Cornell 6 - Yale 2, 11/9/2019

[BearLover]

Per CHN:

Cornell is 2nd for goals scored per game.
5th for goals against per game.
2nd for power play percentage.
And has three of the top five goals per game scorers.

Fun with small sample sizes. :-)

But also, they've looked very proficient on offense...all four lines have.

[upprdeck]

if we can keep up the volume of quality chances thats a good thing.

[Robb]

if we can keep up the volume of quality chances thats a good thing.

Hint: we can't.  I think this year could be something very special, but for me, I still haven't seen any actual evidence for that yet.  Let's be honest, MSU, Brown, and Yale just aren't going to be competitive this year.  Let's keep the over-exuberance in check for a few more weeks, at least.  

[Swampy]

if we can keep up the volume of quality chances thats a good thing.

Hint: we can't.  I think this year could be something very special, but for me, I still haven't seen any actual evidence for that yet.  Let's be honest, MSU, Brown, and Yale just aren't going to be competitive this year.  Let's keep the over-exuberance in check for a few more weeks, at least.  

Friday night looms large.

[Trotsky]

if we can keep up the volume of quality chances thats a good thing.

Hint: we can't.  I think this year could be something very special, but for me, I still haven't seen any actual evidence for that yet.  Let's be honest, MSU, Brown, and Yale just aren't going to be competitive this year.  Let's keep the over-exuberance in check for a few more weeks, at least.  

Friday night looms large.

It is our first big test -- a very strong conference rival on their traditionally difficult ice.  This is one of the six biggest games of the RS, along with the Harvard games and the ones against some other emergent conference power.

[Dafatone]

if we can keep up the volume of quality chances thats a good thing.

Hint: we can't.  I think this year could be something very special, but for me, I still haven't seen any actual evidence for that yet.  Let's be honest, MSU, Brown, and Yale just aren't going to be competitive this year.  Let's keep the over-exuberance in check for a few more weeks, at least.  

Friday night looms large.

It is our first big test -- a very strong conference rival on their traditionally difficult ice.  This is one of the six biggest games of the RS, along with the Harvard games and the ones against some other emergent conference power.

It's a big game and a tough opponent. I don't want to anger any gods.

But I'm thrilled with what I've seen so far. We fought off a tough challenge in our first game. Then we won big three straight against teams we should be beating. And Brown's a pretty decent team.

[Trotsky]

Brown could conceivably be #4 after the Big 3.  So could RPI, which is wild.  About all we know so far is that Yale is hot garbage.  Union sure seems bad, too.

[RichH]

Brown could conceivably be #4 after the Big 3.  So could RPI, which is wild.  About all we know so far is that Yale is hot garbage.  Union sure seems bad, too.

Gone is the bizarro Mercury Retrograde version of the ECAC, ruled by Yale, Union, and Quinnipiac. Order seems to be restored with Cornell, Clarkson, and Harvard as the top dogs.

[Trotsky]

Order seems to be restored with Cornell, Clarkson, and Harvard as the top dogs.

The old ways are the best ways.

[BearLover]

Brown could conceivably be #4 after the Big 3.  So could RPI, which is wild.  About all we know so far is that Yale is hot garbage.  Union sure seems bad, too.

There really isn't much of a basis for the claim that Yale is going to be significantly worse than Brown. If I had to guess, I'd predict neither team ends up particularly good but Yale finishes ahead of Brown.

[dbilmes]

This is my favorite sentence from the Yale Daily sportswriter about last weekend's Cornell game: "While both teams wound up finishing with the same number of shots on goal, the dissimilitude of pucks that found the back of the net was not in the Bulldogs' favor on Saturday." You can read other literary gems here. It's a throwback to the sportswriting of the 1920s and 30s, although writers like Grantland Rice and later on, Red Smith, did it much better!

[Swampy]

This is my favorite sentence from the Yale Daily sportswriter about last weekend's Cornell game: "While both teams wound up finishing with the same number of shots on goal, the dissimilitude of pucks that found the back of the net was not in the Bulldogs' favor on Saturday." You can read other literary gems here. It's a throwback to the sportswriting of the 1920s and 30s, although writers like Grantland Rice and later on, Red Smith, did it much better!

Those Bulldog chaps are not exceptionally proficient in geography either:

The Elis then traveled up north to take on the fourth-ranked hockey team in the nation, Cornell (4–0, 2–0).

Small wonder that Daniel Coit Gilman, a geographer, Yale 1852, and A. D. White's buddy, left Yale to ascend to the presidency of the University of California and then, that of The Johns Hopkins University. Both continue to be excellent in Geography.

(Extra credit for someone who teaches me how to include a live Google Map excerpt showing Hamilton and Ithaca in upstate New York.)

[Trotsky]

This is my favorite sentence from the Yale Daily sportswriter about last weekend's Cornell game: "While both teams wound up finishing with the same number of shots on goal, the dissimilitude of pucks that found the back of the net was not in the Bulldogs' favor on Saturday." You can read other literary gems here. It's a throwback to the sportswriting of the 1920s and 30s, although writers like Grantland Rice and later on, Red Smith, did it much better!

Fun fact:  Grantland Rice was crap.

[Trotsky]

There really isn't much of a basis for the claim that Yale is going to be significantly worse than Brown. If I had to guess, I'd predict neither team ends up particularly good but Yale finishes ahead of Brown.

I respectfully disagree -- my basis was the two games I watched last weekend.  Brown looked like a mediocre team outplayed by a superior opponent.  Yale OTOH was atrocious (and it was glorious to watch their incompetence).

If I had to predict league finish based solely on those games I'd say Brown 6, Yale 11.  Allain is good enough that he can probably whip something out of that dog and maybe get them to 8, but unless they have significant, and temporary, injury trouble, they are in freefall.  And it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys (except Q).

[Tom Lento]

if we can keep up the volume of quality chances thats a good thing.

Hint: we can't.  I think this year could be something very special, but for me, I still haven't seen any actual evidence for that yet.  Let's be honest, MSU, Brown, and Yale just aren't going to be competitive this year.  Let's keep the over-exuberance in check for a few more weeks, at least.  

I agree with all of this. My key observations about this year's team, based on a grand total of 1.5 periods watched plus looking at shot attempt statistics:

1) The opposition has been weak.
2) This team is absolutely dominating weak teams - even when shots seem fairly even for stretches Cornell just has the puck all the time..
3) The PP looks like it's for real - they're making the kind of skip passes (high point to weak side post, down low to weak side point) that past Cornell teams didn't even attempt. If they can do that kind of stuff against top tier competition this team will be really dangerous.

The second and third points are encouraging. I don't think I've really seen Cornell dominate mediocre to poor opposition in this way within the last 10 years. Maybe not since 2003. But beating the tar out of bad teams on two straight weekends is something top 4 conference teams with no real hope at an NCAA title can do, too.