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Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

So I'm worried about this weekend. OSU's goalie is the proverbial brick wall. Notre Dame can't seem to beat brick walls. Brady Hjelle's save % is record-breaking (especially this late into the season) at .956 in league play. His GA is pretty unbelievable too at 1.28 in the CCHA. That's over 15 games. More than half the season for the league. Steven Summerhays has good numbers in the league also (.927, 1.76 over 16 games), but he has looked soft lately. I want bricks, not mud.

OSU is a pretty young team led by Ryan Dzingel with 23 points. ND is still led by Anders Lee, also with 23 points. Our top 4 guys have a combined 79 points. Their top 4 have 70. But numbers 5-8 for us have 57 total points while their next 4 guys have only 32.

OSU has scored 10 goals on special teams, but they've given up 7 in CCHA play. ND has 18 and has given up 10 in league play. OSU is a half-a-goal better than their opponents in league play. Notre Dame score nearly a goal-and-a-quarter more than their league opponents.

All of this begs the question: Why the hell have we lost 5 of the last 7 league games? Why did we slip out of first into 3rd?

Whether you think you can or you think you can't--you're right.
 
Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

Interesting comments about Nick Larson in the Tribune article.

Brady Hjelle, the aforementioned brick wall, might be the one goaltender where the hot goalie excuse would actually apply. Northern had some success against him a couple of weeks back (6 goals on 52 shots), but he bounced back pretty well against Lake State (3 goals against on 67 shots). But the Lakers have the 8th ranked offense in the CCHA compared to our number 1 offense.

Last Saturday was a nice start to digging out of the hole they decided to jump into. Whether or not that mattered will be seen this weekend. There seems to be enough of a cushion in games and points that we're not going to finish worse than 7th. A guess is that each weekend series won will equate to a spot in the standings secured, at the least. Of course looking ahead with this team has often proven to be a fruitless exercise in recent seasons. So how about just this far ahead: Notre Dame needs to win this weekend's series.
 
Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

25 years and counting said:
" Everything is the system, if you don't play the "Mans" system, you don't play. Just X's & O's on the coaches chaulk board, no more creativity, no more fire in the belly, just go out there and exocute and don't get caught out of position."

Not judging, just saying
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But benching Larson had nothing to do with systems or rigid ideas on positioning or anything else of the sort. Just the fact he took another stupid penalty that negated a potential Irish PP, something he's made a habit of for much of his time in an Irish uniform. Too many coaches -- and especially too many coaches with a bunch of high draft picks -- are unwilling to do this. There are a number of players this year and last that I would have nailed to the bench and then placed in the stands in suits and ties the following night for selfish play and horribly ill-timed penalties. Including some of our coveted high round draft picks. It's admittedly a fine line one has to walk. You can't treat them as if this is the military and merely questioning an order is verboten. No one will want to play in that environment, especially a decade into the 21st century. But you can't allow selfish or unstructured play to the point where someone is definitely doing something that is in their own best interests and not the team's.
 
Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

Creativity is for art class. This is a team sport where the team is the most important project. I don't know of one successful coach who lets his team be "creative." That's the definition of chaos, not victory.
 
Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

Solid team effort tonight all around. Our selfish teams players took care to make sure of negating a number of OSU penalty kills. Johns made sure to jump into a rush while the team was shorthanded because OSU had not yet had a power play odd man rush in the second period and a minute had already elapsed on the clcok. And a nice job by Summerhays to let in goals on consecutive shots in the second after Notre Dame coughed up the deficit with two unfortunate goals in under a minute. Pooley's penalty killing unit clicked like it hadn't all season. OSU had a startling total of 11 power play goals on the season and his special teamers managed to give them 4 more on the night. But only 3 were on the major, so that was an area of concern. Jackson and his staff of crackerjack coaches know more than I do, but I'd dress Nick Larson tomorrow just in case we need another body in the penalty box, because you can never have too many grinders out there taking stupid penalties. There are only 11 games left to give away the season. It's going to take all hands on deck.
 
Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

Jeff_Jackson_for_Pres. said:
Creativity is for art class. This is a team sport where the team is the most important project. I don't know of one successful coach who lets his team be "creative." That's the definition of chaos, not victory.
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"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expect different results"

Albert Einstein
 
Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

WeAreNDHockey said:
Solid team effort tonight all around. Our selfish teams players took care to make sure of negating a number of OSU penalty kills. Johns made sure to jump into a rush while the team was shorthanded because OSU had not yet had a power play odd man rush in the second period and a minute had already elapsed on the clcok. And a nice job by Summerhays to let in goals on consecutive shots in the second after Notre Dame coughed up the deficit with two unfortunate goals in under a minute. Pooley's penalty killing unit clicked like it hadn't all season. OSU had a startling total of 11 power play goals on the season and his special teamers managed to give them 4 more on the night. But only 3 were on the major, so that was an area of concern. Jackson and his staff of crackerjack coaches know more than I do, but I'd dress Nick Larson tomorrow just in case we need another body in the penalty box, because you can never have too many grinders out there taking stupid penalties. There are only 11 games left to give away the season. It's going to take all hands on deck.
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Ya ! What he said
 
Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

We are to a point now when the margin for error is zero. Yet this team seems to be nothing anymore if not 60 minutes of error after error.

Is there another team in the NCAA that rode into two seasons with such high expectations only to fail in the most miserable ways? I suppose Lucia's teams in 2009, 10, and 11 come close, but lets face it, national championship seasons are a pretty good cushion if the fall is as long and as hard as they experienced. And they stormed back in 2012, winning the WCHA and making the Frozen Four and are going strong right now with no signs of falling apart.

This team stormed out of the gates two straight years, and two straight years once teams figured out how to beat them, they were toast. Burnt toast. It's almost as if as soon as there were enough game examples the flaws were so many, and so easily seen even mediocre teams with mediocre coaches are beating the hell out of Notre Dame. And that's not meant as a swipe at any of the teams we are losing to. But the combined total of NCAA championships earned by any of the last 5 coaches who have managed to outcoach ours is zero. The number of NHL draft picks TOTAL on those 5 teams? 10.

The bloom is no longer just off the rose around the Notre Dame hockey program. The flowers are wilted and the vine appears to be in need of some serious pruning.
 
Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

IrishHockeyFan said:
Is there another team in the NCAA that rode into two seasons with such high expectations only to fail in the most miserable ways? I suppose Lucia's teams in 2009, 10, and 11 come close, but lets face it, national championship seasons are a pretty good cushion if the fall is as long and as hard as they experienced. And they stormed back in 2012, winning the WCHA and making the Frozen Four and are going strong right now with no signs of falling apart.
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Minnesota was picked to finish 2nd, 4th and 6th in 08/09, 09/10 and 10/11. They finished worse than that in 2 of the 3 seasons, but in 2010 and 2011 it's hard to say a lot was expected coming into the season.

I made a similar point to JJfP a couple of days ago about Boston College. Sure they stumbled a bit after winning NCAA titles in 2001 and 2008. BUT THEY WON TITLES. Changes need to be made if this team continues to flounder. Pooley's special teams have been a huge disappointment too many nights and are a cesspool of inconsistency. I'd consider starting there.
 
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Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

IrishHockeyFan said:
We are to a point now when the margin for error is zero. Yet this team seems to be nothing anymore if not 60 minutes of error after error.

Is there another team in the NCAA that rode into two seasons with such high expectations only to fail in the most miserable ways? I suppose Lucia's teams in 2009, 10, and 11 come close, but lets face it, national championship seasons are a pretty good cushion if the fall is as long and as hard as they experienced. And they stormed back in 2012, winning the WCHA and making the Frozen Four and are going strong right now with no signs of falling apart.

This team stormed out of the gates two straight years, and two straight years once teams figured out how to beat them, they were toast. Burnt toast. It's almost as if as soon as there were enough game examples the flaws were so many, and so easily seen even mediocre teams with mediocre coaches are beating the hell out of Notre Dame. And that's not meant as a swipe at any of the teams we are losing to. But the combined total of NCAA championships earned by any of the last 5 coaches who have managed to outcoach ours is zero. The number of NHL draft picks TOTAL on those 5 teams? 10.

The bloom is no longer just off the rose around the Notre Dame hockey program. The flowers are wilted and the vine appears to be in need of some serious pruning.
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Ya ! What he said too
 
Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

I wanted to blame the refs last night for calling that crosscheck a major. It was a penalty though. So in the end, it was Mike Voran's responsibility to not take a needless penalty, so then I wanted to blame him. But then I decided to blame the penalty killers because when was the last time you saw a team score more than one goal on a major. And we gave up 3. In 2 minutes.

Then, miraculously, our guys didn't give up. They came back to make it a brand new game. We had 2 PPG's of our own. I felt pretty good.

Then Steven Summerhays decided to quit being the #1 goalie and let in what could be 2 of the softest goals I've seen recently. And I play beer league. And my goalie isn't any good.

So as of this moment we are out of the tourney. The perfect storm of splits this weekend coupled with another loss by us means we aren't even in home-ice position. There are 9 games left. Anything short of going 7-2 in that span will be inexcusable. And likely bad news for the post-season.
 
Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

Jeff_Jackson_for_Pres. said:
I wanted to blame the refs last night for calling that crosscheck a major. It was a penalty though. So in the end, it was Mike Voran's responsibility to not take a needless penalty, so then I wanted to blame him. But then I decided to blame the penalty killers because when was the last time you saw a team score more than one goal on a major. And we gave up 3. In 2 minutes.

Then, miraculously, our guys didn't give up. They came back to make it a brand new game. We had 2 PPG's of our own. I felt pretty good.

Then Steven Summerhays decided to quit being the #1 goalie and let in what could be 2 of the softest goals I've seen recently. And I play beer league. And my goalie isn't any good.

So as of this moment we are out of the tourney. The perfect storm of splits this weekend coupled with another loss by us means we aren't even in home-ice position. There are 9 games left. Anything short of going 7-2 in that span will be inexcusable. And likely bad news for the post-season.
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The last time 2 goals on a major? How about MSU a few weeks back!!
 
Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

Irish83 said:
The last time 2 goals on a major? How about MSU a few weeks back!!
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It was actually Alaska 2 weeks ago.Hopefully they don't give up 4 on the next one,but who knows. Tonight is a must win. Go Irish!
 
Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

We're not out of anything...

First of all if you look at the standings, worst case scenerio, I think we still finish in the top four (assuming there is not a complete collapse). That would position us nicely for the playoffs. It'll be disappointing that we blew a nice lead going into the break, but it's not the end of the world.

People need to calm down, stop looking for reasons to be hysterical.

Second, given that we are in third place (behind by 2 games) you'll notice that the top two teams (Western Michigan and Miami) are playing against each other next weekend. That'll mean the attrition there will keep us within striking distance going into the following two weekends where we play, Miami and Western Michigan. These teams also play Ohio State, who is in fourth place, after they play us. The key word here: attrition. The teams behind us are two games or more back (except Ferris which is one game back) and they all have two games on hand. We are FAR MORE LIKELY to finish in first than we are in tenth, a top four spot being the most likely outcome. A good run here by us could put us back in first place altogether.

This probably makes Michigan a must-win series for us. If we sweep them our destiny will still very much be in our hands.

So maybe I'm just a glass half full kind of person, but that's how I see it. We are still very much in this race for the CCHA championship and we can still win it. Cry if you want, give up, but i'm still very much hoping for the best.

Finally, i'm actually liking the decision that Jackson made of going with Johnson. I think Summerhays is the better, more athletic goalie, but he definitely has mental blocks that affect his overall performance. This is something he has to overcome. Although I like Summerhays better overall, I would just ride Johnson until he loses. He's not as talented, but is more mature IMO. He is less prone to mental lapses and maybe this will snap Summerhays out of whatever mental funk he's in just like it did last year.
 
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Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

I haven't done the math extensively, but I believe 10th place, given the perfect storm, is still possible. I believe 11th is no longer possible. But 1st is also still possible, though I don't expect that. I know that Michigan and Michigan State cannot finish higher than 3rd. Just about anything else is possible with the others.

As for tonight...I too agree about starting Johnson. Summerhays pooped his breezers enough that he needed to open the door on the bench tonight. But, what a crappy time to give up the first shortie of the season. So much for a victory and 3 points. Michigan is starting to improve (though they won't pull a rabbit out of the hat), so let's see if ND can complete a season sweep for the first time in...
 
Re: Irish hockey '12-'13: Why would you not wanna go there?

NotreDameFan27 said:
We're not out of anything...

First of all if you look at the standings, worst case scenerio, I think we still finish in the top four (assuming there is not a complete collapse). That would position us nicely for the playoffs. It'll be disappointing that we blew a nice lead going into the break, but it's not the end of the world.

People need to calm down, stop looking for reasons to be hysterical.
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I'm all for keeping an open mind and hoping for the best, but just what do you describe as a total collapse?

We are 2-7-1 in our last ten games and only one of them was against a team that had a better record than we did at the time of the game (and then just ever so barely). No one who pays attention can call that 10 game stretch anything BUT a collapse. We went from 3rd in the PWR to 16th. We went from 1st in the CCHA with games in hand and room to spare to 3rd place while opening the door for everyone but MSU and NMU to have a chance at catching us. We had 17 straight power plays over 4 games without a goal. We gave up 5 power play goals on two major penalties, a collapse in fundamentals that would get some NHL coaches fired. We gave up 5 power play goals in 2 games to a team that had just 11 in the previous 26 games. We blew yet another game in large part to a stupid penalty. If anything this is an even more epic collapse than last season. The only thing we have over 2012 right now is that 2013 isn't over.

We have 4 games against two teams who are clearly playing much better hockey than we are, and none of them are at home (not that that matters much lately). We have 4 games against two teams that are clearly playing much better hockey than when we defeated them earlier in the season. 2 or 3 wins in those 8 games probably won't get a first round bye without a lot of help and the attrition you are hopeful of. Nothing I've seen out of this team in weeks points to 6 or 7 wins. Sure, we might win all 8 of them. We probably won't lose all 8. The reality lies somewhere in between most likely.

After the way the season started, and all their big talk of learning from last season, if this team fails to secure a first round bye AND home ice I call that a collapse and another failure by Jackson. Others are free to call it whatever they wish to through the shading of their rose colored glasses.
 
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