Brian writes:
>What would've happened if UNH had scored the last 3 goals and
>Clarkson had won 5-1, Mike would have a harder time convincing me
>(and likely others) that Clarkson won on luck.
 
Yes, and if I went fishing, I would have caught a whale.  Let's talk
about what did happen, ok.
 
BTW, refer to Mark Daly's response, I think I agree completely with what
he said & so I won't duplicate that.
 
>                                               I think that luck
>played a part in the game (as it does in most) but to attribute the
>win almost solely to luck, as Mike seems to, is doing a disservice
>to the participants.
 
Folks, I sent Brian private mail (which I have a bcc of) in which I
specifically said I did not think luck was all that caused Clarkson to win.
Some nights it plays a bigger part than others.  This was one of them.
 
>situations, just the PP advantage (which I would expect). If anything
>made Clarkson look bad, it was taking so many penalties not being
>dominated while shorthanded.
 
Not taking many bad penalties is a part of being a good team and playing a
good game.  Or do you believe Clarkson was a victim of truly horrible
officiating and didn't deserve the penalties?
 
Many games are actually decided by the power plays.  Often, if you subtract
all power play goals, you'll end up with a closer game or a different result.
The power play is a key part of hockey, and if you take enough penalties to
give the opponents a significant advantage in power play chances, then that
is being outplayed, just as not covering faceoffs, backchecking poorly, etc.
is being outplayed.
 
Here's another number from that game.
 
UNH not only had 55 shots on goal, they had *97* shot attempts during the
game.  Isn't that amazing?  I found this out yesterday from the HE weekly
release.  I have done shot charts for various teams for about five years and
I cannot recall a team ever attempting that many shots in a game.  Even when
Merrimack beat AIC 12-1 earlier this year, they only attempted 61 shots (to
AIC's 30).  Usually when a team puts a lot of shots on net, it is because
they don't have many blocked or shoot many wide.  Often attempts by teams
that have 25 shots vs 40 shots can be about equal.  In this game, Clarkson
got its typical share of blocked shots and UNH *still* put 55 shots on net.
 
>Keep in mind that luck plays a part in every game. FOr instance,
>most people wouldn't believe me if I said that Clarkson got lucky
>in their opening 9-3 win against BC.
 
A 9-3 game is quite different from a 5-4 game, unless the last 5 goals of
the 9-3 game were scored in the final minutes.  With Clarkson blowing that
game wide open in the second period, I find it difficult to compare the two
games.
 
Finally, what is this "undeserved" win garbage?  No one ever said the win
was undeserved.  The original argument was that Clarkson didn't deserve to
be overtaken by Minnesota in the WMPL poll, and all I have done is to show
that there were indeed valid reasons, but you don't seem to want to listen
to them.  Clarkson was dominated by an inferior team.  That causes teams to
drop in polls.  They did win, however, so they hardly dropped at all.
 
It is definitely most important to win games, and that will get you a
national championship, but sometimes the way you play is more important to
people (coaches, too) than the result.  So now we are back to the polls vs
a championship again...
 
As I told Brian, I would bet anything that Mark Morris felt lucky to escape
Lively Snively with that win.
 
 
- mike