Re: 2015-2016 USCHO Posters Poll
Good overview of your rationale. Couple of things I think based on your observations:
1. Northeastern's starting goaltender is a freshman. They get flashes of brilliance and some frustrating inconsistency. I expect more brilliance and consistency as she acclimates to the college game.
2. Further on that thought, Northeastern did lose to Harvard by a score of 3-0. I know it's just one data point, but what we saw was more even play than showed up on the scoreboard, and the difference I think was that Northeastern couldn't solve Maschmeyer. I put Harvard and Northeastern much closer together in the poll based on that information.
3. Colgate is difficult to gauge. Ties with Union, RPI, Connecticut and Cornell, along with a loss to upstart Merrimack biases me to keep them out of the Top 10 for now. They've showed significant improvement over last year, but I think Clarkson, who's high ranking in recent polls I am critical of, has the better resume.
4. I think Princeton may be a better team than Colgate. They are a tough out and just beat Harvard. Other than a loss to Cornell early on, I don't see any head-scratching losses. They have tied QU, beat Harvard and Dartmouth, and beat Colgate head to head. They had a difficult lost weekend in upstate NY, where they lost to SLU and Clarkson back to back, but that is a conference rivalry and two pretty good road challenges.
5. I don't know exactly what to make of BSU, NoDak and MD. But I am biased toward the WCHA in terms of overall quality of play, so I have trouble keeping any of them out of the top 10. We do have the one data point of Harvard at MD, with a split of the weekend, so I'd say those three WCHA teams, plus Harvard and Northeastern are pretty darn close to each other in terms of ranking.
Thanks for your thoughts, lots of interesting things to think about, which evidently, you got me thinking about!
Originally posted by bc6696
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1. Northeastern's starting goaltender is a freshman. They get flashes of brilliance and some frustrating inconsistency. I expect more brilliance and consistency as she acclimates to the college game.
2. Further on that thought, Northeastern did lose to Harvard by a score of 3-0. I know it's just one data point, but what we saw was more even play than showed up on the scoreboard, and the difference I think was that Northeastern couldn't solve Maschmeyer. I put Harvard and Northeastern much closer together in the poll based on that information.
3. Colgate is difficult to gauge. Ties with Union, RPI, Connecticut and Cornell, along with a loss to upstart Merrimack biases me to keep them out of the Top 10 for now. They've showed significant improvement over last year, but I think Clarkson, who's high ranking in recent polls I am critical of, has the better resume.
4. I think Princeton may be a better team than Colgate. They are a tough out and just beat Harvard. Other than a loss to Cornell early on, I don't see any head-scratching losses. They have tied QU, beat Harvard and Dartmouth, and beat Colgate head to head. They had a difficult lost weekend in upstate NY, where they lost to SLU and Clarkson back to back, but that is a conference rivalry and two pretty good road challenges.
5. I don't know exactly what to make of BSU, NoDak and MD. But I am biased toward the WCHA in terms of overall quality of play, so I have trouble keeping any of them out of the top 10. We do have the one data point of Harvard at MD, with a split of the weekend, so I'd say those three WCHA teams, plus Harvard and Northeastern are pretty darn close to each other in terms of ranking.
Thanks for your thoughts, lots of interesting things to think about, which evidently, you got me thinking about!
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