualties, etc.  But it does show that any given recruiting class is at risk to lose 1-2 members.

[arugula]

Adam--OK you got me.  Congratulations.  Stop lawyering me.  I get enough of that at work. Maybe we should go line by line and pick apart everything you've ever written for inconsistency. My point is that I think a tougher schedule may help.  Doesn't seem that controversial.

[arugula]

We pay for that in PWR

AW: Not true

My point wasn't that losing to a UMass would be better than beating Canisius for PWR purposes

AW: yeah that was in your point

Right and then...

AW: SMH

Adam--OK you got me.  Congratulations.  Stop lawyering me.  I get enough of that at work. Maybe we should go line by line and pick apart everything you've ever written for inconsistency. My point is that I think a tougher schedule may help.  Doesn't seem that controversial.

[arugula]

Providence isn't that good that we should've been so stymied.  Other than perhaps the team was finally just plain spent.  But hat doesn't explain past years. No problem losing to demonstrably better teams, but Providence is not 4-0 better than us.  Frustrates the hell out me, all the NC$$ losses-UNH, Ferris, Bemidji--those are games you need to win.  Wisconsin makes my head hurt, but that was Wisconsin, no shame there

I think Providence is that good. They're in Hockey East, they have the second-longest active streak of making the NCAAs, they won a national championship five years ago, they have nine draft picks, they play smart. What I mean to say is, this is one of the best programs in the country and certainly one that is ahead of Cornell. Cornell is going to be disadvantaged against all of these big-time scholarship programs loaded with NHL talent. It's almost hard to believe that Cornell can compete with these teams at all, that they could thump Northeastern the day before. It's even somewhat hard to understand how they have largely had the better of Harvard, who recruits considerably better talent than Cornell does.

Now, there are ways around our lack of blue-chip prospects: targeting somewhat older, more developed players; recruiting good students who value an Ivy League education and want to stay four years; taking advantage of our defense-first system to attract some of the best goalies in the country--it helps when the position your school is best known for is the most important position in hockey. And I don't think the last few recruiting classes have been bad by any means, just not at the level of the schools we want to compete with. And when we have gotten elite players--Vanderlaan, Kaldis, Barron--they've been diamonds in the rough rather than heavily recruited prospects from top junior teams. As scoop85 said, we get a lot of B+ players, and the last two years when healthy we've been able to roll four lines that can score, six very capable defensemen, and a superb goalie.

For the near future, this means getting players like Barron to stay at least three years is a big deal. And next year's recruiting class looks deep, but they're replacing one of the best classes under Schafer. As others have alluded to, I expect Regush and Andreev to make the jump to top-six forward roles, the incoming freshmen defensemen to get a lot of playing time, and the team to again compete for an ECAC Championship and NCAA birth.

Get all your points about PC, OTOH, PC lost to a mediocre BC team four times. Of course, we also know that oodles of talent and draft picks doesn't per se mean wins-BC and BU for example.  I recognize the obstacles we face, I'd just like to see us make the leap occasionally--Union managed to do it, more significantly Yale and Harvard have managed to do it operating under the same rules.  We've lost five straight regional finals over the last 10-12 years.  It's fantastic that the program is consistently excellent.  It would just be nice to take the next step on occasion.  Definitely key to keep players for four years, as in hoops, a B+Senior can beat an A+ Freshman

[jtwcornell91]

We pay for that in PWR

AW: Not true

My point wasn't that losing to a UMass would be better than beating Canisius for PWR purposes

AW: yeah that was in your point

Right and then...

AW: SMH

Adam--OK you got me.  Congratulations.  Stop lawyering me.  I get enough of that at work. Maybe we should go line by line and pick apart everything you've ever written for inconsistency. My point is that I think a tougher schedule may help.  Doesn't seem that controversial.

Correcting a statement that losing to a good team helps more than beating a bad team is more than just nitpicking.  There have been cases in the NCAA where that was true, e.g., in lacrosse, where the selection criteria were so heavily weighted towards strength of schedule that the best schedule was one that let you go 6-5 with a 2-5 record vs top 10 teams.  But when similar things have happened in hockey (beating a bad team is worse than not playing them at all) the NCAA has responded by tweaking the selection criteria (playing with RPI weightings and dropping "bad wins") to avoid that.

[arugula]

We pay for that in PWR

AW: Not true

My point wasn't that losing to a UMass would be better than beating Canisius for PWR purposes

AW: yeah that was in your point

Right and then...

AW: SMH

Adam--OK you got me.  Congratulations.  Stop lawyering me.  I get enough of that at work. Maybe we should go line by line and pick apart everything you've ever written for inconsistency. My point is that I think a tougher schedule may help.  Doesn't seem that controversial.

Correcting a statement that losing to a good team helps more than beating a bad team is more than just nitpicking.  There have been cases in the NCAA where that was true, e.g., in lacrosse, where the selection criteria were so heavily weighted towards strength of schedule that the best schedule was one that let you go 6-5 with a 2-5 record vs top 10 teams.  But when similar things have happened in hockey (beating a bad team is worse than not playing them at all) the NCAA has responded by tweaking the selection criteria (playing with RPI weightings and dropping "bad wins") to avoid that.

Yes, I know it doesn't necessarily help PWR (that's been made very clear to me), but wouldn't playing a better team help you be a better team, even if your Pairwise drops or stays flat with a loss or tie?  If the standard is winning uber alles than why not just play Mercyhurst, Army, and Canisius to make wins more likely.  It's a moot argument as the team will schedule as they see fit.

[adamw]

Yes, I know it doesn't necessarily help PWR (that's been made very clear to me), but wouldn't playing a better team help you be a better team, even if your Pairwise drops or stays flat with a loss or tie?  If the standard is winning uber alles than why not just play Mercyhurst, Army, and Canisius to make wins more likely.

Because that's not the only standard. Sure, as you said, playing better teams helps you get better. That's two separate discussions. The Pairwise part is simply factual. And just playing Mercyhurst, et al only helps your Pairwise IF you win them ALL. You darn well better.

Basically, there is an inverse ratio between Strength of Schedule and Expected Win Percentage.  Seems obvious, but people are constantly trying to game the system.  There is no way to game it, really. Not in hockey.  You play harder teams, you may win less - you play weaker teams, you may win more.  Either way, Pairwise is the same.  But - if you win a couple more vs. those harder teams - or you lose a couple vs. those weaker teams - it all blows up.  There's just no way to know in advance - so scheduling to game the Pairwise is useless.

[Dafatone]

Yes, I know it doesn't necessarily help PWR (that's been made very clear to me), but wouldn't playing a better team help you be a better team, even if your Pairwise drops or stays flat with a loss or tie?  If the standard is winning uber alles than why not just play Mercyhurst, Army, and Canisius to make wins more likely.

Because that's not the only standard. Sure, as you said, playing better teams helps you get better. That's two separate discussions. The Pairwise part is simply factual. And just playing Mercyhurst, et al only helps your Pairwise IF you win them ALL. You darn well better.

Basically, there is an inverse ratio between Strength of Schedule and Expected Win Percentage.  Seems obvious, but people are constantly trying to game the system.  There is no way to game it, really. Not in hockey.  You play harder teams, you may win less - you play weaker teams, you may win more.  Either way, Pairwise is the same.  But - if you win a couple more vs. those harder teams - or you lose a couple vs. those weaker teams - it all blows up.  There's just no way to know in advance - so scheduling to game the Pairwise is useless.

From what I can tell, the best way to game the system is to play more road games than home games, and to do well in those games. If you're winning most of your games at home and on the road, more road games are going to help you in a big way. If I were in charge of everything, I'd lessen the reward for road wins and penalty for home losses.

As to scheduling, yeah, there's no way to tell who is gonna be good and who isn't. Add in all the troubles in scheduling and there isn't much to be done.

[Jim Hyla]

Yes, I know it doesn't necessarily help PWR (that's been made very clear to me), but wouldn't playing a better team help you be a better team, even if your Pairwise drops or stays flat with a loss or tie?  If the standard is winning uber alles than why not just play Mercyhurst, Army, and Canisius to make wins more likely.

Because that's not the only standard. Sure, as you said, playing better teams helps you get better. That's two separate discussions. The Pairwise part is simply factual. And just playing Mercyhurst, et al only helps your Pairwise IF you win them ALL. You darn well better.

Basically, there is an inverse ratio between Strength of Schedule and Expected Win Percentage.  Seems obvious, but people are constantly trying to game the system.  There is no way to game it, really. Not in hockey.  You play harder teams, you may win less - you play weaker teams, you may win more.  Either way, Pairwise is the same.  But - if you win a couple more vs. those harder teams - or you lose a couple vs. those weaker teams - it all blows up.  There's just no way to know in advance - so scheduling to game the Pairwise is useless.

From what I can tell, the best way to game the system is to play more road games than home games, and to do well in those games. If you're winning most of your games at home and on the road, more road games are going to help you in a big way. If I were in charge of everything, I'd lessen the reward for road wins and penalty for home losses.

As to scheduling, yeah, there's no way to tell who is gonna be good and who isn't. Add in all the troubles in scheduling and there isn't much to be done.

You got it right there. The best way to game the system is to do well!!!! Home, road, good or bad teams, win and you'll be okay.

ASU showed this year that wining is the answer. Beat enough so-so teams and it doesn't matter that much that your record against the good teams is so-so. 2-10-1 against teams that ended up in top 20 of PWR. Overall record was 21-13-1, so 19-3-0 against the others.

We couldn't do as well against the teams we should have beaten, even though we didn't really have trouble with ASU. As previously noted by Adam, if we had beaten those teams, a lot higher PWR. So just win baby, win, even if all you schedule are the "cream puffs".