Cornell 3 Nebraska-Omaha 2, 1/3/26

[Trotsky]

DeSantis is streaky. When good, you get him at PPG, other times he can't hit the broad side of a barn...

It's possible DeSantis seems more streaky and volatile because his plays tend to be "hero plays."  If they work out, amazing, but if not there's not another guy there for the drop pass or the rebound.

I don't know if that's true, but there have been guys in the past it seemed to be the case with.

I will take the team we have right now for a good balance of skill, style, grit, perseverance, strength, and ice vision.  Feels kinda like the most successful teams are the ones with the "best weakest" score among those, because a good opponent and good coach will find that weakness and bore into it.

[Trotsky]

I'll try to do better coach.

Forget it, Jake.  It's BLtown.

[Dafatone]

... with the ultimate goal of rolling four lines who can score.

Realistically, does anyone, anywhere have this? Yes, better is better but it's also tautological.

I don't think even the heavyweight programs this year have four scoring lines. Besides, you do kinda want a shutdown/checking line, if only to match up against harder competition and give your other guys a break.

If you can have 7 or so forwards that are a scoring threat, and even 2 D, you're in a good spot. Part of the game involves not being scored on.

7 and 2 is much too low IMO. Really need at least 9 and 3, and that's not even counting guys out to injury (of which we currently have none). That way, we can roll 3 full lines that can score and 3 D pairings with one major threat to score. We can also have one checking line and complement each offensive D with a defensive D.

The best way to not be scored on is to possess the puck in the other team's offensive zone.

I'm not a huge NHL analytics knower, but as I understand it, one attempt at coming up with a WAR for NHL measures offense, defense, and finishing.

I like this distinction between offense and finishing. All four of our lines seem pretty good at "offense": getting the puck into the offensive zone and generating chances. It's the finishing, as in turning those chances into goals, where we don't quite have the results through all four lines.

That being said, we just scored 9 goals this past weekend (admittedly against a team that wasn't exactly playing defense), so we are scoring.

[The Rancor]

Ryan Walsh has nearly an identical stat line as Gavin McKenna, who's going number 1 in the draft (maybe). If I told you that at the beginning of the season, you wouldn't put a dime on that bet. I'll take my chances with Walsh and his extra inch and 25 pounds of grit.

in college? sure, i can see it. but in the draft!?

Well, yes. College, probably not the draft.

[marty]

I'll try to do better coach.

Forget it, Jake.  It's BLtown.

Exactly. 

[marty]

I'll try to do better coach.

Forget it, Jake.  It's BLClown.

Exactly.

FMP

[BearLover]

I'll try to do better coach.

Forget it, Jake.  It's BLClown.

Exactly.

FMP

Your posts are written in the style of a fifth grader who sneaks onto his parents' desktop computer while they're out of the house and starts harassing some random guy on an Internet forum (almost all of your prior 50 posts on ELynah are ten words or less and half of them are harassing me).

I don't know how old you are but your posting style is really cute, it's a lot like mine in the early days of the internet before I graduated elementary school.

[billhoward]

In an extension of Mike Schafer's three decades of strategy, Cornell in Casey Jones' first dozen games is also winning by not letting the opponent score enough to win. Of all RS games through Nebraska-Omaha, for Cornell:

2 goals enough to win 5 games of the 13 we played
3 goals enough to win 3 more games
4 goals needed to win no games
5 goals needed to win 1 more game

In the losses we would have needed to score 5 (Clarkson), 3 (UMass), 3 (Dartmouth) and 3 (BU). And we have reasons excuses: @Clarkson was Casey's return to the school he left, @UMass was Cornell's first RS game and UMass eighth game, and BU was a good, so was Dartmouth good and also we in recent years have underperformed in Hanover.

Who wouldn't want four very good scoring lines? "Checking line" may be a euphemism for players who can't score but it may also be a sound strategy for players who can disrupt an opponent's great scoring line and the opponent has no second/third line that approaches the first line, the checking line is use to not tire out our first line.

See the ECAC standings: Princeton (OMG, in first place, run by Ben Syer after 13 years at Cornell), Dartmouth and Cornell, then Quinnipiac are at 19-18-18-17 points and Harvard 2 points back, nobody else above 12. This is a very good start for a team with so many freshmen.

[marty]

I'll try to do better coach.

Forget it, Jake.  It's BLClown.

Exactly.

FMP

Your posts are written in the style of a fifth grader who sneaks onto his parents' desktop computer while they're out of the house and starts harassing some random guy on an Internet forum (almost all of your prior 50 posts on ELynah are ten words or less and half of them are harassing me).

I don't know how old you are but your posting style is really cute, it's a lot like mine in the early days of the internet before I graduated elementary school.

Thank you!

[BearLover]

I believe there is a misconception in this thread. The checking lines, the third (DiGiulian) or fourth (Catalano) lines, are not usually matching up against the opposing team's top line. (I haven't watched every game this season so someone correct me if I'm wrong.) Rather, Casey usually sends out the first (Walsh) or second (Castagna) line to combat the other team's top line. The third and fourth lines actually get easier matchups. Therein lies the issue: we are squandering precious opportunity to possess the puck and score when we do not roll three or four offensively capable lines.

That's why a key for this team is to get more depth scoring. As mentioned earlier, I think 9 forwards and 3 defensemen contributing offensively is a realistic goal. But the true ideal is to have four lines that can score like the 2020 team.

[The Rancor]

We have scoring coming from all lines.
Line matching you really want to have best on best. Top lines not only have scoring chances because of puck possession, but prevent scoring chances defensively because they are controlling the puck. You're always at all levels going to have stronger and weaker lines/players and coaches are trying to find the best chemistry between all of them. It is a little less science than it is jazz.

[ugarte]

We have scoring coming from all lines.
Line matching you really want to have best on best. Top lines not only have scoring chances because of puck possession, but prevent scoring chances defensively because they are controlling the puck. You're always at all levels going to have stronger and weaker lines/players and coaches are trying to find the best chemistry between all of them. It is a little less science than it is jazz.

getting a little tired of the goals we don't score

[Weder]

We have scoring coming from all lines.
Line matching you really want to have best on best. Top lines not only have scoring chances because of puck possession, but prevent scoring chances defensively because they are controlling the puck. You're always at all levels going to have stronger and weaker lines/players and coaches are trying to find the best chemistry between all of them. It is a little less science than it is jazz.

getting a little tired of the goals we don't score

Hockey jazz?

[The Rancor]

We have scoring coming from all lines.
Line matching you really want to have best on best. Top lines not only have scoring chances because of puck possession, but prevent scoring chances defensively because they are controlling the puck. You're always at all levels going to have stronger and weaker lines/players and coaches are trying to find the best chemistry between all of them. It is a little less science than it is jazz.

getting a little tired of the goals we don't score

Hockey jazz?

I said it.

[BearLover]

We are currently getting good offensive contribution from the following players:
F: Walsh, Castagna, Ryan, Major, Long, DiGiulian, Pirtle, Hiscock (_8_)
D: Veilleux, Fegaras, Stanley (3)

A few caveats, such as that Pirtle has only played about half the games (though he has been efficient scoring-wise when he's played) and that it's tough to account for linemates/PP time (this is inflating Stanley's numbers, for example). 

The biggest room for growth on this team IMO is depth scoring from Kraft, DeSantis, Devlin, and maybe Ashton and Fisher.

This is an extremely reductive way of viewing things. Also, the moment eg. Kraft starts scoring, eg. Ryan may go cold. But in my view we have at least three guys in the lineup capable of scoring who haven't been scoring, so that's the biggest room for growth. If we can get to 3.5 or 4 lines, and 4+ defensemen, contributing offensively, then we will be one of the best teams in the country.