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Yale vs. UMass-Lowell (Handsome Dan vs. Rowdy) - Frozen Four National Semifinal 4/11

Re: Yale vs. UMass-Lowell (Handsome Dan vs. Rowdy) - Frozen Four National Semifinal 4

BostonSoccerDad said:
I had no intention of demeaning Yale's success in my original question. It was more tongue-in-cheek and in hindsight should have put the word "underdog" in quotes. Oh well. For those that provided thoughtful analysis on the upcoming game, thank you! No question that it will be an interesting and close game. If UML's D can stifle and frustrate Yale's up-tempo game while staying out of the penalty box, then Lowell will move on.
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No worries, I hadn't intended to single your comment out. There had been a general undertone in several threads, especially right after the MIN game, that they were a huge darkhorse that came out of nowhere. But I thought it was interesting that on March 22nd, after an entire season of 31 games (no, not ignoring the Jan/Feb swoon, or anything at all from Oct until Mar 22), they were #4 in PWR. The two games on 03/22 and 3/23 dumped them from #4 to #15. So my point was that perhaps they are better skilled than your average #15, and the upsets in the NCAA tourney weren't that dramatic. I just did a poor job of trying to explain it (poor for KIA's tastes at least).

Anyway, perhaps my insight would have been taken with a sense of objectiveness if I had stated these two facts at the start of the comment: #1: I am not a Yale fan, and #2: as talented as I think Yale is, I think UML will win this game. I think the UML style is better suited to deal with Yale's speed and pressure game than the WCHA style of MIN/NoDak. But I think it will be a great game and Yale certainly has a chance of pulling out a win.
 
Re: Yale vs. UMass-Lowell (Handsome Dan vs. Rowdy) - Frozen Four National Semifinal 4

ZamboniDude said:
But I think it will be a great game and Yale certainly has a chance of pulling out a win.
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I don't think any team can be ruled out at this point. I certainly hope our style of play can frustrate and limit Yale but we'll see. I think we're guaranteed two good games, as long as nobody gets the 'OMG, we're HERE' jitters.
 
Re: Yale vs. UMass-Lowell (Handsome Dan vs. Rowdy) - Frozen Four National Semifinal 4

ZamboniDude said:
I think the notion that Yale is a huge underdog is solely driven by their implosion in the ECAC playoffs, and the subsequent fall to the 15th seed. If you go back to the Friday afternoon that the ECAC playoffs started (just 11 days ago from today), Yale was tied for 4th in PWR with Miami (QU-1, Min-2, UML-3, Yale/Miami-4). After completely laying an egg against in Atlantic City, they fell all the way to 15th and barely made the tournament.

If you consider their no-show that weekend to be an anomaly and you take their season long perfomance in context, up to that point 11 days ago, and putting any stock in the Pairwise at all, then their win vs Min was in reality a very minor upset (PWR-4 beating PWR-2), and their win over North Dakota wasn't an upset at all (PWR-4 beating PWR 7 or 8).

I fully realize that you can't just exclude games and say that they are the 4th ranked team in the country and Atlantic City never happened. What I'm trying to illustrate is that 11 days ago they were 4th, and thus they are probably better than the 15th seed indicates. The 15th seed is what drives the "major upset" talk when in reality they are probably close/equal in talent to most of the teams in the tournament.
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This is all true, but until last weekend it worked in reverse as well: The reason they were up at #4 in the first place was due largely to a trio of early season results: An OT win at Denver, and OT win at Colorado, and a tie at BC. Those are all impressive results, but if even one of those OTs had gone the other way they would not have been #4, and that's a lot of weight on a single goal.

The February swoon is being blamed largely on the absence of Jeff Malcolm, but the most obvious things about it were a) the lack of offense, and b) the losses were to Quiinipac (twice), Brown, RPI and Union. That is, the toughest part of their schedule. The wins when Malcolm came back were -- at least until the St. Lawrence series -- squeakers against lesser teams. By that measure, it appeared that it wasn't Atlantic City that was the anomaly, but rather those early season results. That's why Grand Rapids was so very surprising.
 
Re: Yale vs. UMass-Lowell (Handsome Dan vs. Rowdy) - Frozen Four National Semifinal 4

As a Princeton fan, I must say that Coach Allain does a remarkable job. I love their style of play, and they never get rattled. Never thought Id say this but: Go Eli!
 
Re: Yale vs. UMass-Lowell (Handsome Dan vs. Rowdy) - Frozen Four National Semifinal 4

I got all excited it was Thursday, then I realized we still have a week to go...

Man, I can't last one week, how am I gonna deal with the off-season?
 
Re: Yale vs. UMass-Lowell (Handsome Dan vs. Rowdy) - Frozen Four National Semifinal 4

CleggyofUML said:
Man, I can't last one week, how am I gonna deal with the off-season?
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It's a lot shorter than we're used to. Noticed this last year, and with the season being extended by two weeks, even better. Plus, waiting for these games to get going has taken my mind off of the NFL draft.
 
Re: Yale vs. UMass-Lowell (Handsome Dan vs. Rowdy) - Frozen Four National Semifinal 4

Nick Weburg will not play this week for Yale. He did not play last weekend, I do not expect many lineup changes for Yale. Allain changed things around last week and it seemed to work out OK. This is turning out to be the longest two weeks of my life.
 
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