Castagna and Walsh - The Worry Zone

[Beeeej]

I looked at every draft pick of the Schafer era and noted their draft year, draft round, and whether they left early.

• Riley Nash, 2007, 1st round, left after three years, N/A [great college player][a 1st rounder staying 3 years I consider equivalent to a later round pick staying 4 years]

Analysis:
Cornell had 46 draft picks under Schafer.
I have chosen to exclude Riley Nash from this analysis because I don't think it would be fair to categorize him as either an early departure or a four-year player. He obviously wasn't a four-year player, but keeping a first round pick three years is way better than a program would typically hope for.
Out of 42 draft picks excluding R. Nash and those crossed out, 7 left early. (16.67%)
Out of 18 players who had strong junior seasons, 4 left before their senior year. (22%) Adding LeNeveu to that total (given he had an incredible sophomore season), 5/19 left. (26%)

Thanks for doing the work. I don't think "this one doesn't feel the same" is as compelling an argument to literally change the results as you think it is.

[Chris '03]

Thanks for compiling. Correction: Sasha was a first rounder.

[George64]

Makes sense when you put it that way. No skydiving, no bungee jumping, no braving the Slope after midnight...

Bungee jumping isn't that dangerous.

If the cord doesn't snap.

A quick google turned up only two incidents of cords breaking - one in Africa and one in Thailand.  FWIW, I've done the jump in Africa and felt perfectly safe. 

I've also jumped in New Zealand and was told that their operation is monitored by the NZ Government.  Also they change the cords out much more frequently than mandated by the gov't just to be extra safe.

Interesting coincidence: when I was in New Zealand, my sister and I almost went bungee jumping off a bridge. We backed out after finding out that the week before, someone had died—not because the cord snapped, but because they forgot to attach it.

Whaaaaat? 

You're sitting there watching everything they do.  How could the customer not notice that they hadn't attached the cord?

At least it improved the human gene pool!

[BigRedLaw]

Schafer did a fantastic job retaining drafted players.  Hopefully this is an anomaly and Jones can retain more players going forward.

However, I do wonder if it is possible to match Schafer's success given the rapidly changing landscape of college sports. 

College football is full of players staying in college longer, but transferring to chase NIL.  I don't know how much that's happening in the college hockey landscape (aside from guys like McKenna) or Cornell's NIL situation, but we may have to adjust expectations going forward regardless of who our coach is.

On that subject, does anybody know what Cornell's NIL situation is (if it even exists), how it compares to other ECAC and national schools, etc.?  Its something I cant find any info on.

[George64]

Castagna's contract has an AAV of $1,075,000.  I have three degrees from Cornell, but if I was offered $117k (Jon's contract in 1968 dollars), I'd have been gone in a heart beat.  If we want to be a national contender, I think we have to adjust to the new reality. 

We shouldn't go the NIL route like Penn State's $700k deal with Gavin McKenna (think how many full-tuition scholarships that would be), but compare the lifetime earnings of a Cornell grad to a Whatsamatter U alum.  We need to stress that a three-year degree is possible (Morgan Barron '21 got his BS degree in 2020), or you can have a professional hockey career and come back later for your degree (e.g., Anthony Angello '18, BS '??, Dan Ratushny '92, BS '97).  Castagna's a smart guy and I'm sure he'll eventually get his degree.

[bernie]

using your raw data, 6 of the 9 players who departed early were drafted in the first 3 rounds (the exceptions being ferlin, angelo, barron).  also, of the players drafted in the first 3 rounds, 6 of 9 departed early (the exceptions being sawada, starett, stienberg).  higher draft picks come with the reality that they're more likely to leave

[upprdeck]

Castagna can sign a 3 yr deal this yr or next.  It comes down to getting a degree, playing with teammates.  Does he want to play for the team that drafted him and take that deal or go back into the pool and get drafted again.

Isnt his 3 yr rights done this year?

He can't get redrafted. If he plays another year at Cornell, he'd be a college free agent. Different thing.

And they changed the rules - now, when you start the NCAA, you get 4 years to finish your degree. Pretty sure this is retroactive too. If you expedite it and finish in 3, like Wiebe is doing, then you get 3 years. After you finish, you have 30 days to negotiate with your draft club - if you don't figure it out by then, you become a free agent.

From what I've heard, he's going to finish his degree either way. Wouldn't be surprised if he finishes the credits for it over the summer.

thats the issue, if he gets his degree in 3 yrs he cant comeback to cornell anyway.

[stereax]

Castagna can sign a 3 yr deal this yr or next.  It comes down to getting a degree, playing with teammates.  Does he want to play for the team that drafted him and take that deal or go back into the pool and get drafted again.

Isnt his 3 yr rights done this year?

He can't get redrafted. If he plays another year at Cornell, he'd be a college free agent. Different thing.

And they changed the rules - now, when you start the NCAA, you get 4 years to finish your degree. Pretty sure this is retroactive too. If you expedite it and finish in 3, like Wiebe is doing, then you get 3 years. After you finish, you have 30 days to negotiate with your draft club - if you don't figure it out by then, you become a free agent.

From what I've heard, he's going to finish his degree either way. Wouldn't be surprised if he finishes the credits for it over the summer.

thats the issue, if he gets his degree in 3 yrs he cant comeback to cornell anyway.

If he decided to do his senior year, he wouldn't finish the credits sooner/over the summer and instead spread everything out over next year. But yeah, if you finish your degree you can't come back haha

[BearLover]

I looked at every draft pick of the Schafer era and noted their draft year, draft round, and whether they left early.

• Riley Nash, 2007, 1st round, left after three years, N/A [great college player][a 1st rounder staying 3 years I consider equivalent to a later round pick staying 4 years]

Analysis:
Cornell had 46 draft picks under Schafer.
I have chosen to exclude Riley Nash from this analysis because I don't think it would be fair to categorize him as either an early departure or a four-year player. He obviously wasn't a four-year player, but keeping a first round pick three years is way better than a program would typically hope for.
Out of 42 draft picks excluding R. Nash and those crossed out, 7 left early. (16.67%)
Out of 18 players who had strong junior seasons, 4 left before their senior year. (22%) Adding LeNeveu to that total (given he had an incredible sophomore season), 5/19 left. (26%)

Thanks for doing the work. I don't think "this one doesn't feel the same" is as compelling an argument to literally change the results as you think it is.

Well, it's certainly not compelling, but honestly there was a good amount of human subjectivity involved here, including defining what is a "strong junior year." FWIW, I think it is appropriate to exclude Pelletier also since he seemingly left due to lack of playing time(?), but I split the difference by only excluding one of the two between him and Nash. Ultimately, I was trying to measure how good Cornell is at getting players to stay. I consider Nash a huge success in that regard, so it felt reasonable to put him in his own category. Notably, I excluded him from the analysis entirely rather than defining him as a success, which I  felt was a fair middle ground.

[BearLover]

Thanks for compiling. Correction: Sasha was a first rounder.

Thanks. Fixed. I knew that, but mixed him up with Sawada for a moment.

[BearLover]

using your raw data, 6 of the 9 players who departed early were drafted in the first 3 rounds (the exceptions being ferlin, angelo, barron).  also, of the players drafted in the first 3 rounds, 6 of 9 departed early (the exceptions being sawada, starett, stienberg).  higher draft picks come with the reality that they're more likely to leave

That's a good point. Castagna leaving is not surprising for multiple reasons, including the high draft pick. Stanley leaving is surprising.

[Pghas]

There are 2 sides to this coin.  Yers, it would be nice to keep great players for 4 years.  On the other hand, for Cornell to take the next steps towards a frozen four berth, they probably need to recruit some players who are first round or high first-round draft picks.  They need that level of speed and skill, and those guys will leave after a year or two.  But for those elite players, thats the pathway now.  Harvard had Laferriere and Coronado a few years back.  Everyone knew those guys weren't playing 4 years.  Now the money issue has reared its head so it remains to be seen how Cornell will be able to pull it off. Say you are Cornell and you are recruiting Gavin McKenna.  What do you offer him?  we will compete for ECAC and national championships, you will play in front of  the Lynah Faithful, but we cannot offer you 700K and probably, since you'll only be here a year, cannot offer you a Cornell degree, though you can always come back here and finish it in a decade or so.  Something will have to give - either schools won't want to waste energy and money recruiting guys who will only be in college for a year and dont have any sense at all of being part of the program long-term, or the schools with more cash to throw around - and the willingness to do it - will win out.  Maybe it becomes a thing where you catch lightning in a bottle and a few guys you dont expect to light it up do.  Or if it comes down to Gavin McKenna for a year, you pony up the $ for that kid and go for it that year.

It's really not college sports in many ways anymore.  Like sports at all levels it is so much about the $. 

[ugarte]

using your raw data, 6 of the 9 players who departed early were drafted in the first 3 rounds (the exceptions being ferlin, angelo, barron).  also, of the players drafted in the first 3 rounds, 6 of 9 departed early (the exceptions being sawada, starett, stienberg).  higher draft picks come with the reality that they're more likely to leave

plus sawada and starett were fine but underperformed their draft position while iirc Stienburg contemplated transferring during the COVID year that would have been his junior year but may have been hurt and delayed his signing.

One note on Pokulok, who got slagged at some point in one of these threads, IIRC he got injured early and often in his pro career.

[BearLover]

There are 2 sides to this coin.  Yers, it would be nice to keep great players for 4 years.  On the other hand, for Cornell to take the next steps towards a frozen four berth, they probably need to recruit some players who are first round or high first-round draft picks.  They need that level of speed and skill, and those guys will leave after a year or two.  But for those elite players, thats the pathway now.  Harvard had Laferriere and Coronado a few years back.  Everyone knew those guys weren't playing 4 years.  Now the money issue has reared its head so it remains to be seen how Cornell will be able to pull it off. Say you are Cornell and you are recruiting Gavin McKenna.  What do you offer him?  we will compete for ECAC and national championships, you will play in front of  the Lynah Faithful, but we cannot offer you 700K and probably, since you'll only be here a year, cannot offer you a Cornell degree, though you can always come back here and finish it in a decade or so.  Something will have to give - either schools won't want to waste energy and money recruiting guys who will only be in college for a year and dont have any sense at all of being part of the program long-term, or the schools with more cash to throw around - and the willingness to do it - will win out.  Maybe it becomes a thing where you catch lightning in a bottle and a few guys you dont expect to light it up do.  Or if it comes down to Gavin McKenna for a year, you pony up the $ for that kid and go for it that year.

It's really not college sports in many ways anymore.  Like sports at all levels it is so much about the $. 

For Cornell to make a frozen four, they'll either need to recruit better talent OR get their existing talent to stay four years. We get good talent currently. Compared to the best teams in the country, our talent this season was probably on par with the talent of our 2003 frozen four team. A key difference was that our best players on that team stayed all four years. If Castagna, Walsh, Stanley, et al came back next season, we would have had one of our best chances at a frozen four in decades.

One competitive advantage Cornell has over the other top programs is that our degree is worth much more. We should retain players at a much higher rate than other schools. This is our best chance at success.

We are not competitive for the Gavin McKennas and do not even attempt to recruit them.

I'm not naive enough to expect every Castagna to stay four years, but we should be keeping the Stanleys at least. And if a Moulson/Greening/Ryan-level star  comes along who has clear NHL potential but wants to stay through graduation, then we've got a real shot. That sort of thing is probably our best bet to getting back to the frozen four. We can't beat the top programs in talent, but we can at least try to beat them in experience and development.

[Cornell troll]

There are 2 sides to this coin.  Yers, it would be nice to keep great players for 4 years.  On the other hand, for Cornell to take the next steps towards a frozen four berth, they probably need to recruit some players who are first round or high first-round draft picks.  They need that level of speed and skill, and those guys will leave after a year or two.  But for those elite players, thats the pathway now.  Harvard had Laferriere and Coronado a few years back.  Everyone knew those guys weren't playing 4 years.  Now the money issue has reared its head so it remains to be seen how Cornell will be able to pull it off. Say you are Cornell and you are recruiting Gavin McKenna.  What do you offer him?  we will compete for ECAC and national championships, you will play in front of  the Lynah Faithful, but we cannot offer you 700K and probably, since you'll only be here a year, cannot offer you a Cornell degree, though you can always come back here and finish it in a decade or so.  Something will have to give - either schools won't want to waste energy and money recruiting guys who will only be in college for a year and dont have any sense at all of being part of the program long-term, or the schools with more cash to throw around - and the willingness to do it - will win out.  Maybe it becomes a thing where you catch lightning in a bottle and a few guys you dont expect to light it up do.  Or if it comes down to Gavin McKenna for a year, you pony up the $ for that kid and go for it that year.

It's really not college sports in many ways anymore.  Like sports at all levels it is so much about the $. 

For Cornell to make a frozen four, they'll either need to recruit better talent OR get their existing talent to stay four years. We get good talent currently. Compared to the best teams in the country, our talent this season was probably on par with the talent of our 2003 frozen four team. A key difference was that our best players on that team stayed all four years. If Castagna, Walsh, Stanley, et al came back next season, we would have had one of our best chances at a frozen four in decades.

One competitive advantage Cornell has over the other top programs is that our degree is worth much more. We should retain players at a much higher rate than other schools. This is our best chance at success.

We are not competitive for the Gavin McKennas and do not even attempt to recruit them.

I'm not naive enough to expect every Castagna to stay four years, but we should be keeping the Stanleys at least. And if a Moulson/Greening/Ryan-level star  comes along who has clear NHL potential but wants to stay through graduation, then we've got a real shot. That sort of thing is probably our best bet to getting back to the frozen four. We can't beat the top programs in talent, but we can at least try to beat them in experience and development.

If players find graduating important, they always have the option of finishing it by taking courses remotely throughout their careers or returning to campus upon retirement.

Even the Harvard degree won't keep players from leaving earlier to maximize their probability of success at pro hockey. I think you are overestimating the value of cornell degree