Hope you grabbed your glass of water. This may be a bitter pill to swallow.
The regular season is behind this 99th edition of Cornell hockey. The postseason awaits. The real season begins now.
The dust has settled. In the next few days, the battles of a 29-game regular season will settle over the horizon and a new season will rise. The decision to be made over that time is whether the Big Red will dance in the basking glory of daylight or wither in a new day's dawn. However, proper reflection on the past is needed.
Some, even those within the sphere of Ithaca, have taken to referring to this regular season as "mediocre." Ah, yes, mediocrity, a term that Cornellians despise like few others. The associated ire grows greater when it is unrepresentative of the described. Before they are erased by more important and telling results, let's gander through the record of this team.
This team earned six proverbial points in seven out-of-conference match-ups. Only one of the opponents that Cornell faced in non-conference play sits outside the top four teams in its own conference's standings. Only one opponent, Miami, managed to tangle with this Cornell team and avoid surrendering unto the Red any "points." The RedHawks are jockeying to win the Penrose Cup from North Dakota in the NCHC's final weekend of regular-season play.
Are those results mediocre?
The first seeded team of the ECAC Hockey tournament, Quinnipiac, a team that amassed an in-conference record that few conference teams bettered since ECAC Hockey adopted its current postseason structure in the 2002-03 season (Cornell 2002-03 and Cornell 2004-05 are among those teams), barely escaped the clutches of this Cornell team on the road and at home with any points. The Bobcats narrowly avoided increasing its conference loss total by a factor of 66.7% against Cornell, the same team that many have labeled as "mediocre." The Big Red held Quinnipiac to below its average in-conference margin of victory and nearly one-third of its average conference offensive output in two contests.
Are those results mediocre?
The cosmos need to play a hand too to further this argument of mediocrity. Cornell played eight games between the end of January and the coming commencement of the postseason. The Big Red's game-winning marker was disallowed in three of those eight contests. Game winners against Colgate, Quinnipiac, and Brown were all retrieved from the net and erased from the scoreboard. Colgate and Brown settled for ties. Quinnipiac went on to win the contest in overtime. A swing of four points went against Cornell, not because of the effort on the ice, but because of controversial waivers of goals
Had Cornell received those four points that it earned, it would have finished the regular season tied for fourth in the ECAC Hockey standings, just one and a half games behind Greg Carvel's dominant St. Lawrence team. Oh, yeah, counterfactually, the Big Red would have been tied with Yale going into the final regular-season contest and would have had more than an opponent on the line as motive to play. Known futility, as inexcusable as it may be, might have affected Cornell's effort on Saturday.
This Cornell team earned three wins in conference play whose benefits it did not reap. The Big Red actually went 6-2-2 over and since its home-and-home series with Colgate. Yes, this "mediocre" team compiled a 0.700 record over the last month of the regular season. Want to put that in its proper perspective? Only one team in ECAC Hockey outperformed that rate of winning.
It was not much-lauded Quinnipiac. The Cantabs could not keep pace. Neither could the Elis nor Raiders. It was Bobby's squad in Hanover that did slightly better than did Mike Schafer's squad over that run. This Cornell team won a 0.700 record even if it was not what officials insisted be recorded. A 0.700, month-long run into the playoffs seems representative of generally good form.
Are those results mediocre?
No one likes boxscore fandom. Consider the games. This team outperformed its statistical hallmarks. Yeah, a 3-3-4 record looks much worse than the earned 6-2-2. Anyone who watched the games knows which is the measure of this team's potential.
Yes, I say potential. Potential is all the regular season proves. Cornell did deserve a top-four placement in the standings (this writer will not waste either his or your time following this counterfactual to determine seeding) and a 0.700 playoff warm-up run. However, Saturday proved that this team can deliver putrid, horrific, and sometimes frightening efforts. Yale played a good game. Cornell did what it could to give the Elis a very comfortable senior night including defensive errors that damned the Red in the second. Yale won as much from its talent and execution as it did from Big-Red lapses in the first and second periods.
The curve is steeper now. The work of a season now will be judged by this team's lowest point. And, trust me, Saturday was very, very low. This will be this writer's last extended word on the regular season. Move on. The playoffs are here. This is the stage on which Cornell yearns to be judged. Critiques needed to be rectified and criticisms placed in their proper context. One thing is clear from this analysis: This team may be inconsistent and may not be dominant, yet, but it is far from "mediocre."
The regular season is behind this 99th edition of Cornell hockey. The postseason awaits. The real season begins now.
The dust has settled. In the next few days, the battles of a 29-game regular season will settle over the horizon and a new season will rise. The decision to be made over that time is whether the Big Red will dance in the basking glory of daylight or wither in a new day's dawn. However, proper reflection on the past is needed.
Some, even those within the sphere of Ithaca, have taken to referring to this regular season as "mediocre." Ah, yes, mediocrity, a term that Cornellians despise like few others. The associated ire grows greater when it is unrepresentative of the described. Before they are erased by more important and telling results, let's gander through the record of this team.
This team earned six proverbial points in seven out-of-conference match-ups. Only one of the opponents that Cornell faced in non-conference play sits outside the top four teams in its own conference's standings. Only one opponent, Miami, managed to tangle with this Cornell team and avoid surrendering unto the Red any "points." The RedHawks are jockeying to win the Penrose Cup from North Dakota in the NCHC's final weekend of regular-season play.
Are those results mediocre?
The first seeded team of the ECAC Hockey tournament, Quinnipiac, a team that amassed an in-conference record that few conference teams bettered since ECAC Hockey adopted its current postseason structure in the 2002-03 season (Cornell 2002-03 and Cornell 2004-05 are among those teams), barely escaped the clutches of this Cornell team on the road and at home with any points. The Bobcats narrowly avoided increasing its conference loss total by a factor of 66.7% against Cornell, the same team that many have labeled as "mediocre." The Big Red held Quinnipiac to below its average in-conference margin of victory and nearly one-third of its average conference offensive output in two contests.
Are those results mediocre?
The cosmos need to play a hand too to further this argument of mediocrity. Cornell played eight games between the end of January and the coming commencement of the postseason. The Big Red's game-winning marker was disallowed in three of those eight contests. Game winners against Colgate, Quinnipiac, and Brown were all retrieved from the net and erased from the scoreboard. Colgate and Brown settled for ties. Quinnipiac went on to win the contest in overtime. A swing of four points went against Cornell, not because of the effort on the ice, but because of controversial waivers of goals
Had Cornell received those four points that it earned, it would have finished the regular season tied for fourth in the ECAC Hockey standings, just one and a half games behind Greg Carvel's dominant St. Lawrence team. Oh, yeah, counterfactually, the Big Red would have been tied with Yale going into the final regular-season contest and would have had more than an opponent on the line as motive to play. Known futility, as inexcusable as it may be, might have affected Cornell's effort on Saturday.
This Cornell team earned three wins in conference play whose benefits it did not reap. The Big Red actually went 6-2-2 over and since its home-and-home series with Colgate. Yes, this "mediocre" team compiled a 0.700 record over the last month of the regular season. Want to put that in its proper perspective? Only one team in ECAC Hockey outperformed that rate of winning.
It was not much-lauded Quinnipiac. The Cantabs could not keep pace. Neither could the Elis nor Raiders. It was Bobby's squad in Hanover that did slightly better than did Mike Schafer's squad over that run. This Cornell team won a 0.700 record even if it was not what officials insisted be recorded. A 0.700, month-long run into the playoffs seems representative of generally good form.
Are those results mediocre?
No one likes boxscore fandom. Consider the games. This team outperformed its statistical hallmarks. Yeah, a 3-3-4 record looks much worse than the earned 6-2-2. Anyone who watched the games knows which is the measure of this team's potential.
Yes, I say potential. Potential is all the regular season proves. Cornell did deserve a top-four placement in the standings (this writer will not waste either his or your time following this counterfactual to determine seeding) and a 0.700 playoff warm-up run. However, Saturday proved that this team can deliver putrid, horrific, and sometimes frightening efforts. Yale played a good game. Cornell did what it could to give the Elis a very comfortable senior night including defensive errors that damned the Red in the second. Yale won as much from its talent and execution as it did from Big-Red lapses in the first and second periods.
The curve is steeper now. The work of a season now will be judged by this team's lowest point. And, trust me, Saturday was very, very low. This will be this writer's last extended word on the regular season. Move on. The playoffs are here. This is the stage on which Cornell yearns to be judged. Critiques needed to be rectified and criticisms placed in their proper context. One thing is clear from this analysis: This team may be inconsistent and may not be dominant, yet, but it is far from "mediocre."
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