Cornell at Union 2/28

arugula

pjd8

Scersk '97

Trotsky

Scersk '97

BearLover

Scersk '97

arugula

Scersk '97
Last years of great coaches are often disappointing. I leafed through the CHN almanac one day and saw some patterns.

Jeff Jackson this season at Notre Dame. Of course most of those other examples were not coming off a final eight season with virtually the entire team returning. Shocking.

Pretty much the entire list of leaders by wins, including York, Parker, Berenson, Sauer, etc. Ron Mason is the only exception.

I would imagine almost all of their final years were under very different circumstances than Schafer’s.

You don’t read, do you? Great coaches, mediocre final seasons.

I think Bear's point was you could be switching the causal arrow.

Pretty sure they all left on their own terms.

I don't have direct knowledge of their leaving circumstances, but their records suggest they did indeed leave on their own terms. Sauer's sub-.500 years were not directly before his last season. Berenson and Parker had minor RS/CT/NCAA droughts toward the end, but not horrible results overall.

Jerry York, Last Season 15-18-5, Prior 10 seasons: 1 sub-.500 year
Jack Parker, Last Season 21-16-2, Prior 10 seasons: 1 sub-.500 year
Ron Mason, Last Season 27-9-5, Prior 10 seasons: 0 sub-.500 years
Red Berenson, Last Season 13-19-3, Prior 10 seasons: 1 sub-.500 year
Jeff Sauer, Last Season 16-19-4, Prior 10 seasons: 3 sub-.500 years
Mike Schafer, YTD 12-10-6, Prior 10 seasons: 1 sub-.500 year

I think there's a real chance that when a coaching retirement is announced it can drain the focus/energy of a team. That would certainly be consistent with Cornell's performance this year. Combine high pressure to have a great season with a slew of injuries early on, and it's easy to see how frustration mounts quickly.

What I loved most about Schafe's senior year was the fire the team had. It won them games that they shouldn't have. I haven't seen that fire this season, and the result has been just the opposite.

Must be killing him. Outwardly very positive but I can’t imagine he’s being patient with the team.

Schafer is more outwardly positive this season than I can ever remember him while losing. I’ve found it very off-putting. They keep losing by 3+ goals and in his weekly write-up Schafer is like, “I love how we played, we just have to put the puck in the net” and “I’m very proud of our effort despite the injuries.” It’s the same shit every week, bad results against mediocre opposition and Schafer is trying to spin it in a positive light. What happened to the old Schafer who would rip the team a new one after losses? Fans don’t want to see another blowout loss to a crap team and then have the coach tell them how proud he is. By the way, can we cancel the injury excuse please? There’s been no correlation between who is healthy and how the team plays. We were as healthy last night as we’ve been all season and the team laid yet another massive egg.

BearLover
. What happened to the old Schafer who would rip the team a new one after losses?

Do you expect him to suddenly be John Tortorella or something? I don’t think any college coach worth their salt is ever going to “rip his team a new one“ in a public interview with the student newspaper.

I’m sure the response to bad losses that takes place in the locker room/bus/next day’s practice (that you’re not privy to) is quite different.

sah67

BearLover
. What happened to the old Schafer who would rip the team a new one after losses?

Do you expect him to suddenly be John Tortorella or something? I don’t think any college coach worth his salt is ever going to “rip his team a new one“ in a public interview with the student newspaper.

I’m sure the response to bad losses that takes place in the locker room/bus/next day’s practice (that you’re not privy to) is quite different.

Sorry, but I strongly disagree with this. In the past Schafer has been very critical of the team (without naming names) in postgame press conferences and Sun interviews.

BearLover
In the past Schafer has been very critical of the team (without naming names) in postgame press conferences and Sun interviews.

The post-game quotes from the coaches haven't sounded all like sunshine and rainbows to me. Were you hoping they would be more vicious and personal with their critiques?

Schafer after Clarkson loss
“We don’t line ourselves up with their speed, and we don’t identify one of the best players in the league,” Schafer said. “I told our guys afterwards, ‘I’m getting tired of the same formula.’”

“[It was a] self-inflicted wound. You can’t give up and not line yourself up with the speed and let a guy get in behind you,” Schafer said. “If you just do your job, we’re good.”

“I don’t want them coming out of the locker room and going, ‘Poor us. We had a good game, we did a good job, we kept them [to] 11 shots on net,’” Schafer said. “What we did was [make] two monumental mistakes that cost us both goals. That’s what we did. All the other stuff is just extracurricular.”

Schafer after the "Dartmouth brawl" game
“[Dartmouth] were stronger on their pucks and sticks. When that happens, and then the game [gets] out of control, and you get frustrated,” Schafer said. “That’s what we have a tendency to do to other teams, and they did that to us.”

Schafer after Colgate loss
“Colgate played a good game,” Schafer said. “We didn’t play the way we need to play as a hockey team. The wheels fell off tonight.”

“We just weren’t sharp in all areas,” Schafer said. “Our goaltending wasn’t sharp, a lot of guys weren’t sharp.”

“I know our guys are banged up,” Schafer said, referring to the growing list of injuries that has racked the Red’s roster. “But we only had to play one game tonight and we couldn’t suck it up and play the way we needed to play, and that’s something we have to discuss as a team.”

Casey Jones after Sacred Heart loss
“I thought last night we probably deserved a better fate. Didn’t get it,” Jones said. “So we should have responded today and came out with the effort and attitude to get it done here tonight. But we wanted some shortcuts.”

And then I thought tonight, we wanted to take it easy. So, we were disappointed in terms of execution, in terms of our effort.”

Casey Jones after SLU loss
“I didn’t like the way we started the game. I didn’t think we had the same pop [as last night],” said head coach Casey Jones ’90.

BearLover

sah67

BearLover
. What happened to the old Schafer who would rip the team a new one after losses?

Do you expect him to suddenly be John Tortorella or something? I don’t think any college coach worth his salt is ever going to “rip his team a new one“ in a public interview with the student newspaper.

I’m sure the response to bad losses that takes place in the locker room/bus/next day’s practice (that you’re not privy to) is quite different.

Sorry, but I strongly disagree with this. In the past Schafer has been very critical of the team (without naming names) in postgame press conferences and Sun interviews.

Maybe he grew up?

sah67

BearLover
In the past Schafer has been very critical of the team (without naming names) in postgame press conferences and Sun interviews.

The post-game quotes from the coaches haven't sounded all like sunshine and rainbows to me. Were you hoping they would be more vicious and personal with their critiques?

Schafer after Clarkson loss
“We don’t line ourselves up with their speed, and we don’t identify one of the best players in the league,” Schafer said. “I told our guys afterwards, ‘I’m getting tired of the same formula.’”


“[It was a] self-inflicted wound. You can’t give up and not line yourself up with the speed and let a guy get in behind you,” Schafer said. “If you just do your job, we’re good.”

“I don’t want them coming out of the locker room and going, ‘Poor us. We had a good game, we did a good job, we kept them [to] 11 shots on net,’” Schafer said. “What we did was [make] two monumental mistakes that cost us both goals. That’s what we did. All the other stuff is just extracurricular.”

Schafer after the "Dartmouth brawl" game
“[Dartmouth] were stronger on their pucks and sticks. When that happens, and then the game [gets] out of control, and you get frustrated,” Schafer said. “That’s what we have a tendency to do to other teams, and they did that to us.”

Schafer after Colgate loss
“Colgate played a good game,” Schafer said. “We didn’t play the way we need to play as a hockey team. The wheels fell off tonight.”

“We just weren’t sharp in all areas,” Schafer said. “Our goaltending wasn’t sharp, a lot of guys weren’t sharp.”

“I know our guys are banged up,” Schafer said, referring to the growing list of injuries that has racked the Red’s roster. “But we only had to play one game tonight and we couldn’t suck it up and play the way we needed to play, and that’s something we have to discuss as a team.”

Casey Jones after Sacred Heart loss
And then I thought tonight, we wanted to take it easy. So, we were disappointed in terms of execution, in terms of our effort.”

“I thought last night we probably deserved a better fate. Didn’t get it,” Jones said. “So we should have responded today and came out with the effort and attitude to get it done here tonight. But we wanted some shortcuts.”

Casey Jones after SLU loss
“I didn’t like the way we started the game. I didn’t think we had the same pop [as last night],” said head coach Casey Jones ’90.

In my original post, I was referring specifically to Schafer’s weekly write-ups of the game. They’re all posted on the cornell hockey association website. I know several on this forum have expressed the same reaction. Schafer repeatedly praising the team’s play despite garbage results has really gotten on my nerves.

Here are some quotes (just ones that I remember—I’m sure there are worse):
[following going 0-1-1 against Dartmouth and Harvard on the road]: “Given the injuries in our lineup, our 3-1-2 record is not that bad. The rest of the team has stepped up!”

[after beating UMass 3-2 and losing 4-0 to ASU]: “Even though I didn’t like Saturday night’s results, I am very happy overall with our team, and I feel we have turned a corner. We played the type of hockey that will lead to success, and we were consistent both nights.” “On Saturday night…I felt we played well against the home team” [Cornell lost this game 4-0].

[after going 0-1-1 against Sacred Heart]: “I was really pleased with how we played in Arizona but coming out of Sacred Heart with a tie and a loss, I must keep things in perspective. The only analytic I didn’t like was the scoreboard. I like the formula of how little chances we gave up and how many we created.” “I felt like we were ready to play on Saturday night” [a game in which Cornell fell behind 3-0].

[after going 0-1-1 against StL/Clarkson]: “Getting two points in the standings was a great job for our guys.”

BearLover
In my original post, I was referring specifically to Schafer’s weekly write-ups of the game. They’re all posted on the cornell hockey association website.

Oh you mean communications that are written specifically for an limited audience of team donors and boosters? What do you expect him to say? "This team sucks. Give your money to Quinnipiac instead."?

sah67

BearLover
In my original post, I was referring specifically to Schafer’s weekly write-ups of the game. They’re all posted on the cornell hockey association website.

Oh you mean communications that written specifically for a limited audience of team donors and boosters? What do you expect him to say? "This team sucks. Give your money to Quinnipiac instead."?

I’d find it much more refreshing and confidence-inspiring if he acknowledged the team is struggling.

Trotsky

pjd8

Scersk '97

Trotsky

Scersk '97

BearLover

Scersk '97

arugula

Scersk '97
Last years of great coaches are often disappointing. I leafed through the CHN almanac one day and saw some patterns.

Jeff Jackson this season at Notre Dame. Of course most of those other examples were not coming off a final eight season with virtually the entire team returning. Shocking.

Pretty much the entire list of leaders by wins, including York, Parker, Berenson, Sauer, etc. Ron Mason is the only exception.

I would imagine almost all of their final years were under very different circumstances than Schafer’s.

You don’t read, do you? Great coaches, mediocre final seasons.

I think Bear's point was you could be switching the causal arrow.

Pretty sure they all left on their own terms.

I don't have direct knowledge of their leaving circumstances, but their records suggest they did indeed leave on their own terms. Sauer's sub-.500 years were not directly before his last season. Berenson and Parker had minor RS/CT/NCAA droughts toward the end, but not horrible results overall.

Jerry York, Last Season 15-18-5, Prior 10 seasons: 1 sub-.500 year
Jack Parker, Last Season 21-16-2, Prior 10 seasons: 1 sub-.500 year
Ron Mason, Last Season 27-9-5, Prior 10 seasons: 0 sub-.500 years
Red Berenson, Last Season 13-19-3, Prior 10 seasons: 1 sub-.500 year
Jeff Sauer, Last Season 16-19-4, Prior 10 seasons: 3 sub-.500 years
Mike Schafer, YTD 12-10-6, Prior 10 seasons: 1 sub-.500 year

I think there's a real chance that when a coaching retirement is announced it can drain the focus/energy of a team. That would certainly be consistent with Cornell's performance this year. Combine high pressure to have a great season with a slew of injuries early on, and it's easy to see how frustration mounts quickly.

What I loved most about Schafe's senior year was the fire the team had. It won them games that they shouldn't have. I haven't seen that fire this season, and the result has been just the opposite.

This is a great post; well-researched and relevant. Thank you.

Agreed. Thanks for doing the “legwork.”

BearLover

sah67

BearLover
In my original post, I was referring specifically to Schafer’s weekly write-ups of the game. They’re all posted on the cornell hockey association website.

Oh you mean communications that written specifically for a limited audience of team donors and boosters? What do you expect him to say? "This team sucks. Give your money to Quinnipiac instead."?

I’d find it much more refreshing and confidence-inspiring if he acknowledged the team is struggling.

I know what I'd find refreshing.

Maybe his Johnny one note posts are due to the hypnotic jargon he reads as he studies the very insightful postings on eLynah, eh, Brian?

Scersk '97

Trotsky

pjd8

Scersk '97

Trotsky

Scersk '97

BearLover

Scersk '97

arugula

Scersk '97
Last years of great coaches are often disappointing. I leafed through the CHN almanac one day and saw some patterns.

Jeff Jackson this season at Notre Dame. Of course most of those other examples were not coming off a final eight season with virtually the entire team returning. Shocking.

Pretty much the entire list of leaders by wins, including York, Parker, Berenson, Sauer, etc. Ron Mason is the only exception.

I would imagine almost all of their final years were under very different circumstances than Schafer’s.

You don’t read, do you? Great coaches, mediocre final seasons.

I think Bear's point was you could be switching the causal arrow.

Pretty sure they all left on their own terms.

I don't have direct knowledge of their leaving circumstances, but their records suggest they did indeed leave on their own terms. Sauer's sub-.500 years were not directly before his last season. Berenson and Parker had minor RS/CT/NCAA droughts toward the end, but not horrible results overall.

Jerry York, Last Season 15-18-5, Prior 10 seasons: 1 sub-.500 year
Jack Parker, Last Season 21-16-2, Prior 10 seasons: 1 sub-.500 year
Ron Mason, Last Season 27-9-5, Prior 10 seasons: 0 sub-.500 years
Red Berenson, Last Season 13-19-3, Prior 10 seasons: 1 sub-.500 year
Jeff Sauer, Last Season 16-19-4, Prior 10 seasons: 3 sub-.500 years
Mike Schafer, YTD 12-10-6, Prior 10 seasons: 1 sub-.500 year

I think there's a real chance that when a coaching retirement is announced it can drain the focus/energy of a team. That would certainly be consistent with Cornell's performance this year. Combine high pressure to have a great season with a slew of injuries early on, and it's easy to see how frustration mounts quickly.

What I loved most about Schafe's senior year was the fire the team had. It won them games that they shouldn't have. I haven't seen that fire this season, and the result has been just the opposite.

This is a great post; well-researched and relevant. Thank you.

Agreed. Thanks for doing the “legwork.”

I appreciate the analysis but number of seasons under .500 is the wrong metric. We are talking about legendary coaches from blue blood college hockey programs, there should be almost no seasons under .500 ever. It would make more sense to look at NCAA bids.

Trotsky

sah67
Coulda shoulda woulda and all that, but I do wonder how different our record would be if the coaches tried a “rotation” with Shane and Keopple earlier in the season.

No. This is what we have been all season. It is not an anomaly. We are, somehow, average, despite being loaded with talent and having the greatest incentive to win any Cornell team ever has.

The Doomers are all fucking idiots, too -- we aren't "embarrassing" or any adolescent shit. We're just average. This year, this is us.

I hope we work it all out and come back strong next year.

I understand that this was written in the heat of the game, but really!

It's hard to judge incentives, but if you ever listened to Harkness (Yeah I know, I know) you'd believe that every game was the most important. And certainly as the season progressed the incentive in 1970 was immense.

Jim Hyla

Trotsky

sah67
Coulda shoulda woulda and all that, but I do wonder how different our record would be if the coaches tried a “rotation” with Shane and Keopple earlier in the season.

No. This is what we have been all season. It is not an anomaly. We are, somehow, average, despite being loaded with talent and having the greatest incentive to win any Cornell team ever has.

The Doomers are all fucking idiots, too -- we aren't "embarrassing" or any adolescent shit. We're just average. This year, this is us.

I hope we work it all out and come back strong next year.

I understand that this was written in the heat of the game, but really!

It's hard to judge incentives, but if you ever listened to Harkness (Yeah I know, I know) you'd believe that every game was the most important. And certainly as the season progressed the incentive in 1970 was immense.

I wonder if knowing it's Schafer's last year is making things harder.

BearLover

fastforward

sah67
Coulda shoulda woulda and all that, but I do wonder how different our record would be if the coaches tried a “rotation” with Shane and Keopple earlier in the season.

Agree

The coaching staff clearly thinks Shane is much better than Keopple. Otherwise Shane would have been benched long, long ago. So, I have a hard time believing a platoon would have been any better.

Schafer has been a great coach but I’m ready to move on. This season has been disgraceful.

Rayhill got 5 or 6 games and you still don't buy that the injury issues were a serious problem in terms of developing on ice chemistry and guys have regular roles etc etc?

If we knew in the pre season that rayhill was going to play that much would.anyone think we'd even finish top 4 in the league?

abmarks

BearLover

fastforward

sah67
Coulda shoulda woulda and all that, but I do wonder how different our record would be if the coaches tried a “rotation” with Shane and Keopple earlier in the season.

Agree

The coaching staff clearly thinks Shane is much better than Keopple. Otherwise Shane would have been benched long, long ago. So, I have a hard time believing a platoon would have been any better.

Schafer has been a great coach but I’m ready to move on. This season has been disgraceful.

Rayhill got 5 or 6 games and you still don't buy that the injury issues were a serious problem in terms of developing on ice chemistry and guys have regular roles etc etc?

If we knew in the pre season that rayhill was going to play that much would.anyone think we'd even finish top 4 in the league?

Yes, 100%. This team was predicted to be first in the ECAC and contend for the national title. If I knew Rayhill would dress as the extra skater a few times that would move the needle only a little.

BearLover

abmarks

BearLover

fastforward

sah67
Coulda shoulda woulda and all that, but I do wonder how different our record would be if the coaches tried a “rotation” with Shane and Keopple earlier in the season.

Agree

The coaching staff clearly thinks Shane is much better than Keopple. Otherwise Shane would have been benched long, long ago. So, I have a hard time believing a platoon would have been any better.

Schafer has been a great coach but I’m ready to move on. This season has been disgraceful.

Rayhill got 5 or 6 games and you still don't buy that the injury issues were a serious problem in terms of developing on ice chemistry and guys have regular roles etc etc?

If we knew in the pre season that rayhill was going to play that much would.anyone think we'd even finish top 4 in the league?

Yes, 100%. This team was predicted to be first in the ECAC and contend for the national title. If I knew Rayhill would dress as the extra skater a few times that would move the needle only a little.

What if you knew that the team would be playing guys out of position in nearly every game in the middle part of the season because 6 of their top 12 options up front were unavailable due to injury?

Fans have every right to be disappointed with how the season has unfolded. It’s disappointing! Be disappointed! Hell, I’d even go so far as to say that the season has been a bit disappointing even after accounting for the injuries, as there were a good four or five games this team could have - and should have - won even as-played, and with better discipline at the end of the Dartmouth game maybe they have a shot at Clarkson as well.

However, the continued insistence that we need some explanation for how the season has unfolded is just annoying. The explanation is the most obvious thing in the world. They’ve had a monumentally unlucky run of injuries that have prevented the team from finding any rhythm or cohesion, and the core of the team was too young to weather that storm in that best possible way. Add in a mediocre to poor special teams performance in the preceding year and you’ve got a recipe for a bad time.

Hope for the best in the playoffs, they probably don’t make placid but if they do then maybe we’ll finally see some of their upside potential.

Tom Lento

BearLover

abmarks

BearLover

fastforward

sah67
Coulda shoulda woulda and all that, but I do wonder how different our record would be if the coaches tried a “rotation” with Shane and Keopple earlier in the season.

Agree

The coaching staff clearly thinks Shane is much better than Keopple. Otherwise Shane would have been benched long, long ago. So, I have a hard time believing a platoon would have been any better.

Schafer has been a great coach but I’m ready to move on. This season has been disgraceful.

Rayhill got 5 or 6 games and you still don't buy that the injury issues were a serious problem in terms of developing on ice chemistry and guys have regular roles etc etc?

If we knew in the pre season that rayhill was going to play that much would.anyone think we'd even finish top 4 in the league?

Yes, 100%. This team was predicted to be first in the ECAC and contend for the national title. If I knew Rayhill would dress as the extra skater a few times that would move the needle only a little.

What if you knew that the team would be playing guys out of position in nearly every game in the middle part of the season because 6 of their top 12 options up front were unavailable due to injury?

This was true for like 3 games the entire season, right? For most of the season Devlin+Wallace+1-3 other guys were out.

I don’t think injuries explain even half of our struggles. Shane had a very tough year, the PP (most of which stayed healthy almost the entire year) was awful, and the team was overall quite unlucky. Those things aren’t injury-related. This was a very disappointing year even accounting for the injuries.

BearLover

Tom Lento

BearLover

abmarks

BearLover

fastforward

sah67
Coulda shoulda woulda and all that, but I do wonder how different our record would be if the coaches tried a “rotation” with Shane and Keopple earlier in the season.

Agree

The coaching staff clearly thinks Shane is much better than Keopple. Otherwise Shane would have been benched long, long ago. So, I have a hard time believing a platoon would have been any better.

Schafer has been a great coach but I’m ready to move on. This season has been disgraceful.

Rayhill got 5 or 6 games and you still don't buy that the injury issues were a serious problem in terms of developing on ice chemistry and guys have regular roles etc etc?

If we knew in the pre season that rayhill was going to play that much would.anyone think we'd even finish top 4 in the league?

Yes, 100%. This team was predicted to be first in the ECAC and contend for the national title. If I knew Rayhill would dress as the extra skater a few times that would move the needle only a little.

What if you knew that the team would be playing guys out of position in nearly every game in the middle part of the season because 6 of their top 12 options up front were unavailable due to injury?

This was true for like 3 games the entire season, right? For most of the season Devlin+Wallace+1-3 other guys were out.

I don’t think injuries explain even half of our struggles. Shane had a very tough year, the PP (most of which stayed healthy almost the entire year) was awful, and the team was overall quite unlucky. Those things aren’t injury-related. This was a very disappointing year even accounting for the injuries.

I think everyone agrees with you that Shane had a bad year, the power play was a disaster and the team simply didn't score enough goals.

You have a very clear opinion that I'd call intractable but I don't mean it pejoratively: there was a failure of coaching. Tthat failure combined getting the guys game ready and/or motivated and making smarter/faster decisions on the starting goalie. You aren't saying anything about the facts of the team's injuries that aren't generally agreed-upon, but your framing is dismissive. We had repeated injuries to players who were expected to get serious minutes, from the top to bottom lines. They were overlapping and recurring. We saw a lot of guys who weren't supposed to break a sweat out there skating real shifts. Obviously you don't think that it mattered much but obviously that is not a generally shared opinion on the forum.*

Isn't it a little exhausting repeating yourself like this? You don't have new evidence, you just keep saying it, which results in... CRAP LIKE THIS! JESUS! DO YOU THINK I ENJOY THIS? THIS IS A COMPULSION! STOP! FOR MY SAKE, PLEASE STOP!

* Me? I don't care either way. The injuries are what they are. I have no idea what other teams were going through and generally think that fans tend to overstate the impact of their own teams injuries while "them's the breaks" for the bad guys. We lost a lot of games. Imagine, this is the reaction of someone who mostly agrees with you about what a disappointment the season has been!

Something I noticed that hasn't been talked about a ton is that a lot of our PP guys are also PK guys. Bancroft and Walsh for instance. That surprised me some.

One thing that I don't think has been talked about much is that the injuries affect things well beyond who is dressed for a game. The injuries had a negative impact on how hard and with what lines the team could practice. I'm guessing the injuries also resulted in a lot of guys playing at 60 or 70%. I'm not suggesting the injuries were all that was responsible to the results thus far this season, but they really were a big part of it. Add in some bad luck and a goaltender having an off year, and here we are.

andyw2100
One thing that I don't think has been talked about much is that the injuries affect things well beyond who is dressed for a game. The injuries had a negative impact on how hard and with what lines the team could practice. I'm guessing the injuries also resulted in a lot of guys playing at 60 or 70%. I'm not suggesting the injuries were all that was responsible to the results thus far this season, but they really were a big part of it. Add in some bad luck and a goaltender having an off year, and here we are.

Add to that the amount of extra ice time for those that skated. This can render them less than effective, especially in back to back games

Dafatone
Something I noticed that hasn't been talked about a ton is that a lot of our PP guys are also PK guys. Bancroft and Walsh for instance. That surprised me some.

Isn’t that pretty normal on a college team, at least for the top shift guys?

andyw2100
One thing that I don't think has been talked about much is that the injuries affect things well beyond who is dressed for a game. The injuries had a negative impact on how hard and with what lines the team could practice. I'm guessing the injuries also resulted in a lot of guys playing at 60 or 70%. I'm not suggesting the injuries were all that was responsible to the results thus far this season, but they really were a big part of it. Add in some bad luck and a goaltender having an off year, and here we are.

Yup. This is a big part of the reason I think the injuries explain most of the struggles. When you’re preparing guys to play out of position, or to jump into a second line role from the fourth line or even the practice squad, or readjusting to changes in defensive pairings, you lose all that practice time that you might’ve spent on tightening up the lines or improving special teams. It gets hard to just tread water, much less improve.

For special teams specifically - they were never going to be good at the start of the year unless something unexpectedly good happened over the offseason. I don’t think we expected the PP to be this bad, but at best mediocre over the course of the season was in line with past performance. Improving the PP was going to have to be a priority, but it’s very difficult to do that if your best practice PK lines are getting shuffled due to injuries.

The main issue with the PP is even when we have really good movement and generate tons of chances we still don't score. We win enough draws to think we would get the occasional draw shoot score goals as well.

upprdeck
The main issue with the PP is even when we have really good movement and generate tons of chances we still don't score. We win enough draws to think we would get the occasional draw shoot score goals as well.

Walsh, Bancroft, Castagna, and Major all seem to have a sense for the net. We've hit around 25 posts this season. I wonder if we could simply have suffered ridiculously bad luck?

Trotsky

upprdeck
The main issue with the PP is even when we have really good movement and generate tons of chances we still don't score. We win enough draws to think we would get the occasional draw shoot score goals as well.

Walsh, Bancroft, Castagna, and Major all seem to have a sense for the net. We've hit around 25 posts this season. I wonder if we could simply have suffered ridiculously bad luck?

I'll admit I tend towards naive optimism, but we have hit so many posts this year, which makes me think luck is a lot of it.

Nothing that 5 PP goals in the next 5 games wouldnt fix.

Dafatone

Trotsky

upprdeck
The main issue with the PP is even when we have really good movement and generate tons of chances we still don't score. We win enough draws to think we would get the occasional draw shoot score goals as well.

Walsh, Bancroft, Castagna, and Major all seem to have a sense for the net. We've hit around 25 posts this season. I wonder if we could simply have suffered ridiculously bad luck?

I'll admit I tend towards naive optimism, but we have hit so many posts this year, which makes me think luck is a lot of it.

FWIW, assuming I didn’t do something silly with the math, this year’s team is scoring on about 7.5% of PP shot attempts while last year’s team was closer to 15%.

I couldn’t tell you if last year’s team was getting better shots, getting luckier, hitting the net more, or some combination of all three, but if the shooting percentages were similar this year’s power play would be more or less the same as last year’s. Mediocre to poor, but not historically awful.

I couldn’t tell you if it’s luck, though. Shot percentages are pretty crude as a metric.

Also, FWIW, if you believe in their “high danger” and “expected goal” designations CHN’s advanced goalie stats show two things pretty clearly - Shane is having a bad year (this is not news, but it gives me a bit more confidence in the metrics) and he’s faced MUCH tougher shots, on average, than Koepple.

Tom Lento

Dafatone

Trotsky

upprdeck
The main issue with the PP is even when we have really good movement and generate tons of chances we still don't score. We win enough draws to think we would get the occasional draw shoot score goals as well.

Walsh, Bancroft, Castagna, and Major all seem to have a sense for the net. We've hit around 25 posts this season. I wonder if we could simply have suffered ridiculously bad luck?

I'll admit I tend towards naive optimism, but we have hit so many posts this year, which makes me think luck is a lot of it.

FWIW, assuming I didn’t do something silly with the math, this year’s team is scoring on about 7.5% of PP shot attempts while last year’s team was closer to 15%.

I couldn’t tell you if last year’s team was getting better shots, getting luckier, hitting the net more, or some combination of all three, but if the shooting percentages were similar this year’s power play would be more or less the same as last year’s. Mediocre to poor, but not historically awful.

I couldn’t tell you if it’s luck, though. Shot percentages are pretty crude as a metric.

Also, FWIW, if you believe in their “high danger” and “expected goal” designations CHN’s advanced goalie stats show two things pretty clearly - Shane is having a bad year (this is not news, but it gives me a bit more confidence in the metrics) and he’s faced MUCH tougher shots, on average, than Koepple.

I have a feeling we'll play Shane this weekend and Schafer won't want to go out benching a senior starter.

I could be wrong.

Dafatone

Tom Lento

Dafatone

Trotsky

upprdeck
The main issue with the PP is even when we have really good movement and generate tons of chances we still don't score. We win enough draws to think we would get the occasional draw shoot score goals as well.

Walsh, Bancroft, Castagna, and Major all seem to have a sense for the net. We've hit around 25 posts this season. I wonder if we could simply have suffered ridiculously bad luck?

I'll admit I tend towards naive optimism, but we have hit so many posts this year, which makes me think luck is a lot of it.

FWIW, assuming I didn’t do something silly with the math, this year’s team is scoring on about 7.5% of PP shot attempts while last year’s team was closer to 15%.

I couldn’t tell you if last year’s team was getting better shots, getting luckier, hitting the net more, or some combination of all three, but if the shooting percentages were similar this year’s power play would be more or less the same as last year’s. Mediocre to poor, but not historically awful.

I couldn’t tell you if it’s luck, though. Shot percentages are pretty crude as a metric.

Also, FWIW, if you believe in their “high danger” and “expected goal” designations CHN’s advanced goalie stats show two things pretty clearly - Shane is having a bad year (this is not news, but it gives me a bit more confidence in the metrics) and he’s faced MUCH tougher shots, on average, than Koepple.

I have a feeling we'll play Shane this weekend and Schafer won't want to go out benching a senior starter.

I could be wrong.

Agreed, Shane is the likely starter for the duration of the playoffs. I think Schafer would go with Koepple if he was clearly better, but I don’t think anything is clear there. Going with the guy who’s played elimination games before - and is maybe better even in a down year - seems totally reasonable to me.

Tom Lento


FWIW, assuming I didn’t do something silly with the math, this year’s team is scoring on about 7.5% of PP shot attempts while last year’s team was closer to 15%.

I couldn’t tell you if last year’s team was getting better shots, getting luckier, hitting the net more, or some combination of all three, but if the shooting percentages were similar this year’s power play would be more or less the same as last year’s. Mediocre to poor, but not historically awful.

I couldn’t tell you if it’s luck, though. Shot percentages are pretty crude as a metric.

Also, FWIW, if you believe in their “high danger” and “expected goal” designations CHN’s advanced goalie stats show two things pretty clearly - Shane is having a bad year (this is not news, but it gives me a bit more confidence in the metrics) and he’s faced MUCH tougher shots, on average, than Koepple.

Shane has not been as good this year but a large problem is that the defense in front of him has created far too many high-quality scoring chances for the opposition. Think of the GWG at Dartmouth or even the very next night at Harvard where the only reason that game went to OT was because of Shane bailing out the defense multiple times.

Shane hasnt played as steady. But he still has way more upside.

upprdeck
Shane hasnt played as steady. But he still has way more upside.

Shane COULD steal you a game. Keopple plays more solidly, it feels, but at a B grade (which for Harvard is an A+). The question honestly is how tight Shane's leash will be - if we win, theoretically, 7-5 against Yale, do they trot him out the next game or switch him for Keopple?

stereax
The question honestly is how tight Shane's leash will be - if we win, theoretically, 7-5 against Yale, do they trot him out the next game or switch him for Keopple?

As long as the team is blessed enough to have games to play, I think Shane gets the start no matter what, except possibly for illness or injury. A win is a win, even if it's a 7-5 win.

You play the goalie who will give up the fewest goals on average*. All this talk about consistency and steadiness—those qualities just get baked into the calculation of who will give up the fewest goals. Sounds reductive, but I think it’s important to be clear about what we’re trying to do here: pick the goalie who will give up the fewest goals on average. I don’t know which goalie that is.

*and technically also taking into account smaller things like ability to move the puck

ugarte

BearLover

Tom Lento

BearLover

abmarks

BearLover

fastforward

sah67
Coulda shoulda woulda and all that, but I do wonder how different our record would be if the coaches tried a “rotation” with Shane and Keopple earlier in the season.

Agree

The coaching staff clearly thinks Shane is much better than Keopple. Otherwise Shane would have been benched long, long ago. So, I have a hard time believing a platoon would have been any better.

Schafer has been a great coach but I’m ready to move on. This season has been disgraceful.

Rayhill got 5 or 6 games and you still don't buy that the injury issues were a serious problem in terms of developing on ice chemistry and guys have regular roles etc etc?

If we knew in the pre season that rayhill was going to play that much would.anyone think we'd even finish top 4 in the league?

Yes, 100%. This team was predicted to be first in the ECAC and contend for the national title. If I knew Rayhill would dress as the extra skater a few times that would move the needle only a little.

What if you knew that the team would be playing guys out of position in nearly every game in the middle part of the season because 6 of their top 12 options up front were unavailable due to injury?

This was true for like 3 games the entire season, right? For most of the season Devlin+Wallace+1-3 other guys were out.

I don’t think injuries explain even half of our struggles. Shane had a very tough year, the PP (most of which stayed healthy almost the entire year) was awful, and the team was overall quite unlucky. Those things aren’t injury-related. This was a very disappointing year even accounting for the injuries.

I think everyone agrees with you that Shane had a bad year, the power play was a disaster and the team simply didn't score enough goals.

You have a very clear opinion that I'd call intractable but I don't mean it pejoratively: there was a failure of coaching. Tthat failure combined getting the guys game ready and/or motivated and making smarter/faster decisions on the starting goalie. You aren't saying anything about the facts of the team's injuries that aren't generally agreed-upon, but your framing is dismissive. We had repeated injuries to players who were expected to get serious minutes, from the top to bottom lines. They were overlapping and recurring. We saw a lot of guys who weren't supposed to break a sweat out there skating real shifts. Obviously you don't think that it mattered much but obviously that is not a generally shared opinion on the forum.*

Isn't it a little exhausting repeating yourself like this? You don't have new evidence, you just keep saying it, which results in... CRAP LIKE THIS! JESUS! DO YOU THINK I ENJOY THIS? THIS IS A COMPULSION! STOP! FOR MY SAKE, PLEASE STOP!

* Me? I don't care either way. The injuries are what they are. I have no idea what other teams were going through and generally think that fans tend to overstate the impact of their own teams injuries while "them's the breaks" for the bad guys. We lost a lot of games. Imagine, this is the reaction of someone who mostly agrees with you about what a disappointment the season has been!

I do keep beating the same drum and some find that annoying, which is valid because I am annoying. But what’s also annoying is the knee-jerk defense of the team and coaches on this forum. Every loss is excused. I’ve gone on and on about why injuries don’t explain even half of our struggles this season, no need to repeat it. It’s getting tiring though. I look to 2019 when the injury situation was arguably even worse. That team would have been ECAC champions if not for getting jobbed by the refs and won an NCAA tourney game despite Mallott and Galajda going down in the championship game. Injuries are an unfortunately reality and they do not themselves define a season. Seems they’ve given a lot of people a very convenient excuse though.

Can we make a deal that if Cornell doesn’t advance past the quarterfinals despite only Devlin and Wallace being out, then injuries are not to blame for our bad season?

You can have your opinion.

I suspect the coaches have one that will differ from yours.

upprdeck
You can have your opinion.

I suspect the coaches have one that will differ from yours.

If you look up my posts from the end of the 2019 season, you will see that I commended on the coaching staff on overcoming terrible injury luck and achieving a great season. Just for the record.

Will

stereax
The question honestly is how tight Shane's leash will be - if we win, theoretically, 7-5 against Yale, do they trot him out the next game or switch him for Keopple?

As long as the team is blessed enough to have games to play, I think Shane gets the start no matter what, except possibly for illness or injury. A win is a win, even if it's a 7-5 win.

Mike has rarely hesitated switching goalies mid-game. Usually it’s with a fourth goal. If he sees a starter is off or not seeing the puck well, the hook will come. This has often served to send a jolt to the D to protect their less-experienced netminder.

RichH

Will

stereax
The question honestly is how tight Shane's leash will be - if we win, theoretically, 7-5 against Yale, do they trot him out the next game or switch him for Keopple?

As long as the team is blessed enough to have games to play, I think Shane gets the start no matter what, except possibly for illness or injury. A win is a win, even if it's a 7-5 win.

Mike has rarely hesitated switching goalies mid-game. Usually it’s with a fourth goal. If he sees a starter is off or not seeing the puck well, the hook will come. This has often served to send a jolt to the D to protect their less-experienced netminder.

Mid-game, sure, I agree. But absent illness or injury, I think Shane will start for whatever games are left this season.

BearLover
Can we make a deal that if Cornell doesn’t advance past the quarterfinals despite only Devlin and Wallace being out, then injuries are not to blame for our bad season?

No, because you’re once again discounting all of the knock-on effects of an injury run of the type Cornell has endured this season. Making up for a solid 15 weeks or whatever of busted up practice time in a 2 week span is asking an awful lot, especially with a game this weekend. It could happen, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

I think a comparison might be instructive here - consider Cornell and Quinnipiac. Pre-season projections for both teams were very similar - consensus top 2 in the league with strong potential for an at large bid to the NCAAs. Personally, I’d say Cornell had more upside and fewer unknowns than Q at the start of the season, so I’d have put Cornell at 1 and Q at 2.

Now, Quinnipiac played to the upper end of their expectation range, first in the league and in strong position for an at large going into the conference playoffs. Cornell, while not as disappointing as maybe some of us feared, still had a monumentally disappointing RS by any reasonable evaluation.

From what little I know of their season it appears Q improved over the course of the year in the way you’d expect a well-coached team to improve. Cornell, by contrast, sputtered along, improving in some ways (the PP is less inept, at least, and the PK appears to have gotten back on track) but running in place in others.

Both teams have coaches with a strong track record and both teams have decent depth of talent. What they don’t have is a comparable injury record.

Quinnipiac’s top 9 scoring forwards in terms of points per game missed a combined total of 0 games this year. Their top 5 scoring defensemen in terms of points per game missed a combined total of 5 games. Their top 15 skaters in terms of appearances - 10 forwards and 5 D - missed a combined total of 5 games.

Among Cornell’s top 9 scoring forwards by points per game, 2 missed more games than Q’s top 14 scoring players combined (Psenicka missed 6, Major missed 8). Mack and Castagna missed 4 games each as well. I didn’t mention Kyle Penney and his 11 missed games, at least 9 of which were due to injury, because he isn’t one of Cornell’s top 9 point per game forwards this year. Yes, these numbers include the suspensions but if you remove those the overall point remains - Cornell’s top scoring lineups have been busted up for much of the season.

Cornell’s D corps has seen some more consistency in terms of games played - among their top 5 scoring defensemen only Fegaras has missed any games. Of course, he also missed more games (6) than Q’s top 5 defensemen combined.

Your contention is that this disruption only accounts for half of the team’s struggles this year. I just don’t agree. I think it accounts for the dominant majority of the gap between reasonable pre-season expectations and RS performance. A big part of the reason I feel this way is this year’s team is one without a dominant top line - they rely on depth to generate offense through sustained pressure, and they haven’t had any depth due to the injuries.

I do think there is some leftover variance on the downside. The PP wasn’t likely to be great without the injuries and their impact on practice times and so forth, but even with the injuries historically awful is a bit much to take. They also could’ve won 3-4 more games this year even with the injuries. To my mind this is in the range of normal “shit happens” badness, though. The really big difference-maker is the injury disruption.

The reason I think Q is instructive is because they had a ton of stability and improved and performed near the top of their expected range. I doubt that would’ve been the case if they’d had Cornell’s injury season. In all likelihood they would’ve been in the same 4-6 range hoping to make some noise in the playoffs as they finally start to get healthy.

It’s fine for you to disagree with my analysis, but I submit that maybe you should be a little more accepting of fans willing to take the Occam’s razor explanation that the continuous rash of injuries over the course of the season explains the drop off from last year.

For those understandably unwilling to read that wall of text, here’s the summary:

Quinnipiac’s top 9 scoring forwards by points per game missed a combined total of 0 games. Their top 5 D missed a combined total of 5.

Cornell’s top 9 forwards missed 24 total games, with meaningful absences from Psenicka (8), Major (6), Mack (4), and Castagna (4). Cornell’s top 5 D were more stable, with Fegaras (6) the only player to miss any games.

I didn’t forget Kyle Penney, at 0.28 points per game he’s not one of Cornell’s top 9 scoring forwards this year.

Tom Lento

BearLover
Can we make a deal that if Cornell doesn’t advance past the quarterfinals despite only Devlin and Wallace being out, then injuries are not to blame for our bad season?

No, because you’re once again discounting all of the knock-on effects of an injury run of the type Cornell has endured this season. Making up for a solid 15 weeks or whatever of busted up practice time in a 2 week span is asking an awful lot, especially with a game this weekend. It could happen, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

I think a comparison might be instructive here - consider Cornell and Quinnipiac. Pre-season projections for both teams were very similar - consensus top 2 in the league with strong potential for an at large bid to the NCAAs. Personally, I’d say Cornell had more upside and fewer unknowns than Q at the start of the season, so I’d have put Cornell at 1 and Q at 2.

Now, Quinnipiac played to the upper end of their expectation range, first in the league and in strong position for an at large going into the conference playoffs. Cornell, while not as disappointing as maybe some of us feared, still had a monumentally disappointing RS by any reasonable evaluation.

From what little I know of their season it appears Q improved over the course of the year in the way you’d expect a well-coached team to improve. Cornell, by contrast, sputtered along, improving in some ways (the PP is less inept, at least, and the PK appears to have gotten back on track) but running in place in others.

Both teams have coaches with a strong track record and both teams have decent depth of talent. What they don’t have is a comparable injury record.

Quinnipiac’s top 9 scoring forwards in terms of points per game missed a combined total of 0 games this year. Their top 5 scoring defensemen in terms of points per game missed a combined total of 5 games. Their top 15 skaters in terms of appearances - 10 forwards and 5 D - missed a combined total of 5 games.

Among Cornell’s top 9 scoring forwards by points per game, 2 missed more games than Q’s top 14 scoring players combined (Psenicka missed 6, Major missed 8). Mack and Castagna missed 4 games each as well. I didn’t mention Kyle Penney and his 11 missed games, at least 9 of which were due to injury, because he isn’t one of Cornell’s top 9 point per game forwards this year. Yes, these numbers include the suspensions but if you remove those the overall point remains - Cornell’s top scoring lineups have been busted up for much of the season.

Cornell’s D corps has seen some more consistency in terms of games played - among their top 5 scoring defensemen only Fegaras has missed any games. Of course, he also missed more games (6) than Q’s top 5 defensemen combined.

Your contention is that this disruption only accounts for half of the team’s struggles this year. I just don’t agree. I think it accounts for the dominant majority of the gap between reasonable pre-season expectations and RS performance. A big part of the reason I feel this way is this year’s team is one without a dominant top line - they rely on depth to generate offense through sustained pressure, and they haven’t had any depth due to the injuries.

I do think there is some leftover variance on the downside. The PP wasn’t likely to be great without the injuries and their impact on practice times and so forth, but even with the injuries historically awful is a bit much to take. They also could’ve won 3-4 more games this year even with the injuries. To my mind this is in the range of normal “shit happens” badness, though. The really big difference-maker is the injury disruption.

The reason I think Q is instructive is because they had a ton of stability and improved and performed near the top of their expected range. I doubt that would’ve been the case if they’d had Cornell’s injury season. In all likelihood they would’ve been in the same 4-6 range hoping to make some noise in the playoffs as they finally start to get healthy.

It’s fine for you to disagree with my analysis, but I submit that maybe you should be a little more accepting of fans willing to take the Occam’s razor explanation that the continuous rash of injuries over the course of the season explains the drop off from last year.

There you go again, Kneejerk McGullicuddy

RichH
There you go again, Kneejerk McGullicuddy

I know, I know, but I really can’t help myself.

BearLover
Can we make a deal that if Cornell doesn’t advance past the quarterfinals despite only Devlin and Wallace being out, then injuries are not to blame for our bad season?

a959e9716a1b557247e8e8ab9ac40539.gif

OK, you're on - we will give you a shot Brian - but please tell us if you are planning on just coaching or doing the player-coach thing?

Tom Lento
For those understandably unwilling to read that wall of text, here’s the summary:

Quinnipiac’s top 9 scoring forwards by points per game missed a combined total of 0 games. Their top 5 D missed a combined total of 5.

Cornell’s top 9 forwards missed 24 total games, with meaningful absences from Psenicka (8), Major (6), Mack (4), and Castagna (4). Cornell’s top 5 D were more stable, with Fegaras (6) the only player to miss any games.

I didn’t forget Kyle Penney, at 0.28 points per game he’s not one of Cornell’s top 9 scoring forwards this year.

I mentioned in the game thread the last time Cornell played Quinnipiac that they appear to have had almost no injuries the entire season. So, yeah, if you compare the team with the ~best injury luck in all of D-1 hockey agains a team with very bad injury luck, you’re going to see some differences. But I don’t think Cornell’s injury luck is uniquely bad. By the time NoDak came into Lynah this season, they couldn’t even put out a full lineup, and that was only a few weeks into their season. Harvard has been decimated by injuries. These are just some examples off the top of my head.

The best argument that injuries don’t explain even half of Cornell’s struggles is: the two weakest points of this team, by far, have been goaltending and PP. Shane has apparently been healthy the entire season. The PP was also very healthy for the first half of the season, by which time it was already among the absolute worst in the country. It did see injuries to players like Major and Castagna later on, but it has actually improved since then.

On the other hand, our 5x5 metrics are actually quite good. Our possession numbers are strong. If injuries were having a major effect on depth and practice bodies, then it seems to me that we’d see the effects of this on team-wide metrics rather than on goaltending and PP numbers whose units have been largely (or entirely) healthy.

Will

stereax
The question honestly is how tight Shane's leash will be - if we win, theoretically, 7-5 against Yale, do they trot him out the next game or switch him for Keopple?

As long as the team is blessed enough to have games to play, I think Shane gets the start no matter what, except possibly for illness or injury. A win is a win, even if it's a 7-5 win.

This.

Thank you for looking up all of the missed games. I think your description of Q this year could be taken a step farther by applying it to our team last year. We had a decent season going with a young team before we took off at the end to win the ECAC's, beat Maine, and take the soon-to-be national champ right to the wire. If I remember correctly, we had very few injuries thus letting the team develop and gel.

Speaking of goalies, I imagine we see Stark for Yale on Saturday. Not sure why he wasn't even dressed the last time the two teams met but he did play last weekend

I finally agree with BL on one thing -- I don't believe injuries are the *main* reason for this year's (relative) struggles.

adamw
I finally agree with BL on one thing -- I don't believe injuries are the *main* reason for this year's (relative) struggles.

What do you think it is, out of curiosity?

I'm split between injuries, Shane's bad year, the hilariously bad PP, bad luck, and Seger singlehandedly being the difference between this team being okay and being very good.

I tend to lean towards Shane, bad luck, and Seger.

Dafatone

adamw
I finally agree with BL on one thing -- I don't believe injuries are the *main* reason for this year's (relative) struggles.

What do you think it is, out of curiosity?

I'm split between injuries, Shane's bad year, the hilariously bad PP, bad luck, and Seger singlehandedly being the difference between this team being okay and being very good.

I tend to lean towards Shane, bad luck, and Seger.

The only thing I'm sure that it's not, is the abilities of the coaches (particularly vis-a-vis who else came and went, see: Clarkson, etc...)

Otherwise - "all of the above" and then some, including some portion of randomness/luck. But since I'm not there every day in practice, I couldn't even begin to speculate what intangible factors may be a part as well.

BearLover
I mentioned in the game thread the last time Cornell played Quinnipiac that they appear to have had almost no injuries the entire season. So, yeah, if you compare the team with the ~best injury luck in all of D-1 hockey agains a team with very bad injury luck, you’re going to see some differences. But I don’t think Cornell’s injury luck is uniquely bad. By the time NoDak came into Lynah this season, they couldn’t even put out a full lineup, and that was only a few weeks into their season. Harvard has been decimated by injuries. These are just some examples off the top of my head.

The thought that Cornell might have unique injury situation never crossed my mind. Since I started following college hockey there have always been a few teams with a bunch of injury trouble - it's the nature of the game - and in the dominant majority of cases that I can recall they ended up having disappointing seasons.

My point is that teams that struggle to field stable lineups tend to struggle in general. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe NoDak was a consensus top 5 team in pre-season and at the end of the RS they're 18th in PWR. Harvard was a pre-season top 4 ECAC contender with an outside shot at national relevance, and they sit in 7th and are well below .500.

This is ultimately an empirical question of some idle interest to me, so I'll start a new thread with some data if I get motivated enough to compile it. From a cursory look it seems most of the teams in the top 10-15 in PWR had tremendous stability amongst their top 9 scoring forwards and top 5 scoring D - that is to say, they look a heck of a lot more like Quinnipiac or Denver (I checked them out too just because defending champs) than Cornell or NoDak.

BearLover
The best argument that injuries don’t explain even half of Cornell’s struggles is: the two weakest points of this team, by far, have been goaltending and PP. Shane has apparently been healthy the entire season. The PP was also very healthy for the first half of the season, by which time it was already among the absolute worst in the country. It did see injuries to players like Major and Castagna later on, but it has actually improved since then.

I've talked about the PP a lot already, and I don't think it's much of an argument. Improving a struggling PP requires one of three things - the PP unit to figure it out given whatever ordinary practice time they get, a change of personnel, or an increase in practice time dedicated to improving the PP. Injuries at the level Cornell has experienced make it very difficult to switch personnel or devote enough quality practice time, to say nothing of allocating additional practice time, to PP improvement. That leaves the first option, which also happens to be the option that's least likely to work once a unit has shown that it's just fundamentally struggling to generate offense.

The goaltending is also interesting to me. It's not clear how much of Shane's struggles are Shane and how much are due to defensive breakdowns, the latter of which, again, are attributable to some extent to the constant shuffling forced by the injuries. But the former.... I dunno. I'm curious about these advanced goaltending stats CHN has up now, maybe I'll dig into those a bit more.

BearLover
On the other hand, our 5x5 metrics are actually quite good. Our possession numbers are strong. If injuries were having a major effect on depth and practice bodies, then it seems to me that we’d see the effects of this on team-wide metrics rather than on goaltending and PP numbers whose units have been largely (or entirely) healthy.

This is a great point, although I think it points towards bad luck as much as anything - Cornell has, after all, outscored opponents by 22 goals at even strength this season. More evenly distributed scoring is maybe good enough for 2-3 extra wins, right?

My general impression of this season is that outside the PP (which is consistently poor) the team has mostly been wildly inconsistent. The games I've followed all seem to feature 2 to 2.5 periods of solid to excellent hockey and 10-20 minutes of bad giveaways and guys standing around puck watching. In some cases it was clearly late game fatigue but I've also seen it happen like the first or second period (think all the way back to that second NoDak game - super weird to look gassed and terrible in period 2 and come out guns blazing like a different team in period 3).

Personally, my take on all of this is what I said earlier - Cornell has had a ton of injuries, and the rest of the variance from expectations (goaltending struggles, worse-than-expected scoring luck, etc.) fit into the ordinary "shit happens" bucket that every hockey team deals with. I agree with Adam here that it's a mixture of factors, and I'm starting to really think bad luck is more important than I'd originally considered. I don't agree with Adam that injuries aren't the dominant consideration - the numbers I've seen and the experience I've had in other team sports context nearly all point in the same direction, which is that injuries really dropped both the floor and ceiling on this team's expected range. It would've taken an incredible performance for them to pull off a top 2 league finish and top 10 PWR RS, which I think was a pretty reasonable pre-season projection, and it wouldn't take that much to dump them down to where they ended up.

I'll add one other point to consider, which, again, I think of as "shit happens" but it's more us as fans than anything to do with the team - any pre-season projection of a top 10 finish is an assertion that the team is close enough to a "finished product" that they can find sustained success over the course of the season. What we saw in the first two weekends, and what we've seen in how the team is dealing with the injuries, is that that this group was still more of a work in progress. They could have - and I think would have - gotten close enough to pre-season expectations for most fans to feel at least satisfied with a strong season (if disappointed that this once again wasn't our year), but a team that's a work in progress at season open isn't likely to realize its potential if the roster is changing every week.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that they can salvage something in the playoffs. I'll be happy with every additional game at this point, because my expectations are not high.

With Dartmouth’s sweep, this game is officially Union’s last win at Messa/Achilles.

Chris '03
With Dartmouth’s sweep, this game is officially Union’s last win at Messa/Achilles.

Wasn’t their first ecac league win at lynah? I could be imagining this.

toddlose

Chris '03
With Dartmouth’s sweep, this game is officially Union’s last win at Messa/Achilles.

Wasn’t their first ecac league win at lynah? I could be imagining this.

Yes. One of 2 wins the entire season for them. They’ve always had some sort of voodoo over us.

toddlose

Chris '03
With Dartmouth’s sweep, this game is officially Union’s last win at Messa/Achilles.

Wasn’t their first ecac league win at lynah? I could be imagining this.

Their first D-1 year we destroyed them at Achilles and then lost to them at Lynah.

(One of the very few games I do not have the box for; it is not deliberate.)

Thankfully, we were their second league win. They won in Hanover 2-1 a month before. They also tied at Yale, so the first season they were 2-8-1 away and 0-11 home.

RichH

toddlose

Chris '03
With Dartmouth’s sweep, this game is officially Union’s last win at Messa/Achilles.

Wasn’t their first ecac league win at lynah? I could be imagining this.

Yes. One of 2 wins the entire season for them. They’ve always had some sort of voodoo over us.

It was actually their second league win; they had beaten Dartmouth a few weeks earlier.

Trotsky

toddlose

Chris '03
With Dartmouth’s sweep, this game is officially Union’s last win at Messa/Achilles.

Wasn’t their first ecac league win at lynah? I could be imagining this.

Their first D-1 year we destroyed them at Achilles and then lost to them at Lynah.

(One of the very few games I do not have the box for; it is not deliberate.)

Thankfully, we were their second league win. They won in Hanover 2-1 a month before. They also tied at Yale, so the first season they were 2-8-1 away and 0-11 home.

Beat me to the correction. I had always heard it was their first full-fledged D1 win.

[www.collegehockeynews.com]

And of course the following year, THAT year, we were one of their THREE wins.

RichH

Trotsky

toddlose

Chris '03
With Dartmouth’s sweep, this game is officially Union’s last win at Messa/Achilles.

Wasn’t their first ecac league win at lynah? I could be imagining this.

Their first D-1 year we destroyed them at Achilles and then lost to them at Lynah.

(One of the very few games I do not have the box for; it is not deliberate.)

Thankfully, we were their second league win. They won in Hanover 2-1 a month before. They also tied at Yale, so the first season they were 2-8-1 away and 0-11 home.

Beat me to the correction. I had always heard it was their first full-fledged D1 win.

[www.collegehockeynews.com]

God, that was an awful in game experience either way.

RichH

Trotsky

toddlose

Chris '03
With Dartmouth’s sweep, this game is officially Union’s last win at Messa/Achilles.

Wasn’t their first ecac league win at lynah? I could be imagining this.

Their first D-1 year we destroyed them at Achilles and then lost to them at Lynah.

(One of the very few games I do not have the box for; it is not deliberate.)

Thankfully, we were their second league win. They won in Hanover 2-1 a month before. They also tied at Yale, so the first season they were 2-8-1 away and 0-11 home.

Beat me to the correction. I had always heard it was their first full-fledged D1 win.

[www.collegehockeynews.com]

And of course the following year, THAT year, we were one of their THREE wins.

Well, I'll never forget their coach Bruce Delventhal crying while I was interviewing him post-game. I think the Dartmouth win was more insignificant, because they were hideous then. To win at Lynah for the first time, made him very emotional.

That is actually a very sweet story. Thank you.