Cornell vs Denver, NC$$ First Round, 3/27/26

[Trotsky]

You want rand to win?

I want the ECAC to win. 

Once Q bolts to their natural habitat, HE, they drop into the abyss. 

[Trotsky]

From McNally:

If nothing else, playing a team like Denver solidifies in Cornell's mind what it seeks to become.

Mike's template was the Lake Superior State teams of the 90's.  We won.  And we watched 30 years of low event hockey.

If Casey's template is the Denver teams of the 20's, we are going to have fun the next decade.

[Bluelightning]

    I think we did peak too early. Too many nights we didn't play well from February 7 until last night. Loss to Clarkson, tie RPI, ugly loss to Union, bad loss at Princeton, got suckered into a bar fight vs Clarkson, game 1 vs Harvard wasn't a good look, Princeton, culminating in Denver. I was starting to think that maybe we don't like playing on Fridays.
     Every year when the last game is over, I think "how are we ever going to win again without x senior?". Obviously that is changing with the addition of transfer portal and players going pro earlier so I have to worry about underclassmen. But every year we seem to figure it out. We need suffocating defensemen that play consistent and limit the mistakes.

[Trotsky]

I think we did peak too early. Too many nights we didn't play well from February 7 until last night. Loss to Clarkson, tie RPI, ugly loss to Union, bad loss at Princeton, got suckered into a bar fight vs Clarkson, game 1 vs Harvard wasn't a good look, Princeton, culminating in Denver. I was starting to think that maybe we don't like playing on Fridays.
    Every year when the last game is over, I think "how are we ever going to win again without x senior?". Obviously that is changing with the addition of transfer portal and players going pro earlier so I have to worry about underclassmen. But every year we seem to figure it out. We need suffocating defensemen that play consistent and limit the mistakes.

Great first post and WELCOME!

Ironically, this is the one year I am not thinking "how are we ever going to win again without x senior?"  The critical loss, if it happens, will be Castagna.  And even should we lose both him and Walsh, we are stacked with underclassmen forwards.

[Chris '03]

Post game observations:

The sound system was F#^$(@ING OBNOXIOUS. EVERY time there was a stop in play, they immediately started playing music etc. Maybe it was just as well that our band didn't make it - they would have been drowned out.  This is an AHL arena - are NHL games that bad?

Welcome to the resistance.

[Pghas]

From McNally:

If nothing else, playing a team like Denver solidifies in Cornell's mind what it seeks to become.

Mike's template was the Lake Superior State teams of the 90's.  We won.  And we watched 30 years of low event hockey.

If Casey's template is the Denver teams of the 20's, we are going to have fun the next decade.

I always thought it was the Jersey Devils of the 90s but probably same thing.

[Pghas]

"They're an extremely talented team. Their goalie played well. They got Pohlkamp back there. They're a really deep team, right? They're going four lines all night."

There was a time when we were the really deep team, but I feel like it's been while since we had three dangerous, wear-em-down lines and a checking line, if that's a thing anymore. I'd like to see us get back there.

As far as I'm concerned, the weakest part of our play this year was puck possession by forwards in the offensive zone. Sure, when we win a lot of face-offs our possession numbers are good. But we lose the puck a lot on rushes, and we haven't seemed to have a lot of cycling time; hence, we don't have the dwell time necessary to force in "greasy" goals when we need them. It's the difference between 22-11-1 and 31-5-1.

I always feel like Cornell's entire plan is to get greasy goals.  Those are bread and butter and yes you need enough of them and honestly that can win you the ECAC especially when Quinnipiac can be outworked. But beyond that it's speed and elite skill. The 2020 team oozes talent and had guys who were headed to the NHL. In games like last night's you need a guy or 3 who can step up and just flat-out make an elite skill play and get us back in it.  It may seem counterintuitive but - for example on Denver's 3rd goal - bad turnover but the kid just sniped it.  Our guys throw that into the goalie every time. One example of a kid with wheels and skill is DiGiulian.  He's not a big hitter at all and isn't going to win the Selke.  But in January they were down to Omaha at home, and he buries an absolute snipe to tie it, then forces a turnover and makes a quick back and assist to set up the winner.  After the game I remember being surprised that there was no acknowledgment of that - probably because he doesn't do a ton otherwise - but Gio won us that game. You do actually need guys who can make plays.  He'll, Wyttenbach is pretty one dimensional but that dimension made a huge difference for q.

[Pghas]

I think we did peak too early. Too many nights we didn't play well from February 7 until last night. Loss to Clarkson, tie RPI, ugly loss to Union, bad loss at Princeton, got suckered into a bar fight vs Clarkson, game 1 vs Harvard wasn't a good look, Princeton, culminating in Denver. I was starting to think that maybe we don't like playing on Fridays.
     Every year when the last game is over, I think "how are we ever going to win again without x senior?". Obviously that is changing with the addition of transfer portal and players going pro earlier so I have to worry about underclassmen. But every year we seem to figure it out. We need suffocating defensemen that play consistent and limit the mistakes.

Agree about them peaking early - Harvard/Dartmouth weekend was a huge peak for sure, never felt they were as good after that.
Tough to say if from their perspectives Castagna and Walsh should stay.  As good as they were this year I'd love to see them be able to really step up in a game like last nights .  But maybe developmentally the ECAC doesn't provide enough of a challenge to get to the next level.  Most guys coming out of Cornell have trouble sticking at the AHL level never mind NHL.

[Trotsky]

Post game observations:

The sound system was F#^$(@ING OBNOXIOUS. EVERY time there was a stop in play, they immediately started playing music etc. Maybe it was just as well that our band didn't make it - they would have been drowned out.  This is an AHL arena - are NHL games that bad?

Welcome to the resistance.

Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.

It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.

George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel's cheeks, but she'd forgotten for the moment what they were about.

On the television screen were ballerinas.

A buzzer sounded in George's head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.

"That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did," said Hazel.

"Huh" said George.

"That dance-it was nice," said Hazel.

"Yup," said George.

[BearLover]

I think we did peak too early. Too many nights we didn't play well from February 7 until last night. Loss to Clarkson, tie RPI, ugly loss to Union, bad loss at Princeton, got suckered into a bar fight vs Clarkson, game 1 vs Harvard wasn't a good look, Princeton, culminating in Denver. I was starting to think that maybe we don't like playing on Fridays.
     Every year when the last game is over, I think "how are we ever going to win again without x senior?". Obviously that is changing with the addition of transfer portal and players going pro earlier so I have to worry about underclassmen. But every year we seem to figure it out. We need suffocating defensemen that play consistent and limit the mistakes.

Agree about them peaking early - Harvard/Dartmouth weekend was a huge peak for sure, never felt they were as good after that.
Tough to say if from their perspectives Castagna and Walsh should stay.  As good as they were this year I'd love to see them be able to really step up in a game like last nights .  But maybe developmentally the ECAC doesn't provide enough of a challenge to get to the next level.  Most guys coming out of Cornell have trouble sticking at the AHL level never mind NHL.

Harvard/Dartmouth was their best weekend for sure, but it was also their only great weekend the entire season. This never felt like a top 10 team. That's how the computer rankings shook out, though. KRACH has us down at 12 but that's still really good. I don't believe our underlying metrics were that great even if our results (wins and losses, accounting for SOS) were very good.

The painful part is that even though the last few years we weren't as consistently good throughout the season, in those years we did clearly peak towards the end of the season, going into the ECACs and the NCAA tournament playing our best, whereas this season we kind of just lingered around the top 12 or so and didn't look particularly good towards the end of the year. Hockey is a zero-sum game and the other teams improved down the stretch more than we did.

I wonder if Casey is able to motivate and push players like Schafer could. Casey seems like a strong Xs and Os coach and he recruited most of our best freshmen this season so he deserves a lot of the credit for a good year. But he also deserves some of the blame for the fact we did not improve down the stretch. At the end of the day, we went 2-3 in the most important games of the season and didn't play very well in them.

[Snowball]

[ But he also deserves some of the blame for the fact we did not improve down the stretch. At the end of the day, we went 2-3 in the most important games of the season and didn't play very well in them.

And Casey is accountable to that, right?  He almost there literally said that:

"I thought we might have peaked maybe a month too early," Jones said. "I'm not sure if we hit a wall a little bit with our youth. I'm not sure. ... But we were trying to find our A-game down the stretch. We were really trying."

To me, that quote is accountability.

[BearLover]

[ But he also deserves some of the blame for the fact we did not improve down the stretch. At the end of the day, we went 2-3 in the most important games of the season and didn't play very well in them.

And Casey is accountable to that, right?  He almost there literally said that:

"I thought we might have peaked maybe a month too early," Jones said. "I'm not sure if we hit a wall a little bit with our youth. I'm not sure. ... But we were trying to find our A-game down the stretch. We were really trying."

To me, that quote is accountability.

Oh yes. I'm sure he'd be the first to take accountability for it. Even if mentioning it on here pisses off a lot of ELynah posters.

[stereax]

[ But he also deserves some of the blame for the fact we did not improve down the stretch. At the end of the day, we went 2-3 in the most important games of the season and didn't play very well in them.

And Casey is accountable to that, right?  He almost there literally said that:

"I thought we might have peaked maybe a month too early," Jones said. "I'm not sure if we hit a wall a little bit with our youth. I'm not sure. ... But we were trying to find our A-game down the stretch. We were really trying."

To me, that quote is accountability.

Oh yes. I'm sure he'd be the first to take accountability for it. Even if mentioning it on here pisses off a lot of ELynah posters.

Didn't he also take accountability for perhaps focusing on the staff a little too much?

What preceded this is even more interesting:

"I think we have a good staff. That was my main priority this year, and I left our captains a little bit on an island there with bringing our young guys along. I'm trying to bring our staff along, get us all on the same page." 1/2
"So we had some missteps. If I look back at it, I'd like some gimmes,  and little do-overs and some things I did this year as a coach in my first year. But overall, proud that I thought we got on the same page." 2/2

[fastforward]

Everyone holds a piece of the blame, IMO

Penalties taken, passes missed, turnovers, faceoffs not won.....

Every piece of the puzzle needs to complete the entire game

It's not just on Casey or any single person

[stereax]

Everyone holds a piece of the blame, IMO

Penalties taken, passes missed, turnovers, faceoffs not won.....

Every piece of the puzzle needs to complete the entire game

It's not just on Casey or any single person

I feel like at some point, when you get to "everyone is to blame", you circle back into "you can't really blame anyone here".

Shit happens. It's hockey. It's why you play the games.

It's easy to blame someone when you see their mistake directly cost you the game - like a terrible clear by a Princeton player that lets Dartmouth win it in overtime. But in a game where it was just - everyone being outmatched - it's hard to point fingers, especially with a clear conscience.

(Plus, I feel like blaming individual players for losing games - besides the most basic fuckups - both a) is Pecknoldy and b) ignores that it's a game of inches played out over 60 minutes where thousands of microdecisions affect the outcome.)

I just think we were outmatched, simple as, and once you get into the 2-0, 3-0 hole after 20-30 minutes, it's incredibly difficult to claw back up. Especially when you're not playing shitty ECAC teams and instead a legit title contender who can shut you down. And then you get into the mental games of it all too.

I think we're so pessimistic right now in part because our skid came at the end of the season. I mean, most of us were on Cloud 9 at this point last year, even despite the BU elimination, because we got hot at the right time. It felt like we gave it all we possibly could. When we sputtered out in February this time and couldn't work it back, well, it looks worse because the recent games weren't good. (Strangely enough, us beginning to sputter out coincides with a super long roadstand... just saying...)