Hockey East 2020-2021

[Cross Check]

Fair take. Good comparison, too. Neither won the D-1 title, as you point out. I think they both made it to four Frozen Fours, and it looks like Umile made it to two FF Finals, as opposed to one by Ceglarski. Both were preceded primarily by coaching legends who they played for earlier at the same school - Snooks Kelley (Ceglarski) and Charlie Holt (Umile).

BC hired Steve "Count" Cedorchuk in between Ceglarski and York. UNH hired Mike Souza after Umile retired. If only UNH can hire the next Jerry York as MS7's replacement in the near future, it will all have been worth it ... :-)

Please never mention Cedorchuk's name again. As a lifelong BC fan, that is a part of the past that is best left there. Afterwards, it was York's successes that truly shined a retrospective light on Ceglarski's failings. I have no doubt that with the talent on some of those Ceglarski teams, York would have almost certainly won a couple of titles with those rosters.

[Chuck Murray]

better coaching would have had Krog not hit the post.

https://youtu.be/as0zfdCYu0E?t=853

Trying to judge a coach on a single game elimination is folly.

Having said that, Chuck, retract that last sentence. Whatever credit he gets is mitigated in large measure by his selfishness in hanging on and then forcing his successor, which cost UNH a decade.

Watching that video is still painful. What a crazy OT, either team could have won it, several times.

I don't disagree with you on Umile's lamentable stretch run, 'Watcher. It does detract, for sure ...

[J.D.]

https://youtu.be/as0zfdCYu0E?t=853

Should have been 3-0 Maine in that game if not for the absurd skate in the crease rule. But that game turned out to be a classic. Tremendous hockey. Conklin left some real juicy rebounds. Fun seeing actual scoring chances and goalies with normal sized pads and looking tiny between the pipes.

[J.D.]

I don't miss Dave Ryan saying "can you believe it" every 30 seconds. Last I saw of that guy I think he was announcing bowling on TV.

[Chuck Murray]

Fun seeing actual scoring chances and goalies with normal sized pads and looking tiny between the pipes.

The whole goalie thing in hockey HAS to be changed. Watching "The Michelin Man" sliding back and forth on his knees from post to post, with his oversized squared-off chest protector sealing off the near post makes me nauseous. For a sport that's so incredibly athletic, it sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. Raise the crossbar, streamline the goalies' pads/protection, and probably both. Maybe penalize goalies for playing on their knees as a base position, as opposed to spontaneous sprawling (re)actions? Those pillows were invented to protect goalies' legs from pucks - not to serve as sliding pads. We should want athletes playing the goalie position at the highest levels - not robotic blobs, cynically blotting out space and shooting angles with their sheer mass.

Scoring has been trending down for a lot of years now, but I can assure you it's not because goalies have gotten more athletic, at least not over the last decade-plus.

/End of rant

[Sean Pickett]

The whole goalie thing in hockey HAS to be changed. Watching "The Michelin Man" sliding back and forth on his knees from post to post, with his oversized squared-off chest protector sealing off the near post makes me nauseous. For a sport that's so incredibly athletic, it sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. Raise the crossbar, streamline the goalies' pads/protection, and probably both. Maybe penalize goalies for playing on their knees as a base position, as opposed to spontaneous sprawling (re)actions? Those pillows were invented to protect goalies' legs from pucks - not to serve as sliding pads. We should want athletes playing the goalie position at the highest levels - not robotic blobs, cynically blotting out space and shooting angles with their sheer mass.

Scoring has been trending down for a lot of years now, but I can assure you it's not because goalies have gotten more athletic, at least not over the last decade-plus.

/End of rant

Coach Parker advocated for larger nets as has John Buccigross, according to him since at least 2004, but probably longer.

As for scoring, yes it is down from the last century, but it's been pretty constant over the past decade:

Season	per game	per team
1975-76	9.8	4.9
1984-85	8.7	4.3
1988-89	8.2	4.1
1998-99	6.4	3.2
2008-09	5.6	2.8
2012-13	5.5	2.7
2013-14	5.6	2.8
2014-15	5.4	2.7
2015-16	5.6	2.8
2016-17	5.8	2.9
2017-18	5.6	2.8
2018-19	5.6	2.8
2019-20	5.5	2.8

What has changed is that there are fewer blowout games now then there were in the seventies. Below shows both how many games and the percentage of all games were tied or decided by 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5+ goals for 5 select seasons:

	2017-18		2015-16		1998-99		1984-85		1975-76
tied	117	10.3%	142	12.6%	90	9.0%	32	3.8%	19	3.3%
1 goal	349	30.8%	344	30.5%	292	29.3%	233	27.7%	146	25.2%
2 goals	241	21.3%	210	18.6%	199	20.0%	151	18.0%	112	19.3%
3 goals	183	16.2%	201	17.8%	144	14.5%	129	15.4%	91	15.7%
4 goals	117	10.3%	106	9.4%	98	9.8%	88	10.5%	71	12.2%
5+ goals	85	7.5%	88	7.8%	135	13.6%	182	21.7%	137	23.6%

Sean

[Chuck Murray]

Coach Parker advocated for larger nets as has John Buccigross, according to him since at least 2004, but probably longer.

Sean

It's funny, the Buccigross piece has to be at least five years old, and even so, goalie play and the art of blotting out space has further deteriorated since then. But I agree with his take in spirit, but the adjustment will have to be larger than the one or two inches he's talking about. And in my opinion, it has to be with the crossbar. Six foot separation of the posts is still fine with me, at least until goalies literally start laying horizontally along the goal line, and forcing all shots to cram under the bar.

Something has to be done, and he does a nice job outlining why. God Bless Coach Parker as well. :-)

[Sean Pickett]

Here's another article, this one from USCHO back in 2007. I wish I could recall how much larger Coach Parker suggest the nets be, but I know he wanted the net both wider and taller. I found images of the Sabres design at the bottom of an article published on The Athletic about Ken Dryden and his call for larger nets.

Sean

[Chuck Murray]

Here's another article, this one from USCHO back in 2007. I wish I could recall how much larger Coach Parker suggest the nets be, but I know he wanted the net both wider and taller. I found images of teh Sabres design at the bottom of an article published on The Athletic about Ken Dryden and his call for larger nets.

Sean

The Ken Dryden piece in The Atlantic (not a regular read at the WIS Estate!) really nails the issue.

Thanks for sharing, Sean.

[net presence]

The whole goalie thing in hockey HAS to be changed. Watching "The Michelin Man" sliding back and forth on his knees from post to post, with his oversized squared-off chest protector sealing off the near post makes me nauseous. For a sport that's so incredibly athletic, it sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. Raise the crossbar, streamline the goalies' pads/protection, and probably both. Maybe penalize goalies for playing on their knees as a base position, as opposed to spontaneous sprawling (re)actions? Those pillows were invented to protect goalies' legs from pucks - not to serve as sliding pads. We should want athletes playing the goalie position at the highest levels - not robotic blobs, cynically blotting out space and shooting angles with their sheer mass.

Scoring has been trending down for a lot of years now, but I can assure you it's not because goalies have gotten more athletic, at least not over the last decade-plus.

/End of rant

Wow....amazingly, Chuck and I actually agree on something. As an old “stand up” goalie who played in a Frozen Four, I completely agree with Chuck. However, in case you weren’t aware, the leg pads have already been regulated down to their 1980s width. Same as the gloves. There are limitations on how large the upper-body pad can be but, those are much tougher to enforce.

The challenge from a “create more offense” standpoint is that the average size of goalies has increased from 5’10 to about 6’4. With many in the 6’5 to 6’6 range. In my opinion, there are only two ways to increase offense. First, is to do as Chuck has suggested and raise the crossbar by 4-6 inches, thus creating more room above even the biggest goalies if they choose to be in the butterfly position. Second, increase the width of the rink to 90-92 feet in order to create more space. Due to the incredible improvements in training, which in turn has vastly increased the quickness and speed of the average player, the human brain has probably reached its maximum ability in how quickly it can make decisions. Meaning, the best/only way to improve creativity and offense is to increase time and space. The only way to do that is increase the size of the ice sheet. I think we all agree that the Olympic size sheets are a bit too big. But, going to 90-92 ft wide would likely provide the necessary time and space to allow players to maximize their offensive abilities and decision making, which would in turn improve offensive output. If the NHL did that, we might even see players regularly break the 100 point barrier. Because at this rate, absolutely no one will touch the vast majority of Gretzky’s offensive records.

[kahunak]

Big East bias- A quick review of the Hobey Baker nominees shows two schools in HE had 3 nominees, two schools had two nominees, 3 schools had one nominee and the rest had none.
Without looking, can anyone put together which schools got the nominations and what schools got none. I think you will find the answer a bit surprising....but maybe not.

[Sol Diablo]

Here's another article, this one from USCHO back in 2007. I wish I could recall how much larger Coach Parker suggest the nets be, but I know he wanted the net both wider and taller. I found images of the Sabres design at the bottom of an article published on The Athletic about Ken Dryden and his call for larger nets.

Sean

Didn't BU propose the opposite......smaller goalies????

[J.D.]

Big East bias- A quick review of the Hobey Baker nominees shows two schools in HE had 3 nominees, two schools had two nominees, 3 schools had one nominee and the rest had none.
Without looking, can anyone put together which schools got the nominations and what schools got none. I think you will find the answer a bit surprising....but maybe not.

Now riddle me this...

What is your actual opinion on who was nominated? Did certain people not deserve it?

[Sean Pickett]

Big East bias- A quick review of the Hobey Baker nominees shows two schools in HE had 3 nominees, two schools had two nominees, 3 schools had one nominee and the rest had none.
Without looking, can anyone put together which schools got the nominations and what schools got none. I think you will find the answer a bit surprising....but maybe not.

I'm not sure what your point is. If there was any bias with the Hobey nominations this year it was a western bias as the three eastern conferences received just 29 of 69 nominations among 16 of 30 teams (HE 13/7, AH 13/7 and ECAC 3/2). The western conferences, meanwhile, received 40 of 69 nominations among 19 of 25 teams (NCHC 17/7, WCHA 14/7 and B1G 9/5). And you could say the schools with the nominations in Atlantic Hockey and the NCHC were a bit surprising as well.

Sean

[jjmc85]

Big East bias- A quick review of the Hobey Baker nominees shows two schools in HE had 3 nominees, two schools had two nominees, 3 schools had one nominee and the rest had none.
Without looking, can anyone put together which schools got the nominations and what schools got none. I think you will find the answer a bit surprising....but maybe not.

The Hobey Baker nominees are made by the school. I’ve heard from people close to the program that UMass doesn’t like to nominate people with no shot of winning. They only nominated Makar his year even though Chaffee was a first team all American and could have very well ended up in the top 10.

It was UMass’ choice not to nominate someone this season. It was those other schools choices to nominate multiple players. I don’t know it I’d call it a bias. I will say that I think they system should be reworked. The nominees are due so early for that and Richter. Should be able to nominate later. Lindberg was the best goalie in D1 IMO but was hurt when the nominees for Richter were due so Murray got the nomination from UMass instead...