The Stretch Run

With last night's win, Cornell finds itself in first place in the ECAC and 13th in the pairwise rankings. As in previous years, Cornell will be able to slide a bit and still earn a high ECAC seed. But, unlike last year, Cornell will not be able to back into an NCAA bid.

Let's look at how the Big Red has done down the stretch over the last few years, specifically the last five ECAC weekends.

2009     2008    2007
L, T     T, W    L, W
W, L     L, L    W, L
L, L     L, W    T, W
W, W     W, L    W, W
L, W     W, L    L, L

4-5-1   4-5-1    5-4-1

Note that Cornell hasn't exactly stormed into March with momentum behind it. Only two of these fifteen weekends were four-point weekends. Certainly things have changed a bit since the 2005 team went 18-0-1 down the stretch before losing to Minnesota in the regional final.

The key to Cornell's ECAC success this season has been to avoid losses to bad teams. Cornell (8-2-2 ECAC) lost to Yale and Quinnipiac when both of those teams were playing well. Cornell tied a streaking Union team and tied St. Lawrence when half of our players were sick.

In each of the last three years, Cornell's stretch run has featured a mixture of encouraging wins against good teams, and ugly losses against bad teams.

This season, more important than Cornell's ECAC seeding is the Big Red's position in the pairwise rankings. So, although each ECAC game counts for an identical amount in the league, Cornell stands to benefit much more from beating Yale, Union, and Quinnipiac than from beating Brown or Dartmouth.

Let's go red.