Harvard Crimson 2014-15

[Call It]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

I'm inclined to agree with those saying she won't skate four lines. She didn't even choose to roster four full lines with the Olympic team, and no matter how good her depth is this season, a national team is deeper yet.

Read this the other day from the UVM Coach's blog… http://jimplumer.wordpress.com

To play or not to play, that is the question? The fourth line that is.
11
Monday
Aug 2014
Posted by jjplumer63 in Uncategorized ≈ Leave a comment
In the fall of 2009, while I was still coaching at Amherst I took in a Division I women’s hockey game on the first Saturday in November. It was the back end of a home-and-home series and I was doing some professional development, watching a DI game and spending some time talking hockey with one of the head coaches. It was a typical game in many ways, it was clearly a meaningful and intense on both sides, but I was struck by one thing I thought was odd.

The home team’s fourth line did not play a single shift in the game. I think the visitor’s fourth line got one shift.

It was clear that the team’s top players were increasingly tired as the game went on, playing a regular shift plus special teams. After the game I asked the home team’s coach why the fourth line hadn’t played. “They can’t play” was the response. I replied “You mean they can’t play a single shift in the second game of a weekend series in November?” This wasn’t a playoff game after all. “Why are they on the team?” I asked.

The answer didn’t really surprise me in one sense. It was about how important it was to get the top players out more and that the fourth line simply wasn’t good enough. But my question was “Why not recruit better players to play that role?” It was foreign to me as I was coming off my first national championship at Amherst and we had rolled four lines for much of the regular season. The season that soon followed was more of the same as we repeated as national champions and only lost two games all year, playing four lines.

In yesterday’s Boston Globe, there was an excellent piece in their Sunday Hockey Notes section about emerging trends in hockey analytics. That will be a subject of a future blog post of it’s own, but there’s a point made in the article that is relevant to what I think is a huge deficiency in the game of women’s hockey. In discussing the L.A. Kings, and Chicago Blackhawks, the last two Stanley Cup winners and their cutting edge use of data, they reveal the following:

“They understand that four lines of skill, speed, and puck-possessing prowess overwhelm the traditional template of two skilled units, a checking threesome, and an energy group.”

Why do so few teams in women’s hockey play four lines? I rarely see it in my own league, even among the top teams. Is it not important to have a fourth line that can genuinely contribute? Can we recruit the right players and coach them to play 6-10 shifts per game so that the first and second line players can get a bit more rest? Can we develop them so they can move up the depth chart over the course of their careers so they will stay motivated?

Women’s hockey is seemingly in the midst of a fast-moving evolution. The player pool is undoubtedly deeper than it’s ever been. Coaching staffs are moving towards advanced use of video and analytics. Early recruiting has quickly become the norm. Some would say that these are parts of the game that have come from men’s hockey. Will the use and development of a fourth line follow? Personally, I hope so.

 

[ARM]

Why do so few teams in women’s hockey play four lines?

Thanks for posting that. While the depth has clearly improved, I don't think that it has improved to the extent that forwards 10-12 are at a comparable level to 1-6 on most teams. I believe that there are teams that could easily skate four lines if they configured four more balanced lines rather than sending out what they perceive to be the three weakest forwards as a unit on a 4th line. The teams that I saw most willing to skate four lines last year were teams like St. Cloud State, where forwards 10-12 weren't that much different from many of the top nine on the roster. Once a D-I women's team commits to playing four lines for a season and has a lot of success doing so, then I think we'll see other D-I teams follow. The problem to date has been that the best teams have national-team caliber players on the top line but not near the bottom of the depth chart, and the coaches don't want to reduce the ice time for those elite players. Once the game levels such that very good players with more rest are superior to elite players with greater fatigue, then everyone will rely more on a larger talent pool.

 

[D2D]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Once the game levels such that very good players with more rest are superior to elite players with greater fatigue, then everyone will rely more on a larger talent pool.

I agree but I don't think "everyone" will move in that direction at the same rate, as the weaker teams' fourth lines will in all likelihood be just too weak to put out there against the very top teams first and second units, especially away from home when the coach doesn't have last change. The game is certainly evolving and moving in that direction, but I don't see it happening overnight (which you are not implying either).

One other point as far as the comparison between the men's and women's game and playing the 4th line: in today's men's game there is simply no way for a coach to play just three lines and expect to beat the nation's top teams. The game is just too fast, and without sufficient rest the heavier physical contact also takes a greater toll on players' energy levels. Coaches simply MUST give a fourth line more than spot duty, despite the fact that almost all games are televised, with all the commercial breaks that give the benches a breather.

 

[Watson Rink]

Pucci as the Wild Card

Pucci as the Wild Card

Let's revive Skate 79's fascinating question as to what position Katey will have Josephine Pucci play this year, as it bears directly on the issue of a third D pairing and a fourth line.

Recall first that at the beginning of the season Maura was playing Abby Frazier out of position at F in order to play 9 F and 4 D. At the end of the season she was playing Frazier at D and juggling 8 F and 5 D. Recall also that although Maura's roster had only 18 players compared to this year's 27, they still played pretty darn well and all but 2 of them are returning.

Suppose Pucci plays F on the first line alongside Armstrong and Fry. That means that last year's entire FIRST line would be this year's SECOND line and two returning players from last year's SECOND line would have to be THIRD liners!

In that case, there's enough talent among the two returning third liners and the five first-years to fill the one opening on this year's third line and make a pretty good fourth line. Indeed, to use ARM's terminology, this year's #10 through #12 Fs would be roughly comparable in talent to last year's #7 through #9 Fs. And the five D who played regularly last year when healthy would be joined by Picard to make a full six-pack of three D pairings.

On the other hand, if Pucci plays D, one of last year's top five D won't be dressing, and the depth of the Fs would be diminished significantly from the foregoing scenario. This includes PK depth as Pucci would be much better IMO on the PK than whoever would replace her on the PK if she played D.

So in terms of team depth, playing Pucci at F appears to be the preferable alternative, and, if employed, it ought to result in at least some significant ice time for a fourth line (perhaps for the only time in our lifetimes, as 7 seniors, all key players, will be graduating this year). (Whether Pucci's own talents are better employed at F or D, though, is of course an important but entirely separate issue).

 

[driventoit]

Re: Pucci as the Wild Card

Re: Pucci as the Wild Card

Let's revive Skate 79's fascinating question as to what position Katey will have Josephine Pucci play this year, as it bears directly on the issue of a third D pairing and a fourth line.

Recall first that at the beginning of the season Maura was playing Abby Frazier out of position at F in order to play 9 F and 4 D. At the end of the season she was playing Frazier at D and juggling 8 F and 5 D. Recall also that although Maura's roster had only 18 players compared to this year's 27, they still played pretty darn well and all but 2 of them are returning.

Suppose Pucci plays F on the first line alongside Armstrong and Fry. That means that last year's entire FIRST line would be this year's SECOND line and two returning players from last year's SECOND line would have to be THIRD liners!

In that case, there's enough talent among the two returning third liners and the five first-years to fill the one opening on this year's third line and make a pretty good fourth line. Indeed, to use ARM's terminology, this year's #10 through #12 Fs would be roughly comparable in talent to last year's #7 through #9 Fs. And the five D who played regularly last year when healthy would be joined by Picard to make a full six-pack of three D pairings.

On the other hand, if Pucci plays D, one of last year's top five D won't be dressing, and the depth of the Fs would be diminished significantly from the foregoing scenario. This includes PK depth as Pucci would be much better IMO on the PK than whoever would replace her on the PK if she played D.

So in terms of team depth, playing Pucci at F appears to be the preferable alternative, and, if employed, it ought to result in at least some significant ice time for a fourth line (perhaps for the only time in our lifetimes, as 7 seniors, all key players, will be graduating this year). (Whether Pucci's own talents are better employed at F or D, though, is of course an important but entirely separate issue).

Don't see Pucci moving anywhere. She's anchoring a 6-strong veteran D corps that, playing in front of Maschmeyer and Laing, should be mighty hard to score on. And with the returning forwards there are no real holes to plug in the three lines, which really can see more or less equal time. (The real question is their composition.) I think the bottom line for those who saw the exhaustion last year is that with all this strength up and down the roster there will be fewer routinely gassed players. All this a possibility without even mentioning the bench. (Did someone say "freshmen"?) It should be an exciting year.

 

[driventoit]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

BTW -------- Gopher, Badger and Big Red fans: When's the last time we've seen a Pucci/Picard/Edney-like D trio on a roster? Not suggesting it is rare, but we don't see a lot of it here in the East, unless it's at the gorges.

 

[Eeyore]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Once the game levels such that very good players with more rest are superior to elite players with greater fatigue, then everyone will rely more on a larger talent pool.

There are two different evaluations to be made, of which this is one, and I think we're at a stage of women's hockey development where the two lead in different directions. If concern that the elite players with greater fatigue are better at the moment the coach makes the decision to put them on the ice, then they are probably justified in omitting the fourth line. If the concern is that the team will be better as the season goes along if the fourth line gets playing time right now even though they won't be as good in the moment, I think women's hockey has reached the point that a lot of elite teams would be better off making the trade-off of a short term hit in performance for long term gain.

I first started thinking about this during Cal Ripken's long streak of consecutive games played. I was always in the minority that respected the endurance represented while being profoundly unimpressed by the thinking and motivation that underlay the streak. As with a lot of my thinking about baseball and sports in those days, it was a piece by Bill James that crystallized my unease. He quoted Ripken to the effect that he would be happy to end the streak any time a manager convinced him that he wasn't better than the player that would replace him. James then criticized this approach by showing the way that Ripken's performance consistently declined over the course of most seasons. James agreed that on any given day the Orioles were more likely to win with Ripken in the lineup (which, when you remember the quality of backup infielders they had is especially non-surprising; Manny Alexander, anyone?) but that they pretty clearly lost more games than they should late in seasons because Ripken wore down more significantly than most players did in August and September. If he had taken a normal share of days off, the team would have won more games.

And watching the Gophers and other teams play, I think we're at that point with the elite NCAA women's hockey teams. It would have the added benefit that those depth players are sharper if they have to move up to a top three line due to injuries, but mostly they are good enough that the relative cost of playing them some right now is less than the benefit of top line players that are less fatigued and less banged up come February and March.

However, this is far from the only time that coaches in any sport get caught in short-term thinking at the expense of long-term success. In fact, it's a dire occupational hazard.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Clearly you overestimate her. I'd be willing to bet my life that you're wrong.

Disagree. In the past she has played three lines consistently ('05 season) where she didn't have the talent she will have on this team. I realize that a leopard doesn't change its spots but in this case, I feel that Katey will understand that her roster this year is one of those once in a lifetime depth teams. Something akin to the '89 men's team. And we all know how that turned out!

 

[brookyone]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

I feel that Katey will understand that her roster this year is one of those once in a lifetime depth teams. Something akin to the '89 men's team. And we all know how that turned out!

Ouch! A most painful memory bumped to the top of my consciousness.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

I'm inclined to agree with those saying she won't skate four lines. She didn't even choose to roster four full lines with the Olympic team, and no matter how good her depth is this season, a national team is deeper yet.

Any national team will have greater depth than your average to great college team. That is simply stating the obvious. My argument focuses on the fact that because she chose not to utilize that depth, it potentially cost her a gold medal. You don't forget an experience like that overnight. I'm of the mindset that Katey will realize as I posted earlier that this year's roster is a once in a lifetime depth roster that can take her to the championship game if she plays the roster. I'm not saying everyone will get equal ice time - obviously that won't happen. But there is enough quality to share duties such as the PK which has in the past drained our best players towards the end of the season.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Thanks for posting that. While the depth has clearly improved, I don't think that it has improved to the extent that forwards 10-12 are at a comparable level to 1-6 on most teams. I believe that there are teams that could easily skate four lines if they configured four more balanced lines rather than sending out what they perceive to be the three weakest forwards as a unit on a 4th line. The teams that I saw most willing to skate four lines last year were teams like St. Cloud State, where forwards 10-12 weren't that much different from many of the top nine on the roster. Once a D-I women's team commits to playing four lines for a season and has a lot of success doing so, then I think we'll see other D-I teams follow. The problem to date has been that the best teams have national-team caliber players on the top line but not near the bottom of the depth chart, and the coaches don't want to reduce the ice time for those elite players. Once the game levels such that very good players with more rest are superior to elite players with greater fatigue, then everyone will rely more on a larger talent pool.

Agree wholeheartedly. Well said.

 

[ARM]

BTW -------- Gopher, Badger and Big Red fans: When's the last time we've seen a Pucci/Picard/Edney-like D trio on a roster? Not suggesting it is rare, but we don't see a lot of it here in the East, unless it's at the gorges.

Not necessarily the same style of players, but we've seen loaded blue lines in the past from all of those teams. Wisconsin had some very strong D corps back before the Badgers started winning championships such as McLeod, Engstrom, and Slusar together, or before that, McLeod, Engstrom, Weiland, Paulsen, and Uliasz. Cornell had Fortino, Rougeau, Cudmore, Gagliardi, and Poudrier all together a couple of years ago. The backbone of Minnesota's consecutive championship teams was likely a D that was one of the best combinations of tall and talented with three future Olympians each season and six players that the coaches trusted in any situation.

How this season's Harvard blue line will ultimately be remembered could in large part be dependent on how the rest of the rotation performs.

 

[D2D]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Any national team will have greater depth than your average to great college team.

The real key though is how does your depth stack up against your opponent's best? Can your fourth unit hold their own against your opponent's top unit? The USA's or Canada's fourth unit would mostly do just fine against Japan's or Russia's top line, but not so much when playing each other. Likewise, Harvard's fourth unit this year could probably be counted on against any of (fill in blank)'s, but against Cornell's or BC's?

It will be interesting to see how Coach Stone plays it this year.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

The real key though is how does your depth stack up against your opponent's best? Can your fourth unit hold their own against your opponent's top unit? The USA's or Canada's fourth unit would mostly do just fine against Japan's or Russia's top line, but not so much when playing each other. Likewise, Harvard's fourth unit this year could probably be counted on against any of (fill in blank)'s, but against Cornell's or BC's?

It will be interesting to see how Coach Stone plays it this year.

Not sure I understand your point. Why would a team's fourth line ever be on the ice against another team's first line? Doesn't make sense and no coach worth their salt would even think about trying that type of match up. Not in men's hockey and certainly not in women's hockey.

 

[D2D]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Why would a team's fourth line ever be on the ice against another team's first line? Doesn't make sense and no coach worth their salt would even think about trying that type of match up. Not in men's hockey and certainly not in women's hockey.

Certainly not intentionally, but it does happen, more so in men's than women's because in the men's game the coach must play the fourth line more often. Home ice = last change = unequal matchups! Even more so with the relatively new icing rule - the fourth line can't get off the ice by merely icing the puck.

 

[Watson Rink]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Granted, a fourth line would be more vulnerable to being "jumped" by the opponent's first line in certain situations than in others (away games, defensive end face-offs and so forth), but you expect that any coach worth their salt would be aware of, and avoid, such situations and would only put out their fourth line in safe situations against the opponent's third line. Assuming, of course, that the fourth line wouldn't be asked to play very many shifts (I recognize that giving them equal ice time could very well lead to some bad match-ups). Also, remember we're considering a rare case here: H's 2014-15 fourth line will be comparable to, and perhaps better than, its 2013-14 third line. Also worth noting that some of H's previous third lines have been adept at puck possession in the attacking zone, maybe not scoring too often but cycling the puck down low throughout the shift in a way that mitigates the risk of icing and prevents the other team from trying to change to a higher line on the fly.

 

[Trillium]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

The real key though is how does your depth stack up against your opponent's best? Can your fourth unit hold their own against your opponent's top unit? The USA's or Canada's fourth unit would mostly do just fine against Japan's or Russia's top line, but not so much when playing each other. Likewise, Harvard's fourth unit this year could probably be counted on against any of (fill in blank)'s, but against Cornell's or BC's?

The real key though is how does your depth stack up against your opponent's best? Can your fourth unit hold their own against your opponent's top unit? The USA's or Canada's fourth unit would mostly do just fine against Japan's or Russia's top line, but not so much when playing each other. Likewise, Harvard's fourth unit this year could probably be counted on against any of (fill in blank)'s, but against Cornell's or BC's?

I don't see your point.

You don't have to be god's gift to coaching (or frankly even have played the game) to figure out that playing your fourth line against a highly ranked team's top unit isn't a great idea. That's not the issue.

What is mind-boggling is that the rotations on many teams are not only short, but robotic--they often don't change regardless of the opponent, or the score. Where a top team's third or fourth lines would do quite well against even the top units of bottom end teams, too often the opportunity to use them is still rarely if ever seized, even with a game out of reach. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, this inevitably leads to great fatigue (and injury) by top players later in the season and declining productivity. There is also the opportunity loss of development of third and fourth line players, not to mention declining confidence by many, and team chemistry deterioration.

The best coaches my kids had (and fortunately they were blessed to have had a great many truly great coaches) always took a long view on the season, as Plumer suggests. They always found opportunities for every player to get experience and find success for both the team, and individual players, in all situations. To develop confidence, a sense of team cohesion, improving throughout the lineup as the season wore on, becoming a whole that was more than the sum of the parts. Really good coaches understand this, as Plumer seems to. Though our teams often didn't have the most talent in the league, they virtually always outperformed expectations by the end of the season, and chemistry was never an issue. I would have thought D1 coaches would be even better, or at least comparable, but that is largely and sadly not the case.

If any team is not playing fourth line players (and only sporadically third line players) because they claim they just aren't capable enough year after year, the bottom line is that it reflects very poorly and directly on the coach's abilities rather than the players. Period. If over an extended period any coach lacks the ability to effectively assess the potential of prospective recruits and/or does a poor job of developing the skills and confidence of those players in that group they choose to roster, the coach just isn't doing their job. Unfortunately, there is currently a dearth of good coaches in D1 hockey, perhaps compounded by Athletic Directors who either don't seem to care enough, or are not knowledgeable enough, to hold them accountable for those failures. Hopefully that all changes somehow over the next decade.

I've seen far too many players who were among the elite prior to college languish on the bench on many D1 teams--while far less accomplished players they played with and against, notched impressive stats only because they were fortunate enough to have had coaches who had no other choice but to give them the opportunity to show their actual ability.

 

[D2D]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

I don't see your point.

You don't have to be god's gift to coaching (or frankly even have played the game) to figure out that playing your fourth line against a highly ranked team's top unit isn't a great idea.

Every good coach would agree with you. The point is, mismatches do happen, and the more a coach plays his (or her's) fourth line, the more often those mismatches will happen - away from home especially. Not really a factor (yet) in the women's game, because even the top teams do not regularly give their fourth line a lot of ice time. Most will wait to send their fourth unit out there until the game's outcome is all but decided, and the coach wants to give those players an opportunity to see what they can do (and oftentimes to give his top units some rest for the next day's rematch).

But if the women's game continues to improve and the depth of teams' full rosters continues to get better, you'll see more teams giving their fourth units more and more ice time. Why? Because coaches will recognize that it's in their best interest - by playing their entire roster they will have a stronger team when it counts the most, at the end of closely contested games, and when their league playoffs and the NCAA tournament begins in March.

 

[ARM]

You don't have to be god's gift to coaching (or frankly even have played the game) to figure out that playing your fourth line against a highly ranked team's top unit isn't a great idea. That's not the issue.

It is part of the issue. A coach can send the 4th line out for an offensive-zone draw against the other team's 3rd line, and ten seconds later, that 3rd line has cleared, dumped, and changed, and here comes the top line. In an even-numbered period with the long change, the 4th line is going to have to figure out a way to get off the ice.

Luckily as the game has evolved in terms of depth, that is no longer the problem it once was. The typical 4th line today is better than the average 3rd line was when I started following the game just prior to the NCAA era. The problem today with a lot of 4th lines as presently configured isn't that they can't defend adequately, but that they are unlikely to generate much offensively. So coaches don't mind playing them when up three or more goals, but hate to do so when down one.

The best 4th lines I've seen in the NCAA women's games tend to be energy lines, so that the coach can put them out when the team is sluggish and they'll fly around and start to generate some life. For the LA Kings model to work, a coach has to include good players on the 4th line, not just leftovers, and commit to getting them out there regularly.

I still think that day is coming. Last year's Minnesota team had little separation between its top three lines, and it was tough to say which was which. The next step in that evolution is a line chart set up with four nearly equal units, not three.

 

[Sfan]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Congrats to the Crimson players for making their U22 development teams. Miye D'Oench (F) Michelle Picard (D) Team USA and Karly Heffernan(F) Abbey Frazer(D) Emerance Maschmeyer(G) Team Canada. Should be a good series.