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

[Bluelightning]

     Every time I get disappointed, I have to remind myself that we are kind of playing with house money. We dressed 7+ freshman every game including a goalie. We have a new coaching staff (Casey's first solo year in Cornell). I think everyone would have taken 22 wins back in October. They had us all thinking great things late January...which turns out to be unfair. I think this team ca beat anyone when we bring out A+ game. But anything less that A+ won't get it done as young as we are.
    I wanted to beat Denver because nobody really gave us a chance. Not much talk of an upset or "we are a dangerous team".  Ugh to that now.
     I know he's not elite like Walsh or Castagna, but Jack O'Brien was solid this season. Very few mistakes, didn't seem like he took any bad penalties, and just a solid gritty defenseman. Really came to appreciate him
     

[adamw]

One of the differences between Mike Schafer and Casey Jones is that Casey is more willing to be forthcoming and introspective in his thoughts. Coach Schafer was usually more guarded - publicly - if not defiant sometimes.

They are both GREAT coaches. That doesn't mean they never make a mistake. And hindsight is 20/20. Casey shouldn't be looked at as a lesser coach just because he's more honest about what MAYBE were mistakes. It just means he's more willing to contemplate those things publicly. Praise him for that.

So set all of that aside in order to judge performance.

Fact is, this team was always going to be in transition, and shouldn't have been expected to be as good as last year's team. A lot younger, more skilled in many ways, lots of turnover, including behind the bench. Those are big deals. It's frankly remarkable they made the NCAAs at all.

Going forward, they are set up for a great future. And we'll see. Get back to me if this turns into an annual thing where Cornell wilts a bit in the last month.

Casey's coaching style is also different than Mike's ... not as much cycling, more making plays in transition. Sometimes when that doesn't work with a young team, it can look uglier. Turnovers, hard to set up in the zone.  It's not like the coaches don't know this.  It's a transition year.  They got that far despite that.  Again, if it continues to look messy for years on end, then you can criticize.  But a transformation was taking place this year.  Let's see how it goes.  I think people should be excited.

[stereax]

One of the differences between Mike Schafer and Casey Jones is that Casey is more willing to be forthcoming and introspective in his thoughts. Coach Schafer was usually more guarded - publicly - if not defiant sometimes.

They are both GREAT coaches. That doesn't mean they never make a mistake. And hindsight is 20/20. Casey shouldn't be looked at as a lesser coach just because he's more honest about what MAYBE were mistakes. It just means he's more willing to contemplate those things publicly. Praise him for that.

So set all of that aside in order to judge performance.

Fact is, this team was always going to be in transition, and shouldn't have been expected to be as good as last year's team. A lot younger, more skilled in many ways, lots of turnover, including behind the bench. Those are big deals. It's frankly remarkable they made the NCAAs at all.

Going forward, they are set up for a great future. And we'll see. Get back to me if this turns into an annual thing where Cornell wilts a bit in the last month.

Casey's coaching style is also different than Mike's ... not as much cycling, more making plays in transition. Sometimes when that doesn't work with a young team, it can look uglier. Turnovers, hard to set up in the zone.  It's not like the coaches don't know this.  It's a transition year.  They got that far despite that.  Again, if it continues to look messy for years on end, then you can criticize.  But a transformation was taking place this year.  Let's see how it goes.  I think people should be excited.

I mean, hell, this team did 1 game worse than last team. Both in the ECACs and on the national level.

I think we'd all take that at the start of the year.

Also, Casey hockey is fun. I like Casey hockey.

I feel like, whatever mistakes MAYBE were made, the coaching staff will now learn from and build upon. And that's the critical thing - you can "fail", so long as you learn from it and work to mitigate it moving forward.

Forwards and onwards. I can't wait for next season.

[fastforward]

One of the differences between Mike Schafer and Casey Jones is that Casey is more willing to be forthcoming and introspective in his thoughts. Coach Schafer was usually more guarded - publicly - if not defiant sometimes.

They are both GREAT coaches. That doesn't mean they never make a mistake. And hindsight is 20/20. Casey shouldn't be looked at as a lesser coach just because he's more honest about what MAYBE were mistakes. It just means he's more willing to contemplate those things publicly. Praise him for that.

So set all of that aside in order to judge performance.

Fact is, this team was always going to be in transition, and shouldn't have been expected to be as good as last year's team. A lot younger, more skilled in many ways, lots of turnover, including behind the bench. Those are big deals. It's frankly remarkable they made the NCAAs at all.

Going forward, they are set up for a great future. And we'll see. Get back to me if this turns into an annual thing where Cornell wilts a bit in the last month.

Casey's coaching style is also different than Mike's ... not as much cycling, more making plays in transition. Sometimes when that doesn't work with a young team, it can look uglier. Turnovers, hard to set up in the zone.  It's not like the coaches don't know this.  It's a transition year.  They got that far despite that.  Again, if it continues to look messy for years on end, then you can criticize.  But a transformation was taking place this year.  Let's see how it goes.  I think people should be excited.

I mean, hell, this team did 1 game worse than last team. Both in the ECACs and on the national level.

I think we'd all take that at the start of the year.

Also, Casey hockey is fun. I like Casey hockey.

I feel like, whatever mistakes MAYBE were made, the coaching staff will now learn from and build upon. And that's the critical thing - you can "fail", so long as you learn from it and work to mitigate it moving forward.

Forwards and onwards. I can't wait for next season.

Exactly!
Looking forward to next year and looking forward to spending the $$ from canceling my Vegas trip 🫤

[Dafatone]

Again, we replaced literally more than half a starting lineup. Two full forward lines, two d pairs, a starting goalie, and a coach.

The fact that we were in the same ballpark this year as last year is borderline miraculous.

[Trotsky]

One of the differences between Mike Schafer and Casey Jones is that Casey is more willing to be forthcoming and introspective in his thoughts. Coach Schafer was usually more guarded - publicly - if not defiant sometimes.

Mike understood the media are snakes.  Casey will learn.

[Trotsky]

Again, we replaced literally more than half a starting lineup. Two full forward lines, two d pairs, a starting goalie, and a coach.

The fact that we were in the same ballpark this year as last year is borderline miraculous.

It is.  I would have said we had a 40% chance of finishing in the bottom 6.

Next season I see us as a top 3 league contender with as good a chance at the championship as anybody, and then a very good shot at a 5th dingleberry in a row.

[Snowball]

One of the differences between Mike Schafer and Casey Jones is that Casey is more willing to be forthcoming and introspective in his thoughts. Coach Schafer was usually more guarded - publicly - if not defiant sometimes.

They are both GREAT coaches. That doesn't mean they never make a mistake. And hindsight is 20/20. Casey shouldn't be looked at as a lesser coach just because he's more honest about what MAYBE were mistakes. It just means he's more willing to contemplate those things publicly. Praise him for that.

So set all of that aside in order to judge performance.

Fact is, this team was always going to be in transition, and shouldn't have been expected to be as good as last year's team. A lot younger, more skilled in many ways, lots of turnover, including behind the bench. Those are big deals. It's frankly remarkable they made the NCAAs at all.

Going forward, they are set up for a great future. And we'll see. Get back to me if this turns into an annual thing where Cornell wilts a bit in the last month.

Casey's coaching style is also different than Mike's ... not as much cycling, more making plays in transition. Sometimes when that doesn't work with a young team, it can look uglier. Turnovers, hard to set up in the zone.  It's not like the coaches don't know this.  It's a transition year.  They got that far despite that.  Again, if it continues to look messy for years on end, then you can criticize.  But a transformation was taking place this year.  Let's see how it goes.  I think people should be excited.

I'm completely with you on this.

One of the things I actually respect most about Casey is exactly what you pointed out: the willingness to be self-reflective in public. That's not weakness, that's confidence.

Honesty about what might not have worked isn't a knock on Casey. If anything, it should be praised. It shows he's thinking critically and planning for the future.

And Casey's  not Rand, he's not Rand, he's not Rand. Thank God!

Stepping back, the bigger picture matters. This was always a transition year, yet the team exceeded everybody's expectation. The fact they had the wins that they did and made the tournament again is impressive.

Plenty of reason to be optimistic.

[jtwcornell91]

Thank you to Casey Jones, the athletic department, hell, the whole team for embarrassing ourselves like this on a national stage.

You signed up to post this crap?

I, and I'm guessing most here, are proud of this team.

Unfortunately the new forum still doesn't have a mute/block feature.

[ursusminor]

I prefer the Russian bots...

Assuming that iowabasedtraveler is the same one who uses that handle on USCHO, he is a Colgate fan. https://fanforum.uscho.com/members/iowabasedtraveler.11417/

[Dafatone]

I prefer the Russian bots...

Assuming that iowabasedtraveler is the same one who uses that handle on USCHO, he is a Colgate fan. https://fanforum.uscho.com/members/iowabasedtraveler.11417/

Good lord. Intersection of Iowa and Colgate. What could be worse.

[stereax]

gonna need this thing to shut the fuck up

[BearLover]

Like I said, Casey deserves a lot of the credit and also some of the blame. Doesn't mean he's a bad coach or that these problems will repeat themselves. It was a good year overall. But when the entire team plateaued or even regressed down the stretch, the buck stops with him. I don't expect that to happen next season.

[Tom Lento]

Like I said, Casey deserves a lot of the credit and also some of the blame. Doesn't mean he's a bad coach or that these problems will repeat themselves. It was a good year overall. But when the entire team plateaued or even regressed down the stretch, the buck stops with him. I don't expect that to happen next season.

I'm optimistic that won't happen again next year.

I was pretty worried about the schedule this year. My impression is first year players hit a wall sometime in February. The solution is usually to rest them a bit, but with 10+ regular rotation guys and four straight road weekends there isn't a good way to do that.

Worth noting - four consecutive weekends of travel and competition in the spring semester is brutal due to the way Cornell's class schedule lines up. I'm not surprised they never really found their legs after that.

Next year there are three things that should help - the schedule probably won't be so lopsided, they aren't going to be running 10+ first year college hockey players, and (hopefully) Casey and his staff can manage their workloads and time that peak better.

[Tom Lento]

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.

I haven't looked since a few weeks before the end of the RS, but at least in aggregate Cornell's advanced metrics seemed to me to be in line with a solidly top 15 team. Top 10 in the ratings was maybe lucky, but not egregiously so.

If you've gone through the numbers a bit more it'd be interesting to get more detail there. I didn't get to watch the team much this season but I got the feeling from following along here and checking some xG/Corsi/Fenwick data that Cornell's play style results in more possession than it seems based on the eye test.

That may be because they've got a metrics-sound approach that doesn't yield enough sustained pressure (from what I understand Corsi and Fenwick, in particular, can suffer from this), or it may be because everybody around here got used to watching Schafer's endless cycle approach to puck possession, or it may just be noise.