Harvard 2021-22: Back to Work

[Watson Rink]

What a thrilling game. It was such a nailbiter...but then it ended, and it was so satisfying to see the players get an occasion for an extended celebration rather than the usual quick stick salute and off the ice to grab their cognitive psychology or economics books.

Two trophies down and a narrow lead for the closely contested ECAC regular season championship!

Eschewing a repetition of the 190 foot shorty by Buckles from KDR's drawback on the faceoff that was their set play last time when locked into a 6-on-3 with less than a half minute to go, this time, locked into a 6-on-4, it was Petrie who drew back to Buckles, who with Willoughby simply held the puck against the boards for the final 10.4 seconds. Which of those two outcomes is the less improbable?

Katey used her line changes cleverly so that Thompson (61% from the dot) and KDR (50%) took 57 faceoffs out of 66 while all other forwards took 9. Not sure why she decided on Petrie to take the final draw. but Petrie certainly came through. Just like A.J. Mlezko being selected to take a defensive zone draw in the final minute of the Olympics championship game, it's something to be proud of that casual fans might never notice.

And kudos to an inspiring Boston College squad! If, before the tourney began, their players had been told that not only were they to be seeded against the #3 and #6 ranked teams in the nation, but also that those teams would pepper them with over 100 shots on net and that they would have to come from behind to tie four consecutive times in the championship game to stand a chance....who would have believed that they would vanquish the #3 team and come within one goal against the #6 team? Hats off indeed!

 

[thirdtime's . . .]

What a thrilling game. It was such a nailbiter...but then it ended, and it was so satisfying to see the players get an occasion for an extended celebration rather than the usual quick stick salute and off the ice to grab their cognitive psychology or economics books.

Two trophies down and a narrow lead for the closely contested ECAC regular season championship!

Eschewing a repetition of the 190 foot shorty by Buckles from KDR's drawback on the faceoff that was their set play last time when locked into a 6-on-3 with less than a half minute to go, this time, locked into a 6-on-4, it was Petrie who drew back to Buckles, who with Willoughby simply held the puck against the boards for the final 10.4 seconds. Which of those two outcomes is the less improbable?

Katey used her line changes cleverly so that Thompson (61% from the dot) and KDR (50%) took 57 faceoffs out of 66 while all other forwards took 9. Not sure why she decided on Petrie to take the final draw. but Petrie certainly came through. Just like A.J. Mlezko being selected to take a defensive zone draw in the final minute of the Olympics championship game, it's something to be proud of that casual fans might never notice.

And kudos to an inspiring Boston College squad! If, before the tourney began, their players had been told that not only were they to be seeded against the #3 and #6 ranked teams in the nation, but also that those teams would pepper them with over 100 shots on net and that they would have to come from behind to tie four consecutive times in the championship game to stand a chance....who would have believed that they would vanquish the #3 team and come within one goal against the #6 team? Hats off indeed!

all of THIS

A wonderful game that seemed destined to go to OT, and what a pleasure to see this senior class, especially, rewarded with the Beanpot!

Highlight of highlights: KDR’s second goal, a reaching, from-behind precision steal at the BC blue line followed by a laser over Levy’s shoulder. And then there’s Gilmore . . .

I’ve been hoping that T3 would weigh in over at BC Interruption, where I think he’s been hiding in plain sight for most of the season. Despite the pain, I would love to get his take on the drama of this classic game (assuming he admits it was classic).

 

[Watson Rink]

Not sure I'd like to tangle with T3 on Beanpot issues after getting spanked when Lee-J joined the Crimson staff and I learned through asking an excruciatingly long series of naive questions on this forum that (i) she'd played her hockey at BC, (ii) oh, it was back in the late Aughts, (iii) why, did she play in the multiple overtime Beanpot game, yes she did, (iv) don't tell me she was on the ice for the shorty....(drum roll)...yes, she was on the ice for the shorty. Ouch!

More seriously, trading reminiscences with BC followers can evolve into a cooling down process from iron-hot rivalry into heartwarming nostalgia, remembering the countless triumphs of each school, just as John Finley evoked to us in his Hum 2 lectures Priam and Achilles remembering the glories of Hector and Patroclus in book 23 of the Iliad. In the case of Harvard and BC, go back in time and begin by substituting the glories of the Cleary Brothers and Lenny Ceglarski (as players, not yet as coaches) for Hector and Patroclus, and go on to note any personal connections: in my case, that a person near and dear to me once hit Billy in a very personal place with a tennis ball that went astray, and that, in a career interval between playing and coaching, Mister Ceglarski was my fifth grade teacher!

 

[Watson Rink]

Emerance Maschmeyer Alert!

In the Canada/ROC game, start at about 8:15 remaining in the first period and......SPOILER ALERT! I'll describe what she did in my next post

 

[Watson Rink]

Emerance Maschmeyer Alert!

In the Canada/ROC game, start watching at about 8:15 remaining in the first period and......SPOILER ALERT!

Full game replay available at https://stream.nbcolympics.com/beijing-olympics-hockey-womens-prelim-canada-roc

(In case the link doesn't work: one of several paths is to go to stream.nbcolympics.com and then click on Hockey in the second line from the top, then Results, then Monday 7 February, then the Canada/ROC game at 12:15 am, then click on Replay)

So at this point the Russians spring a player along the right side just past the red line and all three flatfooted Canadians in the neutral zone try to catch up with her and ride her off; the trio does catch up, but they leave another Russian coming in totally unmarked on the left side, the first Russian finds her with a cross ice pass coming in all alone, but Emerance comes out, challenges her with a poke check and back goes the puck all the way out of the defensive zone.

 

[Skate79]

Congrats to the Lady Crimson on a very big week. First the Beanpot championship, now an Ivy title. Terrific accomplishments considering the pandemic layoff.

Big game today against Q-Pac in the fight for first place overall in the standings.

 

[thirdtime's . . .]

Harvard just finished a week that deserves a comment or two: four games in seven days, including three games in four — physically exhausting for players, emotionally draining for fans. After the frenzied Beanpot finish H faced PU, QU and SLU --- not a pastry in the bunch --- going 1-1-1 in order. For the fan, close games that are not Ws usually have a mental asterisk attached to the results. The phantom tripping call on Gilmore that led to the PP GWG is my Q asterisk, and the clearly good goal that would have meant a 4-3 third period lead but was waived off by a way-too-early whistle is my SLU asterisk. (Players and coaches learn to live with this stuff, but why do we have to?) In any case, these games were a foretaste of a real Wild West ECAC tournament on the horizon. This year especially the conference has been the kind of place where it's not surprising to outshoot your opponent 53-23, including 8-1 when 3-on-3, and come away with 1.5 points.

 

[Watson Rink]

EMERANCE ALERT

The promo about her driving the tractor and having enough siblings to make a family hockey team (admittedly with one phantom sibling in the box) can be seen during the StL game, between the end of the third period and the beginning of the overtime. NBC should have run it in the game that she started for Canada!

 

[Watson Rink]

Conveniently, the ECAC schedule has Harvard's bracket tying down three of the bottom four teams next weekend while all of the other playoff contenders have to play pretty much against one another. If Harvard can pick up all six possible points and Q (or Princeton) can ambush Yale, there is still a possibility of an ECAC regular season championship, shared or outright.

If Harvard can sweep, a Q regular victory would do the trick; a Q overtime win would produce a H/Y tie; and you can do all the other permutations yourselves.

Here are my guesses:

Hvd: RPI and U. (Original prediction 51+) Predict 6 points for a total of 50.5 points
Yale: Q, Pr. (Original prediction 51.5+) Predict at least 4 points for a total of at least 50.5+ points
Q: Y, Br. (Original prediction 48+) Predict at least 5 points for a total of 47+ points
Clarkson: Colgate, Cornell. (Original prediction 47.5+) Predict at least 4.5 points for a total of 46+ points
Colgate: Clarkson, StL. (Original prediction 43.5+) Predict at least 3.5 points for a total of 43+ points
Pr: Y, Br. (Original prediction 42+) Predict at least 3 points for a total of 32+ points
StL: Colgate, Cornell. (Original prediction 40+) Predict at least 3 points for a total of 40+ points
Cornell: Clarkson, StL. Predict at least 1 point for a total of 29+ points

If these guesses were to hold up, the seeding for the quarterfinals of the ECAC tourney would be as follows (to be determined by the tiebreak between H & Y):

#1.5 H or Y versus #8 Cornell
#1.5 H or Y versus # 7 Princeton
#3 Q versus #6 StL
#4 Clarkson versus #5 Colgate

Lots of parity, lots of unpredictability! Brownian motion! Heisenbergian uncertainty! Chaos theory! Gotta review those (handwritten) Nat Sci 2 ("Physics for Poets") lecture notes!
(Do the Nat Sci 2 and Hum 2 references in my posts date me?)

 

[vicb]

Conveniently, the ECAC schedule has Harvard's bracket tying down three of the bottom four teams next weekend while all of the other playoff contenders have to play pretty much against one another. If Harvard can pick up all six possible points and Q (or Princeton) can ambush Yale, there is still a possibility of an ECAC regular season championship, shared or outright.

If Harvard can sweep, a Q regular victory would do the trick; a Q overtime win would produce a H/Y tie; and you can do all the other permutations yourselves.

Here are my guesses:

Hvd: RPI and U. (Original prediction 51+) Predict 6 points for a total of 50.5 points
Yale: Q, Pr. (Original prediction 51.5+) Predict at least 4 points for a total of at least 50.5+ points
Q: Y, Br. (Original prediction 48+) Predict at least 5 points for a total of 47+ points
Clarkson: Colgate, Cornell. (Original prediction 47.5+) Predict at least 4.5 points for a total of 46+ points
Colgate: Clarkson, StL. (Original prediction 43.5+) Predict at least 3.5 points for a total of 43+ points
Pr: Y, Br. (Original prediction 42+) Predict at least 3 points for a total of 32+ points
StL: Colgate, Cornell. (Original prediction 40+) Predict at least 3 points for a total of 40+ points
Cornell: Clarkson, StL. Predict at least 1 point for a total of 29+ points

If these guesses were to hold up, the seeding for the quarterfinals of the ECAC tourney would be as follows (to be determined by the tiebreak between H & Y):

#1.5 H or Y versus #8 Cornell
#1.5 H or Y versus # 7 Princeton
#3 Q versus #6 StL
#4 Clarkson versus #5 Colgate

Lots of parity, lots of unpredictability! Brownian motion! Heisenbergian uncertainty! Chaos theory! Gotta review those (handwritten) Nat Sci 2 ("Physics for Poets") lecture notes!
(Do the Nat Sci 2 and Hum 2 references in my posts date me?)

My guess that I posted on the Clarkson Hockey Roundtable yesterday.

Final Weekend

Harvard @ RPI/Union
Yale @ Quinny/Prinny
Colgate @ Clarkson/SLU
Brown @ Prinny/Quinny
Dartmouth @ Union/RPI
Cornell @ SLU/Clarkson

Top 8 in Current Standings and current points (Brown/RPI/Union/Dartmouth cannot make the post season).

Yale 46.5
Harvard 44.5
Quinnipiac 42
Clarkson 41.5
Colgate 39.5
St. Lawrence 37
Cornell 33
Princeton 29

My Prediction
I do not see Harvard or Yale going pointless this weekend so I think 1st place will be decided between those 2.
Yale has already lost to Quinny/Prinny @ home/ My prediction is Yale loses to Quinny and beats Prinny +3
Harvard swept RPI/Union @ Home/ My prediction Harvard Beats RPI in a close contest and Beats Union +6
Now you have Quinny/Clarkson/Colgate/SLU/Cornell/Prinny
Quinny Beats Yale and Brown +6
Clarkson Beats Colgate and loses to Cornell +3
Colgate Loses to Clarkson and beats SLU +3
SLU loses to Colgate and Cornell +0
Cornell sweeps the North Country +6
Princeton Beats Brown Loses to Yale +3

My Predicted Final Standings

Harvard 50.5
Yale 49.5
Quinny 48
Clarkson 44.5
Colgate 42.5
Cornell 39
SLU 37
Prinny 32

My predicted ECAC Quarterfinal matchups

Prinny @ Harvard
SLU @ Yale
Cornell @ Quinny
Colgate @ Clarkson

We will see who is better at the predictions. ;-) If I finish in the top 4 the teams I would not want to face are 1) Cornell and 2) Colgate.

 

[Skate79]

Okay, so thanks to Quinnipiac's win over Yale, Harvard now has a clear path to finishing first. Take care of business today against Union in regulation and they lock up first place. The Lady Bobcats have a realistic shot at finishing second if they can get help from Princeton today.

 

[thirdtime's . . .]

Q: What did it take yesterday for Harvard (20-7-1) to defeat Union (4-28-1) in order to secure its first place finish in the ECAC?
A: 57 SOG, for 2 PPGs and an empty netter.
Q: What's that goalie's name again?
A: Sophie Matsoukas, class of '25.

 

[Skate79]

Q: What did it take yesterday for Harvard (20-7-1) to defeat Union (4-28-1) in order to secure its first place finish in the ECAC?
A: 57 SOG, for 2 PPGs and an empty netter.
Q: What's that goalie's name again?
A: Sophie Matsoukas, class of '25.

Yeah, Union has a gem in Matsoukas. She played very well. Made some ten bell saves. This should have been a 7-0 game. I was really worried we were going to lose on a fluke goal or wind up tied going into OT and coming out with only 1.5 points. Which would not have been enough. Thankfully, we avoid Colgate in the semis should we make it that far. Being home the rest of the way is special.

 

[Watson Rink]

Beanpot title, Ivy title, ECAC regular season title....congratulations, student-athletes!

And yet, the margins in the ECAC this year are razor thin. As Sparky Anderson put it after his team defeated the Red Sox in the epic 1975 World Series, "What did this World Series prove? It proved that this year the Cincinnati Redlegs are the best team in baseball...though not by much."

 

[Watson Rink]

Well, so much for my predictions! A weekend of surprises.....

Here are the final results:

Hvd: RPI and U. (Original prediction 51+) Predict 6 points for a total of 50.5 points ACTUAL 50.5
Yale: Q, Pr. (Original prediction 51.5+) Predict at least 4 points for a total of at least 50.5+ points ACTUAL 49.5
Q: Y, Br. (Original prediction 48+) Predict at least 5 points for a total of 47+ points ACTUAL 45 and 4th not 3rd
Clarkson: Colgate, Cornell. (Original prediction 47.5+) Predict at least 4.5 points for a total of 46+ points ACTUAL 41.5 and 5th not 4th
Colgate: Clarkson, StL. (Original prediction 43.5+) Predict at least 3.5 points for a total of 43+ points ACTUAL 45.5 and 3rd not 5th
Pr: Y, Br. (Original prediction 42+) Predict at least 3 points for a total of 32+ points ACTUAL 30.5
StL: Colgate, Cornell. (Original prediction 40+) Predict at least 3 points for a total of 40+ points ACTUAL 38
Cornell: Clarkson, StL. Predict at least 1 point for a total of 29+ points ACTUAL 38

 

[Skate79]

Beanpot title, Ivy title, ECAC regular season title....congratulations, student-athletes!

And yet, the margins in the ECAC this year are razor thin. As Sparky Anderson put it after his team defeated the Red Sox in the epic 1975 World Series, "What did this World Series prove? It proved that this year the Cincinnati Redlegs are the best team in baseball...though not by much."

Tremendous regular season with all that hardware. Now Harvard begins the "REAL" season so let's see if they can keep it going.

 

[thirdtime's . . .]

What were just some of the things of possible interest to the Harvard fan last night? The failure of the first line to take the opening faceoff. Zero points from the first line. The absence of Petrie. The subsequent collapse of any second line. The uneven reintroduction of Moy (ARM’s post-Olympics law?). The questionable breaking of a successful goalie rotation. The inexplicable reinsertion of a pulled goalie when Harvard could have had a 6-on-4 with a faceoff in the Princeton end.

What was of any interest at all to announcer guys? NOTHING BUT BLATHER. This was a new low in a season of lows for those of us dependent on the screen this year. They “called” maybe 4 (possibly 4.5) percent of the action that took place in front of their collective face. I’ll scream if we don’t get a different tandem this afternoon, though they’re usually just a variation on the theme of NOTHING BUT BLATHER. Is Harvard the only one of 41 teams that puts up with this? I would rather have Kenny and A.J. go on for sixty minutes about the ’98 Olympics.

A depleted Princeton team was red hot. How was a should-have-seen-it-coming Harvard team ice cold? Never look for any answers coming from the booth. Katey bar the door!

 

[ARM]

I would rather have Kenny and A.J. go on for sixty minutes about the ’98 Olympics.

Thanks for providing my laugh of the day!

 

[D2D]

Thanks for providing my laugh of the day!

I was just getting around to post an "LOL"!

 

[Skate79]

There's no sugar coating it. While today was a gut check win, Princeton is outplaying Harvard and wants this series badly. They are getting the better looks and if not for two tremendous saves from Reed near the end of the third period, Harvard would be sitting in their dorm rooms lamenting what should have been a relatively straightforward quarterfinal series. Yesterday, they played like they only had to show up and Princeton would fold. Today was more of the same until they switched up the lines and put Jovanovich with Hyland and Hollands. They seemed to click and Hollands got the equalizer. Still, Harvard is struggling in their own zone and are not using their skating ability to force the Tigers out of their defensive structure. Which has been sound for the most part.

Hopefully Della Rovere's goal will break the ice for the first line. Harvard needs a much better effort tomorrow to advance. Princeton isn't going anywhere and I expect a max effort from them tomorrow.