Here is the weekly NCAA round up posted at Sean Leahy's Going Five Hole
There aren’t a lot of great College Hockey match-ups to watch this week that really do anything for me. I want to return to a point that I touched on earlier this season, the perceived strength of Princeton, Cornell and Air Farce Academy all of these team have or are ranked pretty high in the college hockey rankings for most of the season. I believe that these teams are not as good as some would like to believe.
Air Farce Academy: At the beginning of the season Air Farce was the talk of college hockey going an impressive 13-0-0, this schedule was at the expense of the cup cakes teams and the weak sister of the poor. During that 13-0-0 streak the Falcons had one semi-impressive win a 4-1 victory at Colorado College, the next night they were beaten by Denver University. Rightfully so, Air Farce has since fallen off after a fast start and has since gone 2-4-1 pretty much squelching any premature talk of the Falcons going to the frozen four, but I digress. See, I told you so.
Cornell University: Sure it’s a nice story that Cornell is 11-1-3 but seriously folks who have they beaten? Cornell has played the least games out of anyone in the top 20 and has a very questionable schedule the rest of the way, its stuffed full of horrible teams except Princeton if you believe the hockey pundits. I see another number one seed exiting the first round NCAA tourney early, ala Clarkson two seasons ago.
If Cornell is such a national power house why did they lose 7-3 to North Dakota? According to the hockey experts like INCH the Fighting Sioux are a mediocre team. The Big Red won the next game 2-1 because UND had a goal waved off on a very questionable call (Cornell should have given props to the WCHA official that gift wrapped them the game). The Big Red also played SCSU in the Florida College Classic Championship. In the first game of the tourney the Big Red were out shot 38-26 and barely beat SCSU 3-2. SCSU was all over the Big Red in the third period and the Big Red escaped with the win thanks to Cornell goalie Ben Scrivens.
In the Championship game of the Florida College Classic the Big Red needed a shootout to beat a poor Colgate team (6-9-5) in the championship game. So; either Colgate is one of the best 6-9-5 hockey teams in division one hockey or Cornell is highly over rated. I am thinking the later.
Princeton University: During the past 2 weekends the 5th ranked Princeton Tigers (13-5-0) lost three games in a row, two of these games to very questionable teams; Union 11-8-1 and Rensselaer 4-15-2. This weeks the same two teams play media darling Cornell University. It will be interesting to see if Cornell can escape with a victory. I could also see RMU beating Princeton in two weeks when the two teams play in a single nonconference game.
Goon’s Top Ten
1 Notre Dame
2 Boston University
3 Northeastern
4 Denver
5. Michigan
6. Ohio State University
7. Vermont
8. Boston College
9. New Hampshire
10. Colorado College
CC as number 10? I'd put us there before them right now. Cornell is a decent team having seen them first hand and them having beaten us. don't forget the friday cornell game was a one goal game early in the third before we blew it open. I will give them kudos before the likes of princeton and air force.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Princeton, Cornell or Air Farce belongs in the top 10. I was torn who to put there.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Cornell I wasn't impressed with them even when the game was 4-3 the Sioux were way out skating them, they couldn't keep up.
The refs gave them more leeway on Saturday night and I feel that this game should have been a tie. If UND's goal counts Cornell has to play a different game. They can not match lines with a the run and gun teams.