Recruits 2026 and Beyond

[ugarte]

To be fair to BearLover (throws up in mouth a little), I will frequently omit the implicit "In my opinion," which prefaces nearly everything I write on social media.

I typically assume posters are bloviating, not truth speaking.  Nobody here actually knows anything.  Except Arthur.  Arthur knows everything.  And one reason he knows everything is people know he doesn't talk about it.

Yes, I try to couch my posts with "it seems," "IMO," etc. to convey lack of certainty, but I really shouldn't need to. This is an Internet forum of people bullshitting. I am not issuing press releases on behalf of Cornell hockey.

Yes.

Though when you say things like "We had an opportunity to bring this guy to campus, and we didn't." that is a fact pattern with a truth value.  Did we have an opportunity?  How do you know?  If not then your whole statement falls apart.  "If we had an opportunity to bring this guy to campus, and we didn't, then we fucked up." is the more semantically correct sentence, and if that is what you are conveying it really should not be up to me to perform the calculation in my head to get your meaning.

Fine. I mean, I am making inferences here. But I think that's obvious. Also, as previously mentioned I believe these are very reasonable inferences. Pelletier was committed to Cornell for many months after the coaching staff decided on whom it was bringing in for this season. And it is the case for the vast majority of recruits, particularly those who are 20 years old, that they want to get to campus sooner rather than later. Ergo, I am confident that Cornell could have told him to come this past Spring, and he would have. Am I certain? No. But seems very likely. Anyway, fair enough, I'll use the "if...then" disclaimer next time for clarity.

this discussion is too meta now. there is dispute over how reasonable the inferences are and how many inferences have to be piled on other inferences. in a sense what ends up bothering me is not the speculation and inference and more that when people disagree, as often happens to everyone who states an opinion, the conversation circles back to the opening premise. it becomes ping-pong, not a debate, and not everyone keeps their cool.

now, if you don't mind, i have to repair the walls of my house as i've been throwing stones everywhere and the damage is extensive.

[Chris H82]

.... it becomes ping-pong, not a debate, and not everyone keeps their cool.
[/quote]

"But I paid for this argument" 

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

.... it becomes ping-pong, not a debate, and not everyone keeps their cool.

"But I paid for this argument" 
[/quote]

No you didn't.

[The Rancor]

It seems like every team in NCAA hockey is going through the same restructure, rebuild, rebalance that Cornell is going through. Each team we have played, and most of them on the national stage, have large incoming classes of freshmen and transfers from the portal and CHL. I'm sure at some point that it will all even out as the wave calm, but this was THE year for players to make moves to improve their fortunes, and you can see that they did. 'Losing' a recruit like Pelletier is a bummer, but lots of teams lost out on Cournoyer or Ashton (at 6'7" he had to get offers) And imagine all the people who 'passed' on DiGulian? He's a menace. Sometimes recruiters know that a kid just has the right stuff, and there isn't a tangible, hard data reason for it all to come together. Boston Collage has excellent scouting and recruiting, and if you play hockey, you want to be at BC, as great as we think Cornell is.
FWIW Gio DiGulian and Alex Pelletier played at Lincoln in the USHL last year.

[Trotsky]

We will know how we navigated The Revolution in about a decade.  Until then it's just worry and cope mud wrestling in a slimy pool of ignorance.

[BearLover]

One reason I brought up Cournoyer's late recruitment/bringing in a fourth goaltender is that one concern I had with Casey was the level of turnover of his teams at Clarkson. Many players would transfer in or out each season, and they had some high profile decommitments. Contrast with Cornell under Schafer, which rarely saw any players leave or decommit.

Continuity is a plus. Earlier in this thread some criticized my worry, arguing that a coach should build the best hockey team, even if it pisses off some players. My issue is that there's a long run cost to the short term fix of bringing in a player to replace another one.

To illustrate, consider Emmett Croteau. He currently has a .970 sv% for 8-0 Dartmouth (this number will obviously come down somewhat). Casey recruited him to Clarkson and he arrived as a Canadiens draft pick. He struggled his freshman year, and Casey brought in a grad transfer goalie for the following season. Croteau responded by transferring to Dartmouth.

Clarkson isn't unique in its high player turnover. Rather, Cornell is unique in its low player turnover. But we've already seen more turnover at Cornell than usual in Casey's first year (Robertson transferring out, two transfers brought in, late recruitment of our starting goalie, the leading scorer in the USHL decommit). Some of this may be due to the coaching change, and will settle down. I'm a little concerned about the precedent this is setting, though.

To preempt the nonsense I know is coming from the four is so posters who never post anything substantive but who log on just to criticize me, let me be clear:
*I am expressing a concern about Cornell Hockey on a Cornell Hockey forum.
*That does not mean the concern will come true.
*The fact that the future is uncertain does not make it illegal to express concern.
*There is precedent for high profile recruits decommitting under Schafer, but they are few and far between. I think the most recent one was Alex Limoges in 2017.
*As mentioned earlier, Clarkson's high turnover was not unique to them. It's likely harder to retain players and recruits at a non-Ivy. But was have seen increased turnover so far, thus my concern.
*Clarkson lost some top recruits to blue bloods like BC, and top players to HE schools like Northeastern via the portal.  While lesser hockey schools may have a difficult time retaining these players, if Cornell wants to compete nationally we NEED to retain these players.
*I'm overall impressed with Casey and Cournoyer. That does not make it illegal to express a concern, even if the overall package of the current Cornell Hockey team and staff is a good one.
*This is now the 9th bullet point clarifying something that should always have always been perfectly clear: one can hold nuanced views about teams, coaches, and players. To say one negative thing does not make one a hater of the coach, team, or player. The real haters on here are the four of you who respond to every one of my posts with vitriol and personal insults (and contribute nothing to the conversation).

[Beeeej]

One reason I brought up Cournoyer's late recruitment/bringing in a fourth goaltender is that one concern I had with Casey was the level of turnover of his teams at Clarkson. Many players would transfer in or out each season, and they had some high profile decommitments. Contrast with Cornell under Schafer, which rarely saw any players leave or decommit.

Continuity is a plus. Earlier in this thread some criticized my worry, arguing that a coach should build the best hockey team, even if it pisses off some players. My issue is that there's a long run cost to the short term fix of bringing in a player to replace another one.

To illustrate, consider Emmett Croteau. He currently has a .970 sv% for 8-0 Dartmouth (this number will obviously come down somewhat). Casey recruited him to Clarkson and he arrived as a Canadiens draft pick. He struggled his freshman year, and Casey brought in a grad transfer goalie for the following season. Croteau responded by transferring to Dartmouth.

Clarkson isn't unique in its high player turnover. Rather, Cornell is unique in its low player turnover. But we've already seen more turnover at Cornell than usual in Casey's first year (Robertson transferring out, two transfers brought in, late recruitment of our starting goalie, the leading scorer in the USHL decommit). Some of this may be due to the coaching change, and will settle down. I'm a little concerned about the precedent this is setting, though.

To preempt the nonsense I know is coming from the four is so posters who never post anything substantive but who log on just to criticize me, let me be clear:
*I am expressing a concern about Cornell Hockey on a Cornell Hockey forum.
*That does not mean the concern will come true.
*The fact that the future is uncertain does not make it illegal to express concern.
*There is precedent for high profile recruits decommitting under Schafer, but they are few and far between. I think the most recent one was Alex Limoges in 2017.
*As mentioned earlier, Clarkson's high turnover was not unique to them. It's likely harder to retain players and recruits at a non-Ivy. But was have seen increased turnover so far, thus my concern.
*Clarkson lost some top recruits to blue bloods like BC, and top players to HE schools like Northeastern via the portal.  While lesser hockey schools may have a difficult time retaining these players, if Cornell wants to compete nationally we NEED to retain these players.
*I'm overall impressed with Casey and Cournoyer. That does not make it illegal to express a concern, even if the overall package of the current Cornell Hockey team and staff is a good one.
*This is now the 9th bullet point clarifying something that should always have always been perfectly clear: one can hold nuanced views about teams, coaches, and players. To say one negative thing does not make one a hater of the coach, team, or player. The real haters on here are the four of you who respond to every one of my posts with vitriol and personal insults (and contribute nothing to the conversation).

Poopyhead.

[Trotsky]

Poopyhead.

Auto rec TV's Frank.

[chimpfood]

Dec keeps balling. 4 points tonight

[BearLover]

Dec keeps balling. 4 points tonight

Dec looks good. Overall though the recruits are not producing much. We are on track for 0 or 1 players taken in this year's NHL draft. Given his big numbers in AAA I was hopeful Henry Major would produce like Charlie did with the Chicago Steel but that hasn't happened. Not sure if late CHL recruits like Cournoyer are in the cards but the staff needs to step it up, I'm definitely not content with the pipeline right now.

[BearLover]

Too bad we didn't bring Pelletier to campus this fall. He is on his second 7-game goal scoring streak of the season and has 23 goals in 21 USHL games and should run away with the league MVP. Coaching staff needs to spend the entire winter break recruiting in Ontario and Quebec.

[chimpfood]

Meh, CHL players haven't been hugely successful for the most part. I still would take a USHL point per game player over a CHL one

[BearLover]

Meh, CHL players haven't been hugely successful for the most part. I still would take a USHL point per game player over a CHL one

Depends where you look. CHN recently had an article that the top 3 scorers in college are from the CHL. I don't disagree with you though, I just meant that there are way more uncommitted players in the CHL old enough to jump straight to college. It's three leagues versus one, and those three leagues weren't eligible to commit to colleges until recently.

[stereax]

Meh, CHL players haven't been hugely successful for the most part. I still would take a USHL point per game player over a CHL one

On the other hand, top end talent like Martone is going wild...