Harvard 2021-22: Back to Work

[thirdtime's . . .]

Stone is using her abundance, but selectively. There are certain hits: Biotti on defense for sure, and preliminarily MacDonald on D and Thompson and Bayard on various lines. Given Moy’s absence, Lester saw some serious ice time against BC and that seemed to go well. Haven’t seen a fourth line since game one or two, and other freshmen are not much in evidence. It’s still very early for this group, both in the season and as a formerly virtual team sidelined by the virus, but they seem to play with surprising poise, given the gauntlet they’ve already run. Hoping some of you with more analytical eyes will check them out farther down the line as they play around in the rankings. Yale may or may not prove a challenge this weekend. I hope to go to Brown to make up for missing BC, lolololol

Fun fact of BC game (in addition to the score): both teams had goals at 19:59.
.

[Skate79]

Congratulations to Coach Stone on her 500th win today. Nice video tribute on gocrimson.com.

[Watson Rink]

Who'd have thought the pre-season pollsters could be as off base as they were about Cornell and Yale? We'll just have to see how the season works out; early days yet. Harvard is right in the hunt, for sure.

Wonder also how the OT losses will figure in terms of tournament seeeds.
We see that in the published ECAC standings (and presumably in ECAC tournament seeds based on strict bracket integrity) OT losses earn one point, OT wins earn two and ties earn 1.5.
ButI don't know whether the algorithms for RPI, Pairwise and other tools used at the national level still take the position that a win is a win, a loss is a loss and tie games never happened.

[ARM]

ButI don't know whether the algorithms for RPI, Pairwise and other tools used at the national level still take the position that a win is a win, a loss is a loss and tie games never happened.

TTT said in another thread that OT wins/losses count as partial wins, as they do in the league standings. However, he wasn't sure if they hold to the same 2/3 value for a win and 1/3 for a loss or use a different ratio.

[thirdtime's . . .]

I’ve come to think of the team’s novel fall as a twelve game centralization of its mega roster.

Following OT losses to Colgate and Clarkson the bounce back of the convincing win over B.C. must have had the team riding high (B.C. wins have that effect), but they were riding too high, since this wasn’t the menacing B.C. of old, and they rode right into an ambush at New Haven. They recovered after the Yale game because of the schedule, but it wasn’t especially pretty. Why was that? Stone is clearly taking advantage of every opportunity she has to find the right combinations with these numbers. Surprisingly that’s included giving a freshman goalie three starts, not as many as Dutton but one more than Reed. The jury is out on Pellicci, but the big question mark is Reed’s lack of playing time. Having three semi-active goalies is part of the novelty, I guess. As for the skaters, more novelty: Stone has been using four lines, not always sparingly, since the B.C. game, and as far as I can tell almost everyone has seen more than limited ice time, though the awful new game templates makes it hard to piece together who actually dressed, let alone played, on a particular date. I haven’t seen much of Dorr or O’Connor, or a couple of vets, or anything of two of our five goalies (which is fine!). As of the last game played (RPI)* this is where things stand:

KDR, Gilmore, Bloomer
Moy, Petrie, Lester
Jovanovich, Thompson, Chorske
Davidson Adams (DA?), Hollands, Bayard

Willoughby / Biotti
Macdonald (M) / MacDonald (J)
Buckles / Glover

The first line knows itself well. The others are adjusting on the fly. The D pairings seem right at home with each other.
So, camp is over and decisions have been made, I guess.

Harvard now has what may be an unprecedented opportunity to make waves in the new year. Because of the heavy presence of the ECAC in the top ten (Yale!), the New Year’s weekend with UMD, and a more than likely meeting with Northeastern in the Beanpot final, the Crimson will have nine games against currently ranked opponents before playoffs begin - - - another novelty that Stone must be relishing.


*[Speaking of the RPI game, Keely Moy, who is an invaluable part of this team and who sat out three games after taking a big hit at Clarkson, was hit hard not once . . . not twice . . . but three times. The third time was seconds after she returned to the ice after missing a few shifts due to the second hit. Not good.]

[thirdtime's . . .]

The latest from the A.D. (Turn that UMD fan caravan around!)

The following changes will go into effect immediately through Jan. 23:

• Events will continue to be held as scheduled.
• Events will not be open to the general public.
• In venues that have been approved for spectators, a limited number of guests of the student-athletes and coaches will be allowed on a pass list. The exact number of guests will be determined based on Harvard University venue policies. All pass list guests must show proof of full vaccination and wear a mask at all times.

[thirdtime's . . .]

I don’t know if losses can be energizing, but if so this was a weekend of energizing losses for the Crimson. What better way to characterize a heavily depleted team staying with UMD for five out of six periods? Granted, they could not stay with Klein, Giguere and Hughes (“the scariest line that I’ve watched thus far,” — ARM), who scored 7 of the Bulldogs 9 goals, but the cumulative numbers tell the story of an exciting weekend against a heavy favorite: shots UMD 62/51, face-offs Harvard 48/43, Harvard 4/9 on the PP, 5/7 on the kill. All this without four of their starting six on the second and third lines, including the catalysts for each, Moy and (for game two) Jovanovich. (Stone herself was absent Friday night.) Add to the at least three skaters who were making their first appearance of the season, the goalies Reed and Dutton, who were starting their 5th and 6th games respectively, and you get a workshop in improv. (The goalie scene, of course, had nothing to do with depleted ranks, but was the result of last fall’s round of musical chairs.) Call it a morale victory, if you will.

(UMD, of course, may well have had a depletion or two, but they really don’t need anything other than their first line and a goalie.)

[FiveHoleFrenzy]

(UMD, of course, may well have had a depletion or two, but they really don’t need anything other than their first line and a goalie against an eastern team.)

Forgive me but I just can't resist making a slight modification to your statement...

[thirdtime's . . .]

Forgive me but I just can't resist making a slight modification to your statement...

Noted.

[Skate79]

Good weekend for the Lady Crimson. Lots of chances for both teams during yesterday’s game including multiple posts and crossbars. Hopefully we won’t have any more postponements the rest of the way.

And a tip of the cap to Keeley Moy for her selection to the Swiss Olympic team.

[Watson Rink]

And a tip of the cap to Keeley Moy for her selection to the Swiss Olympic team.

And a nice irony for Harvard to defeat the EU/Russia Combined Team last Saturday. Not sure how many of their EU and Russian players are going to The Show next month on their various European homelands' teams, but it will be fun to see an American-born Harvard player competing for a European country. Apparently Moy will face Emerance Maschmeyer'16's Royal Canadians but who knows what that team's goalie rotation will be.

Remember what a splash it made a few years ago when Yale had that highly skilled Euro, the Swiss Miss from the Swiss national team? Little did we know how the Blue floodgates would open to her compatriots. (Okay, okay, extra credit to the first Boola who tosses Liza Ryabkina '11 back into our faces).

Wonder if Randi Griffin '10 will be making a return trip with the Combined North/South Korean team? She did score their only goal in the last Olympics, didn't she?

[thirdtime's . . .]

5-1, 3-1, 8-0

Both Brown and Dartmouth were more or less D.O.A. at Bright, with 13 and 15 skaters respectively. Brown especially gets kudos for logging a hard, full 60 minutes. The Yale game was another story, with intense end-to-end action, few penalties, few shots (Yale held to 3 in the third, Harvard to 5) . . . home ice seemed to be a big factor in this one. The biggest takeaway for me is that the win came without Petrie and a regular D fixture, the freshman MacDonald (J). (Willoughby also out Tuesday night.) Petrie has now been out for three straight games, and Harvard doesn't want to face Q this weekend without her and with a less than full strength blue line. Surprisingly Dutton got all three starts and is now on pace to double the total minutes of her previous seasons. It’s curious that Stone would have an underused, dressed, healthy (?) Reed sit out what were virtually two January scrimmages sandwiching the Yale game. Btw, Announcer Guy said the Yale win was Harvard’s first over a ranked opponent since November. I thought, Wow! Who could that have been? . . . Wait for it ––––– BC !!! (Sorry T3)

[Watson Rink]

Nice to see two goals and four assists from new players in the D'mth game
And a tip of the cap to their goaltender for hanging in there. And another tip of the cap to Elizabeth Lewis (daughter of Harvard's own Harry Lewis and Marlyn McGrath) who, decades ago, when her seventh grade field hockey team's goalie was getting bombarded in a blowout, was overheard lobbying the coach to "put me in goal so that _____ doesn't have to take this stuff by herself any more." Wow....

[thirdtime's . . .]

Nice to see two goals and four assists from new players in the D'mth game

Yes, and it was nice to see ONE goal tonight for The Great Escape from a Princeton team that beat Yale, split with Q, and went to OT with Colgate, not the Princeton team that
lost to SLU 4-1 this week. Harvard simply won The Battle of the Goalies. But just look at the ECAC scores today to see The Storming of the Ranked Gates!

[Steamboat]

5-1, 3-1, 8-0

Btw, Announcer Guy said the Yale win was Harvard’s first over a ranked opponent since November. I thought, Wow! Who could that have been? . . . Wait for it ––––– BC !!! (Sorry T3)

Where is TTT? Demoralized, sulking, posted overseas? TTT -- you there?