Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

[driventoit]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

What on earth is going on with the defensemen?

The box score lists only Gedman, Edney and Rachlin as having played?

Did Elizabeth Parker play D, or did the three stalwarts play over 40 minutes apiece (including OT?)

Parker, E. played D (and very nicely). BTW, at one point the feed announcer, who kept calling the Terriers the Huskies, conflated the absent coach with the interim coach and said "Stonewall." Amazing, but true.

 

[ARM]

BTW, at one point the feed announcer, who kept calling the Terriers the Huskies...

I knew he was having a tough game when BU took the game's first penalty and he never noticed and kept wondering why it wasn't icing. Surprisingly, the BC game announcer was worse; after about 10 minutes I had to mute him.

 

[OnMAA]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

Surprisingly, the BC game announcer was worse; after about 10 minutes I had to mute him.

Was it TTT ?

 

[ARM]

Was it TTT ?

If only it had been. He'd have at least known who some of the players were and would have said something other than, "Now it's taken by BC. Taken by Northeastern now. BC tries to take it. Now BC, then taken by Northeastern." It got a little like Chinese water torture.

 

[Watson Rink]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

How I miss Derek Sanderson's color commentary for the Bruins. You could depend on his almost liturgical recitation of his favorite clichés, "the youngster" in "the early going" leading up to the inevitable stage of any non-tied game when asked "well, Turk, what should the coaches be saying now," and he would reply "it's now time for [the team behind] to throw caution to the winds and for [the team ahead] to play Katey Bar The Door." Every single (non-tied) game.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

Wow - looks like White hasn't dressed for the last 2 games and now Mastel also..... injuries? Illness? That is going to be a rough end of the season with 4 D (including Parker).

Yup, this is where it all comes crashing down. You can't win with a thin roster. I don't care how great the talent. If these are injuries or illnesses that don't heal up by tomorrow, say goodbye to first place. It's a shame really but roster management is on the coaches and it's not like they didn't see this coming.

 

[charlieconway]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

Yup, this is where it all comes crashing down. You can't win with a thin roster. I don't care how great the talent. If these are injuries or illnesses that don't heal up by tomorrow, say goodbye to first place. It's a shame really but roster management is on the coaches and it's not like they didn't see this coming.

Maybe we should pump the brakes a bit here. The impact of the Olympic year has hit Harvard as hard as any team in the country, and as we know the Crimson runs an 18-person roster including the two goaltenders following the loss of a senior captain and a couple bit players. So when I look at a team that heads into the weekend sporting a 19-3-3 record, I have a tough time thinking anything is about to come crashing down. The rest of the schedule makes a 20-win season look like a pretty safe bet, and by the time all is said and done, five losses should be a worst-case scenario.

How would you handle losing half your D corps? Even if there were more bodies on the team for the sake of having supposed depth, you'd be talking about trying to get some run out of #7 and #8 defenders at this level. The answer to a rash of injuries on the blue line is always going to be giving massive minutes to the best two defenders.

 

[driventoit]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

Maybe we should pump the brakes a bit here. The impact of the Olympic year has hit Harvard as hard as any team in the country, and as we know the Crimson runs an 18-person roster including the two goaltenders following the loss of a senior captain and a couple bit players. So when I look at a team that heads into the weekend sporting a 19-3-3 record, I have a tough time thinking anything is about to come crashing down. The rest of the schedule makes a 20-win season look like a pretty safe bet, and by the time all is said and done, five losses should be a worst-case scenario.

How would you handle losing half your D corps? Even if there were more bodies on the team for the sake of having supposed depth, you'd be talking about trying to get some run out of #7 and #8 defenders at this level. The answer to a rash of injuries on the blue line is always going to be giving massive minutes to the best two defenders.

This needed saying. Thank you!

(see also: http://www.uscho.com/2014/02/13/crowell-and-harvard-arent-taking-the-olympic-year-off/)!

 

[Watson Rink]

We Few, We Happy Few

We Few, We Happy Few

No question the lack of numbers is really pinching now, but that's the stuff that heroes are made on, after all.

Maybe Crowell should recite the Agincourt speech to the team before the game?

Win or lose tonight, this year's players deserve our utmost respect for their perseverance and courage.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

Clarkson was the better team tonight. By a wide margin. Don't be fooled by the score. After the 10 minute mark of the first period, the Lady Knights took over the game. In the second period, the Crimson looked gassed. No legs, no jump and no push. Clarkson front to back was the better team. They may be the better team overall anyway. Erica Howe, Clarkson's goalie, could have updated her Facebook status during the game. She was hardly bothered at all.

Some of this I blame on having to play BU on Tuesday and an OT game to boot. Clarkson is flat out talented and controlled play for much of the game. The Crimson lost most of the board battles and couldn't get any flow going because Clarkson was on them from the neutral zone to their blue line.

Maschmeyer played well but I thought she could have had the second goal. We can't expect her to make 36 to 40 saves a night. The Crimson have to submit a much better effort and I'm wondering if they'll have anything left for tomorrow.

Despite their great record, I'll stand by my contention that when you have a thin roster especially on D, you will feel it. It is impossible to avoid it especially at this time of year. Clarkson was the fresher team for much of this game and when it counted, they had what it took to press the Crimson and make the right play. Case in point: our PP with 4 minutes left was abysmal. Zero shots on net. You can't win with that kind of effort. Fatigue is a factor like it or not. So I'm not going to pump the brakes. To do so is simply to ignore what is happening on the ice.

 

[charlieconway]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

Clarkson was the better team tonight. By a wide margin. Don't be fooled by the score. After the 10 minute mark of the first period, the Lady Knights took over the game. In the second period, the Crimson looked gassed. No legs, no jump and no push. Clarkson front to back was the better team. They may be the better team overall anyway. Erica Howe, Clarkson's goalie, could have updated her Facebook status during the game. She was hardly bothered at all.

Some of this I blame on having to play BU on Tuesday and an OT game to boot. Clarkson is flat out talented and controlled play for much of the game. The Crimson lost most of the board battles and couldn't get any flow going because Clarkson was on them from the neutral zone to their blue line.

Maschmeyer played well but I thought she could have had the second goal. We can't expect her to make 36 to 40 saves a night. The Crimson have to submit a much better effort and I'm wondering if they'll have anything left for tomorrow.

Despite their great record, I'll stand by my contention that when you have a thin roster especially on D, you will feel it. It is impossible to avoid it especially at this time of year. Clarkson was the fresher team for much of this game and when it counted, they had what it took to press the Crimson and make the right play. Case in point: our PP with 4 minutes left was abysmal. Zero shots on net. You can't win with that kind of effort. Fatigue is a factor like it or not. So I'm not going to pump the brakes. To do so is simply to ignore what is happening on the ice.

I don't think anyone is trying to say being six-deep on the blueline to start a season (as Harvard was this year) is ideal. Obviously a team feels it when three defenders are left standing and a forward has to drop back to fill the void. What do you expect? Nothing can be done about the short roster now.

And Maschmeyer probably would have stopped that second goal -- if she had seen the shot. That biscuit had eyes and made it through several bodies on its way to the net. It's not like she should have anticipated or set up any differently than she did.

That said, tonight's result is far from disastrous. A win would have been huge for the NCAA Tourney résumé, but the loss isn't a killer. Clarkson came in as the higher ranked team and won a 2-1 game. After all that, Harvard sits at #5 in the PairWise rankings and awaits an SLU club that is 11-16-3 and went on a seven-game losing bender earlier in the year. Call me the glass-half-full type...but I don't see any reason to panic, just reason to adjust expectations according to the circumstances.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

I don't think anyone is trying to say being six-deep on the blueline to start a season (as Harvard was this year) is ideal. Obviously a team feels it when three defenders are left standing and a forward has to drop back to fill the void. What do you expect? Nothing can be done about the short roster now.

And Maschmeyer probably would have stopped that second goal -- if she had seen the shot. That biscuit had eyes and made it through several bodies on its way to the net. It's not like she should have anticipated or set up any differently than she did.

That said, tonight's result is far from disastrous. A win would have been huge for the NCAA Tourney résumé, but the loss isn't a killer. Clarkson came in as the higher ranked team and won a 2-1 game. After all that, Harvard sits at #5 in the PairWise rankings and awaits an SLU club that is 11-16-3 and went on a seven-game losing bender earlier in the year. Call me the glass-half-full type...but I don't see any reason to panic, just reason to adjust expectations according to the circumstances.

I'm not panicking. Clarkson deserved to win. They were the better team. If we run the table into the ECACs and can get to the tournament final, we might get home ice for the NCAAs. That would be a fabulous accomplishment for this team. No question about it.

If you want an example of how a short bench hurts you, watch the Latvia-Sweden game today. Latvia doesn't have the horses to stay with Sweden. Heck, Pierre Maguire even talked about it on the broadcast. Just so you know that I'm not whistling in the dark on this one.

 

[dave1381]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

Maschmeyer played well but I thought she could have had the second goal. We can't expect her to make 36 to 40 saves a night.

But until this Clarkson loss, Harvard had been 5-0-3 against the ECAC's top 4 and BU/BC, despite being outshot in almost all of them. So I think we can expect Harvard to have a decent chance of winning even if she must make 36-40 saves a night. That just is what Harvard is this season.

So thanks to this latest win vs. SLU, plus RPI's upset of Cornell, Harvard would get the #1 ECAC seed by sweeping the Brown/Yale road trip (would win tiebreak with Clarkson since they split H2H and Harvard has more wins).

 

[mattj711]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

But until this Clarkson loss, Harvard had been 5-0-3 against the ECAC's top 4 and BU/BC, despite being outshot in almost all of them. So I think we can expect Harvard to have a decent chance of winning even if she must make 36-40 saves a night. That just is what Harvard is this season.

So thanks to this latest win vs. SLU, plus RPI's upset of Cornell, Harvard would get the #1 ECAC seed by sweeping the Brown/Yale road trip (would win tiebreak with Clarkson since they split H2H and Harvard has more wins).

Cornell won over RPI. Live stats showed the wrong team scoring the winning goal.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

But until this Clarkson loss, Harvard had been 5-0-3 against the ECAC's top 4 and BU/BC, despite being outshot in almost all of them. So I think we can expect Harvard to have a decent chance of winning even if she must make 36-40 saves a night. That just is what Harvard is this season.

So thanks to this latest win vs. SLU, plus RPI's upset of Cornell, Harvard would get the #1 ECAC seed by sweeping the Brown/Yale road trip (would win tiebreak with Clarkson since they split H2H and Harvard has more wins).

If they win the tiebreak, why is Harvard listed behind Clarkson even though they have more wins assuming everyone runs the table? And that is a big assumption given that Yale beat us at Bright in January. I didn't much like the way we played this weekend. Clarkson looked like a better team to me and how we gave up 40+ shots to SLU is baffling. Our D has melted into a puddle and is way too tentative. We're allowing other teams to dictate play and carry the second period. This won't cut it in two weeks.

 

[dave1381]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

If they win the tiebreak, why is Harvard listed behind Clarkson even though they have more wins assuming everyone runs the table?

I assume by default the league lists teams in alphabetical order until the final standings, rather than apply the tiebreaking criteria throughout the season.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

I assume by default the league lists teams in alphabetical order until the final standings, rather than apply the tiebreaking criteria throughout the season.

Got it

 

[vicb]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

Does anyone know, will Katy Stone be back behind the bench for Harvard this post season?

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

Does anyone know, will Katy Stone be back behind the bench for Harvard this post season?

Doubtful.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014

This may be a program first; neither the women nor the men managed a win against their Yale counterparts during the regular season. The women may see Yale next week at Bright-Landry so we might have an opportunity to change that but what does it say about the state of Harvard hockey that all of a sudden, we can't beat our rivals? Pretty sad actually.