Harvard Crimson 2014-15

[Watson Rink]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

There really is cause for concern. Armstrong got hit in the head late in the Cornell game diving to the ice to drive a loose puck out of the zone. The Cornell player was assessed 2 minutes for contact to the head/elbowing but I doubt there was any intent to injure as in the blink of an eye Armstrong's head was down around waist level as they collided in open ice going for the puck.

Assume that she was held out of the Colgate game to go through the possible-concussion protocols, so there is still hope that it's not a concussion. Unspeakably awful for her if it is.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

There really is cause for concern. Armstrong got hit in the head late in the Cornell game diving to the ice to drive a loose puck out of the zone. The Cornell player was assessed 2 minutes for contact to the head/elbowing but I doubt there was any intent to injure as in the blink of an eye Armstrong's head was down around waist level as they collided in open ice going for the puck.

Assume that she was held out of the Colgate game to go through the possible-concussion protocols, so there is still hope that it's not a concussion. Unspeakably awful for her if it is.

Agree. With her history, there is always cause for concern. Let's hope for the best. Haley Mullins stepped in and did an admirable job even double shifting with the fourth line during the second and third periods against Colgate.

A win against SLU on Friday and we can rest or reduce ice time for certain players (I'm thinking Picard, Pucci, D'Oench, and Mary Parker) on Saturday to get ready for the playoffs.

 

[clarksoncluck]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

"Hope you all have a wonderful trip back to Chestnut Hill tonight. That was some game. And to those who question whether Maschmeyer deserved an ECAC goalie of the week, are there any questions after tonight? Emmerance was actually questionable for this game due to an injury suffered in practice last week. The fact that she played tonight and was immense says a lot for her character and toughness." by Skate79

I have been following the discussions for the season and pay attention to what people are saying. I follow goalies mostly.

Some key observations:

1. Clarkson has definitely found a replacement for Howe in Tiley (.939 S%, 1.38 GAA) plays all teams

2 Maschmeyer is playing well since her first 4 games of the season (in last 13 games has a 1.08 GAA and a .952 S%) would put her in top 2 of nation if ignoring the first 4 games - which you can't, and as others say doesn't usually play the cupcakes

3. Laden has a great GAA and a reasonable S% behind Q's defensive system and has 13 SO's!!!!! - plays all teams

4. Newell's stats don't look great but her last 6 games have been of the outstanding variety. - plays all teams

5. Lundberg - what can you say - so far 1041 saves - probably will need therapy. - plays all teams

6. MacDonald same comments as stated for Newell. - generally plays all teams but was out after Christmas (injury?) but came back with a vengeance.

Up and comers - Chemago with positive notes for Rando, O'Brien and Leonoff.

What I'm noticing is that the ECAC has a ton of very good goalies and in 1 game series can easily put the better ranked team out. Looks like the WCHA could argue that their goalies are in the same category, which I cannot argue, but tend to watch ECAC and just follow the scoreboard for the others.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

I have been following the discussions for the season and pay attention to what people are saying. I follow goalies mostly.

Some key observations:

1. Clarkson has definitely found a replacement for Howe in Tiley (.939 S%, 1.38 GAA) plays all teams

2 Maschmeyer is playing well since her first 4 games of the season (in last 13 games has a 1.08 GAA and a .952 S%) would put her in top 2 of nation if ignoring the first 4 games - which you can't, and as others say doesn't usually play the cupcakes

3. Laden has a great GAA and a reasonable S% behind Q's defensive system and has 13 SO's!!!!! - plays all teams

4. Newell's stats don't look great but her last 6 games have been of the outstanding variety. - plays all teams

5. Lundberg - what can you say - so far 1041 saves - probably will need therapy. - plays all teams

6. MacDonald same comments as stated for Newell. - generally plays all teams but was out after Christmas (injury?) but came back with a vengeance.

Up and comers - Chemago with positive notes for Rando, O'Brien and Leonoff.

What I'm noticing is that the ECAC has a ton of very good goalies and in 1 game series can easily put the better ranked team out. Looks like the WCHA could argue that their goalies are in the same category, which I cannot argue, but tend to watch ECAC and just follow the scoreboard for the others.

One game series? I assume you are referring to the NCAA tournament right? Although last year Leonoff almost stole the Harvard-Yale ECAC quarters. She was exhausted by the third game and couldn't perform as well as the first two games of the series. Still, she was immense.

I wouldn't say that the ECAC has a ton of very good goalies. Tiley, Laden and Maschmeyer are definitely having terrific seasons. MacDonald is good but I wouldn't classify her as a very good goalie. RPI's goalie didn't impress me at all. Lundberg is unquestionably talented and would do very well playing in back of Quinny's defense. Actually, probably most goalies would succeed in their system. 13 shutouts is still huge.

 

[alslammerz]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

One game series? I assume you are referring to the NCAA tournament right? Although last year Leonoff almost stole the Harvard-Yale ECAC quarters. She was exhausted by the third game and couldn't perform as well as the first two games of the series. Still, she was immense.

I wouldn't say that the ECAC has a ton of very good goalies. Tiley, Laden and Maschmeyer are definitely having terrific seasons. MacDonald is good but I wouldn't classify her as a very good goalie. RPI's goalie didn't impress me at all. Lundberg is unquestionably talented and would do very well playing in back of Quinny's defense. Actually, probably most goalies would succeed in their system. 13 shutouts is still huge.

ECAC semis and finals would count as a 1 game series as well.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

ECAC semis and finals would count as a 1 game series as well.

Right you are. Blame it on the snow.

 

[alslammerz]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

So Harvard will (likely) get one of Dartmouth or Yale for the playoffs. Let's hope for a big win on Friday to clinch the title.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

So Harvard will (likely) get one of Dartmouth or Yale for the playoffs. Let's hope for a big win on Friday to clinch the title.

Both Dartmouth and Yale have tough final weekends albeit on home ice. If I had to guess, I would say that we will probably face Dartmouth because if you are Clarkson, you want to avoid Princeton next week while holding out hope for first place. And SLU may be desperately trying to hold on to fourth place for home ice next week to avoid traveling to Ithaca. Not to minimize what Yale will be facing but it does seem like Dartmouth has a slightly tougher weekend.

 

[alslammerz]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Both Dartmouth and Yale have tough final weekends albeit on home ice. If I had to guess, I would say that we will probably face Dartmouth because if you are Clarkson, you want to avoid Princeton next week while holding out hope for first place. And SLU may be desperately trying to hold on to fourth place for home ice next week to avoid traveling to Ithaca. Not to minimize what Yale will be facing but it does seem like Dartmouth has a slightly tougher weekend.

I was accounting for the fact that Harvard could end up not in 1st as well. Dartmouth might have a tougher weekend. Yale also has the tiebreaker (despite what the ECACHL site lists as the order).

Good news for Harvard is that it has the tiebreaker on Quinny. Bad news is that they don't have it on Clarkson.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

You would think that with first place overall on the line and home ice throughout the ECAC playoffs, Harvard would come out firing. But you would be wrong. The Crimson skated as if they were trying to navigate a snow drift outside Bright-Landry. Some of the slowest I've seen from Harvard in years. Despite getting 45 shots on goal, Harvard failed to get concentrated pressure on MacDonald and a majority of their shots were of the soft variety. Or right into MacDonald's chest. Either way, they did very little in the offensive zone. And don't get me started on their face-offs. They lost so many to SLU it was somewhat embarrassing.

Both goals came off laser shots and were well deserved. SLU got on the board first when Hannah Miller took a short pass from Kennedy Marchment, swooped in to the middle of the Harvard zone and fired a shot over Maschmeyer's shoulder. The Crimson answered six minutes later when Syd Daniels finished off a 2 on 1 snapping a wrister past MacDonald.

Technically, Harvard should have won this game in regulation as an early goal by Mary Parker was denied. The refs made a bad call because the replay showed the the puck went off Mary's glove as she was cruising in front of MacDonald. Her stick was well below the shoulder. In fact she was bringing her stick down to the ice when the puck went off her glove and in the net.

With Clarkson's win in OT in Hanover, Harvard will have to beat or tie the Knights tomorrow or they will head to Potsdam for the semis and finals. If the Crimson don't come out with fire and brimstone tomorrow, they have no one to blame but themselves if they lose.

 

[Ted Knight]

You would think that with first place overall on the line and home ice throughout the ECAC playoffs, Harvard would come out firing. But you would be wrong. The Crimson skated as if they were trying to navigate a snow drift outside Bright-Landry. Some of the slowest I've seen from Harvard in years. Despite getting 45 shots on goal, Harvard failed to get concentrated pressure on MacDonald and a majority of their shots were of the soft variety. Or right into MacDonald's chest. Either way, they did very little in the offensive zone. And don't get me started on their face-offs. They lost so many to SLU it was somewhat embarrassing.

Both goals came off laser shots and were well deserved. SLU got on the board first when Hannah Miller took a short pass from Kennedy Marchment, swooped in to the middle of the Harvard zone and fired a shot over Maschmeyer's shoulder. The Crimson answered six minutes later when Syd Daniels finished off a 2 on 1 snapping a wrister past MacDonald.

Technically, Harvard should have won this game in regulation as an early goal by Mary Parker was denied. The refs made a bad call because the replay showed the the puck went off Mary's glove as she was cruising in front of MacDonald. Her stick was well below the shoulder. In fact she was bringing her stick down to the ice when the puck went off her glove and in the net.

With Clarkson's win in OT in Hanover, Harvard will have to beat or tie the Knights tomorrow or they will head to Potsdam for the semis and finals. If the Crimson don't come out with fire and brimstone tomo

if they tie it would be 2 ties. Why would Harvard have to travel? Is there a tie braker

 

[driventoit]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

if they tie it would be 2 ties. Why would Harvard have to travel? Is there a tie braker

A tie gives H the conference #1 seed on points. No travel. A loss leaves both teams with 34 points, but giving Clarkson the H2H tiebreaker.

 

[Watson Rink]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

What an exciting way to finish the ECAC regular season. You have to admire Clarkson, not just for coming from behind to win last night, but to do so with only 13 skaters after their graduation losses and the injury to Ambrose.

A big sigh of relief that Kalley Armstrong played yesterday (she had an assist and was a +1).

For all you Bill Bellichek/Pete Carroll aficionados, here's a thought experiment: if Bellicheck had been coaching last night, he would undoubtedly have had an earpiece tuned to the Clarkson/Dartmouth game and, the moment that Clarkson won in overtime, he would have decided whether or not to immediately pull Maschmeyer with the Harvard/StL game still tied. The calculus would have been: (1) once Clarkson had won, the consequences for Harvard of the three possible results of the Harvard/StL game became (i) a win over StL would give Harvard the #1 seed, (ii) a tie with StL would require Harvard to defeat or tie Clarkson in order to get the #1 seed and (iii) a loss to StL would require Harvard to defeat Clarkson in order to get the #1 seed; and (2) in the context of those consequences, compare the odds of winning/tying/losing the Harvard/StL game (i) skating 5 on 5 versus (ii) pulling the goalie. What would Bill Bellichek have done? What would Pete Carroll have done?

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

What an exciting way to finish the ECAC regular season. You have to admire Clarkson, not just for coming from behind to win last night, but to do so with only 13 skaters after their graduation losses and the injury to Ambrose.

A big sigh of relief that Kalley Armstrong played yesterday (she had an assist and was a +1).

For all you Bill Bellichek/Pete Carroll aficionados, here's a thought experiment: if Bellicheck had been coaching last night, he would undoubtedly have had an earpiece tuned to the Clarkson/Dartmouth game and, the moment that Clarkson won in overtime, he would have decided whether or not to immediately pull Maschmeyer with the Harvard/StL game still tied. The calculus would have been: (1) once Clarkson had won, the consequences for Harvard of the three possible results of the Harvard/StL game became (i) a win over StL would give Harvard the #1 seed, (ii) a tie with StL would require Harvard to defeat or tie Clarkson in order to get the #1 seed and (iii) a loss to StL would require Harvard to defeat Clarkson in order to get the #1 seed; and (2) in the context of those consequences, compare the odds of winning/tying/losing the Harvard/StL game (i) skating 5 on 5 versus (ii) pulling the goalie. What would Bill Bellichek have done? What would Pete Carroll have done?

First, I think BB doesn't really care what is going on with other teams during a game so he would have left things at status quo. If Carroll had been coaching SLU, he would have had no choice but to wait out the Crimson and hope for a mistake. SLU took that too many men on the ice penalty (how many times do you see that called twice in a game, once by each team??) in OT so there was no room for error. Harvard can tie Clarkson and still come out on top but if they had pulled their goalie during the PP for example to try and win and SLU had scored into the empty net, we would need a win today to get home ice throughout.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

So it has come down to this:

First place in the conference is still up for grabs. If Harvard defeats or ties Clarkson, they win the conference. Clarkson needs a win to finish first overall. Harvard can finish no worse than second.

Second place goes to Quinnipiac with a win over Brown and a loss by Clarkson. Any other scenario and Clarkson finishes second unless they defeat Harvard (see above). I'm not sure what a win by Cornell does in terms of changing this - they would need both Clarkson and Quinny to lose and I don't see that happening.

Fourth place looks like it will go to Cornell. They play Union today and SLU has Dartmouth. Really don't see Cornell losing here.

Princeton has a chance to jump over SLU providing Dartmouth beats the Saints and the Tigers beat Yale. That could set up a first round matchup with Cornell with SLU dropping to sixth and potentially having to play either Clarkson or Quinny. Yikes!

Even if Yale loses to Princeton and Dartmouth beats SLU, Yale will finish in seventh on the strength of more wins. Dartmouth gets the final slot.

I don't think you could ask for a tighter conference race with the final regular season game having meaning for the top six teams. That doesn't happen often.

 

[vicb]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

So it has come down to this:

First place in the conference is still up for grabs. If Harvard defeats or ties Clarkson, they win the conference. Clarkson needs a win to finish first overall. Harvard can finish no worse than second.

Second place goes to Quinnipiac with a win over Brown and a loss by Clarkson. Any other scenario and Clarkson finishes second unless they defeat Harvard (see above). I'm not sure what a win by Cornell does in terms of changing this - they would need both Clarkson and Quinny to lose and I don't see that happening.

Fourth place looks like it will go to Cornell. They play Union today and SLU has Dartmouth. Really don't see Cornell losing here.

Princeton has a chance to jump over SLU providing Dartmouth beats the Saints and the Tigers beat Yale. That could set up a first round matchup with Cornell with SLU dropping to sixth and potentially having to play either Clarkson or Quinny. Yikes!

Even if Yale loses to Princeton and Dartmouth beats SLU, Yale will finish in seventh on the strength of more wins. Dartmouth gets the final slot.

I don't think you could ask for a tighter conference race with the final regular season game having meaning for the top six teams. That doesn't happen often.

<pre>
Quinny Loss and SLU and Cornell Win ties those 3 for 3rd with 30 points.
Cornell gets 3rd since they have 5 points; W/T with SLU and W/L Quinny,
SLU gets 4th with 4 points, L/T with Cornell and W/T with Quinny
Quinny gets 5th with 3 points; L/T with SLU and W/L with Cornell</pre>

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Supreme disappointment. That's all I can say about this weekend. Harvard kicked away their chance at hosting the semis and finals. And from the way they played this weekend, I have very little confidence they will beat Yale. In fact I'll go out on a limb and say that Yale will win in three. I mean it. Harvard looks like they have nothing left in the tank, physically or emotionally. Their forecheck is non-existent and their D zone breakouts are tentative and predictable. Other than Michelle Picard, the D looks either confused or unsure of what to do next. I was talking with someone at today's game who thinks that the BC win took a lot out of the team and that they haven't recovered. I'm not sure about that but it is plausible.

If Dartmouth doesn't beat Clarkson next weekend, then Harvard is surely headed for another in a long line of semifinal losses. That is if they get by Yale and I'm just not confident that is going to happen. From the coaching staff to the players, this was a totally lost weekend. Embarrassing to some extent although Clarkson is very good and I don't want to take away from their effort.

The seniors had a chance to make a statement today, this being their weekend and for whatever reason, they didn't show up. This seems to be a staple of Coach Stone's teams - from time to time, they disappear at the really big moments. Happened in '03 against Dartmouth, happened again in 2010 against Cornell in the NCAA quarters. It's a mystery.

A reminder that next weekend's quarters begin at 3:30pm on Friday, 3pm on Saturday and 3pm on Sunday.

And it's snowing again. Simply wonderful.

 

[Veritas]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

A reminder that next weekend's quarters begin at 3:30pm on Friday, 3pm on Saturday and 3pm on Sunday.

And it's snowing again. Simply wonderful.

And to add to the general wonderfulness of the weekend: I was talking with a parent of a team member on the way out and was told that Hilary Crowe has a broken arm and faces surgery. Bad news. Hope the girl is OK long term.

 

[ARM]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

... Hilary Crowe has a broken arm and faces surgery. Bad news.

While that is bad at any point in a career, it seems most unfair when it happens to a senior.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

While that is bad at any point in a career, it seems most unfair when it happens to a senior.

True. Unfortunate indeed. Karly Heffernan also missed yesterday's game. I didn't see her dad so I'm hoping that isn't anything serious. Harvard has depth up front this year. I'm guessing that Haley Mullins will take Crowe's slot on the second line.