Looking Back on Doomsday Predictions

If my blog had a public editor, this might be a post for that person.

For much of this season, this blog was pretty down on the Cornell hockey team's chances of making a big splash during the post-season. Sitting now, with an ECAC tournament trophy and a #2 seed to the NCAAs (in Albany, of all places) in hand, it would appear that I may have been too negative on the team's chances.

While I am unbelievably happy that the team won an ECAC title in my senior year, and I think they have a good chance to make the Frozen Four, I don't think my earlier predictions were unreasonable.

Consider this: If Cornell had lost both games this past weekend, especially if one loss came to Union, then the Big Red would likely be done for the season. The Pairwise this spring was very volatile, and there were a lot of NCAA berths riding on results from Friday and Saturday nights. Two losses in two games for Cornell, and that would be it.

Similarly, heading into the series against Harvard the previous weekend, Cornell was only two games away from the end of its season. Two losses, and that would be it.

It was difficult to predict that great things would happen when the team sat six periods away from extinction.

Hell, there was even a scenario (albeit, one with a lot of upsets) in which Cornell could have lost to Union in the ECAC final and still missed the NCAA tournament.

Going back to earlier in the season, it was difficult to believe that Cornell could do anything in March when it kept losing Saturday night games. As it turns out, the Big Red were able to piece together two beautiful weekends of hockey, but who saw that coming? Recall that Cornell sat 19th in Pairwise as recently as January.

Also, who saw Yale losing in the quarterfinal round? This was a team which beat Cornell both times they played, and was routinely putting up 6 and 7 goals in ECAC games. As long as Yale stood between Cornell and the ECAC title, it was difficult to believe that the Big Red would prevail.

In contrast to some of the great teams earlier in the decade (2002-3, 2004-5), this team was inconsistent for most of the year. Uncharacteristically blowing third-period leads, struggling to get four-point weekends, following up a dismal performance in Florida with an inspiring win at UNH. When the team can't win two games in a row, it's not reasonable to expect them to win championships.

In the end, Cornell reached this point with the help of three factors.

First, and most importantly, they started looking like the Big Red Defensive Machine we've come to expect. With the exception of the game at Princeton, Ben Scrivens has played unbelievably well in 2010. The defensemen are cutting down on mistakes and doing a better job of keeping the puck away from the net, and Schafer has found some guys (Collins, Esposito, Scali, Nicholls) who know how to shut down opposing team's top lines. Scrivens' shutout streak (almost four games and counting) is ridiculous.

Second, Yale lost. Yeah, yeah, a Cornell team playing well would have been able to topple Yale in Albany. But instead of heading to Albany with the prospect of playing a dangerous Yale team which has had Cornell's number for two years, the Big Red were looking at three teams (Brown, Union, St. Lawrence) to whom they hadn't lost all season (4-0-2, and 9-1-2 if you go back two years).

Third, a lot of the teams around Cornell in the Pairwise began to struggle. Union was tied with Cornell before they played at Lynah in February; the Dutchmen kept falling after that. Minnesota-Duluth and Maine played themselves out of an NCAA bid. Bemidji State hit a wall in their tournament and dropped below Cornell. Colorado College, which had been one of the best teams in the country when they beat Cornell in Florida, plummeted all the way to 20th in Pairwise. As a result of so many other teams struggling, Cornell's loss at Dartmouth didn't hurt the Big Red too much, and Cornell's wins helped them to win some comparisons on the basis of RPI.

It's great to see Cornell rising to its potential and playing such good hockey. But we shouldn't forget how close they were to being done for the season, with no NCAA bid in hand.