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

[Will]

Beeeej, you gotta stop making me cry with "night-night for the season".

Fuck, I'm gonna think about that during the salute next year and cry more.

But yeah, agreed - getting trounced like that is way easier psychically than the overtime losses. And you can't expect constant miracles. Just gotta keep going. One step at a time.

...man, what the hell am I gonna do with seven whole months without Cornell hockey? Cup playoffs, draft, free agency... Banana Ball until September???

There's still a few months of Lacrosse left.

Yeah, but that'll last me until June/July. What do I do over the summer??? (Besides fail at finding an internship.)

World Cup?

Soccer? [Gags]

Your disdain for baseball is disappointing, but you've redeemed yourself with a rightful aversion to soccer.

[VIEWfromK]

Shucks.  That was a disappointing finish to a very fun season.  I would so much rather endure the agony of a close NCAA game that is a toss up than to lose a lopsided game like that.  I waited a full calendar year to hopefully get back the feeling I had during that magical run from last spring.  I can't say that I truly expected to feel like that this spring after the way they sputtered down the stretch but I was hoping for a competitive game and maybe a first round surprise.

In the end this young team just proved to not be tough enough to play against.  It was a second half of the season issue and not just evident in the Denver game.  I'm hopeful that the forward group of Hiscock, Long, Pirtle, Murray and Arsenault can figure out how to grind down the other team along the likes of a Jeff Malott.  I'm not necessarily expecting that to be how it plays out with some of their skill sets and Casey's coaching style vs Schafer's but it's a way to potentially create more offensive opportunities that start in the opponent's zone beyond winning a faceoff.

It will take time for the yearning for them to play a heavier game to leave my body after thirty years of that style.  I worry though that trying to play the same type of game as the usual Frozen Four teams is asking too much of our talent pool.  I'm willing to wait and see if they can make it happen though.  They certainly have a ton of balance from this year's freshman group.  I'm excited to see how the newcomers will fit in.  It's going to be interesting to see how Casey's role players differ from the ones Schafer used to target.

That's one pretty successful transition year in the books.  Can't wait to add to it.

[Roy 82]

....

Shucks.  That was a disappointing finish to a very fun season.  I would so much rather endure the agony of a close NCAA game that is a toss up than to lose a lopsided game like that.  I waited a full calendar year to hopefully get back the feeling I had during that magical run from last spring.  I can't say that I truly expected to feel like that this spring after the way they sputtered down the stretch but I was hoping for a competitive game and maybe a first round surprise.

In the end this young team just proved to not be tough enough to play against.  It was a second half of the season issue and not just evident in the Denver game.  I'm hopeful that the forward group of Hiscock, Long, Pirtle, Murray and Arsenault can figure out how to grind down the other team along the likes of a Jeff Malott.  I'm not necessarily expecting that to be how it plays out with some of their skill sets and Casey's coaching style vs Schafer's but it's a way to potentially create more offensive opportunities that start in the opponent's zone beyond winning a faceoff.

It will take time for the yearning for them to play a heavier game to leave my body after thirty years of that style.  I worry though that trying to play the same type of game as the usual Frozen Four teams is asking too much of our talent pool.  I'm willing to wait and see if they can make it happen though.  They certainly have a ton of balance from this year's freshman group.  I'm excited to see how the newcomers will fit in.  It's going to be interesting to see how Casey's role players differ from the ones Schafer used to target.

That's one pretty successful transition year in the books.  Can't wait to add to it.

I'm hopeful that the forward group of Hiscock, Long, Pirtle, Murray and Arsenault can figure out how to grind down the other team along the likes of a Jeff Malott.  I'm not necessarily expecting that to be how it plays out with some of their skill sets and Casey's coaching style vs Schafer's but it's a way to potentially create more offensive opportunities that start in the opponent's zone beyond winning a faceoff.

It will take time for the yearning for them to play a heavier game to leave my body after thirty years of that style.  I worry though that trying to play the same type of game as the usual Frozen Four teams is asking too much of our talent pool.  I'm willing to wait and see if they can make it happen though.  They certainly have a ton of balance from this year's freshman group.  I'm excited to see how the newcomers will fit in.  It's going to be interesting to see how Casey's role players differ from the ones Schafer used to target.

That's one pretty successful transition year in the books.  Can't wait to add to it.

The trouble is that these days the better teams have players that are too fast and too skilled to get ground down.

The good news is that maybe we will find one such player. Eric Pohlkamp was a 5th round draft pick and is expected to go straight into the NHL as soon as DU finishes their run. He was able to side step our D-men.

[fastforward]

....

Shucks.  That was a disappointing finish to a very fun season.  I would so much rather endure the agony of a close NCAA game that is a toss up than to lose a lopsided game like that.  I waited a full calendar year to hopefully get back the feeling I had during that magical run from last spring.  I can't say that I truly expected to feel like that this spring after the way they sputtered down the stretch but I was hoping for a competitive game and maybe a first round surprise.

In the end this young team just proved to not be tough enough to play against.  It was a second half of the season issue and not just evident in the Denver game.  I'm hopeful that the forward group of Hiscock, Long, Pirtle, Murray and Arsenault can figure out how to grind down the other team along the likes of a Jeff Malott.  I'm not necessarily expecting that to be how it plays out with some of their skill sets and Casey's coaching style vs Schafer's but it's a way to potentially create more offensive opportunities that start in the opponent's zone beyond winning a faceoff.

It will take time for the yearning for them to play a heavier game to leave my body after thirty years of that style.  I worry though that trying to play the same type of game as the usual Frozen Four teams is asking too much of our talent pool.  I'm willing to wait and see if they can make it happen though.  They certainly have a ton of balance from this year's freshman group.  I'm excited to see how the newcomers will fit in.  It's going to be interesting to see how Casey's role players differ from the ones Schafer used to target.

That's one pretty successful transition year in the books.  Can't wait to add to it.

I'm hopeful that the forward group of Hiscock, Long, Pirtle, Murray and Arsenault can figure out how to grind down the other team along the likes of a Jeff Malott.  I'm not necessarily expecting that to be how it plays out with some of their skill sets and Casey's coaching style vs Schafer's but it's a way to potentially create more offensive opportunities that start in the opponent's zone beyond winning a faceoff.

It will take time for the yearning for them to play a heavier game to leave my body after thirty years of that style.  I worry though that trying to play the same type of game as the usual Frozen Four teams is asking too much of our talent pool.  I'm willing to wait and see if they can make it happen though.  They certainly have a ton of balance from this year's freshman group.  I'm excited to see how the newcomers will fit in.  It's going to be interesting to see how Casey's role players differ from the ones Schafer used to target.

That's one pretty successful transition year in the books.  Can't wait to add to it.

The trouble is that these days the better teams have players that are too fast and too skilled to get ground down.

The good news is that maybe we will find one such player. Eric Pohlkamp was a 5th round draft pick and is expected to go straight into the NHL as soon as DU finishes their run. He was able to side step our D-men.

He's impressive 😬
Definitely one of the strongest players for Denver

[sezenack]

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.

If you're looking at the publicly available data on eg. CHN, those aren't adjusted for SOS. So top 15 possession metrics in the ECAC is in reality worse than top 15. I don't have access to anything better than what's publicly available, and even the CHN xG stat is not precise as it does not take into account type of shot, so I can't really comment with any greater degree of certainty.

Yeah that's a good point. I don't really know how to discount the stats accordingly so unless someone wants to do a more rigorous analysis this will all be on vibes.

My take after a quick look at today's Corsi/Fenwick numbers is still that Cornell (~12th on aggregate possession metrics) was a solid top 15 but probably not a top 10. That's not bad for a rebuilding year, and getting that big incoming class an up close look at a title contender is a real positive even if the game itself was pretty rough.

Cornell had a below average SOS. I think last I looked it was like 34th, but I can't seem to find it now on CHN. I'm not sure how you account for that exactly, but if a team that's eg. 16th in possession metrics has the 5th hardest SOS, they should be ahead of Cornell. @sezenack is an RPI fan who maintains a blog and I think he was tracking SOS-adjusted possession stats. @ursusminor, perhaps you can ping him? Would be interesting to see.

I'm just seeing this now. Here's what the numbers were before the NCAA tournament if you're still curious https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gbNvoRrsMyXcuE3uk6Bnou_LkBzQvXG6rUxzMYHh9J8/edit?usp=sharing