Cornell-BC post mortem

After losing 3-2 (plus ENG making it 4-2) to BC in the Everblades now Florida College Classic, it seems there's a pony in there somewhere:

- Cornell survived a crummy first period and held the upper edge in periods 2 and 3 including periods of domination. We didn't give up.

- in the third period Cornell didn't pass-pass-pass-oops-(pass outside the zone) waiting for the perfect shot that never seemed to come in 2002 and 2003. The defenseman took shots and net and the forwards crashed the goalie box. You couldn't reply this game again and not have 1 or 2 of those Cornell shots not go in.

- it wasn't Cornell that did somethiing stupid like draw a too-many-men penalty, or get the five minute major for boarding plus a game misconduct.

- We got a shorthand goal.

- We did pretty darn well except on penlty kill (excepting of course we're one one of the top PK teams).

- Cornell won a lot of key late game faceoffs.

- We have a chance to mess up Jimmy Howard's GAA average Wednesday.

While we went in looking for two quality wins, at least we have a quality loss under our belts after day one.

As I said in the game thread, one positive here is that we play Maine rather than SCSU tomorrow, which should work better for us in the PWR later on, at least if we win.

I think this game shows that the team is just a little behind behind top teams but can play with 'em. They'll need to raise their level of play a notch in order to win games in March (and either a title in Albany or some luck to get to the tourney). Not a bad performance, but not quite good enough against an excellent team.

That said, three power play goals is a lot to give up for a team that prides itself on defense. Even if two were 5 on 3. And McKee should've had that last one.

I definitely agree that McKee should have had that last one and one other beat him short side after glancing his shoulder.

We're going to be fine but an at large bid is pretty much out of the picture, right?

Our young players looked fantastic. Sasha was consistent and attacked. Sawada wasn't spectacular but crashed the net hard. Topher was flying around the ice as usual. Cam Abbott and Carefoot were extremely disruptive to BC's flow. McKee made a number of quality saves (especially the two left kick saves in a row at the beginning of the game) and didn't give up an even strength goal. Where were the older guys? We're going to continue to improve and as long as we can stay healthy, I think we'll be extremely competitive, and the favorite, come ECAC playoff time (I know, really going out on a limb there ).

It is a little early to write off the chance for an at-large bid, although if they lose to Maine tomorrow then we're probably talking long odds.

[Q]atb9 Wrote:
... Where were the older guys? ... [/q]

[Somewhat OT] Many of the Cornell scoring records -- period, game, season, goals, assists, hat tricks -- are by juniors, some sophomores. It may be the seniors provide the intangibles. Not to say that you couldn't wish for more from the seniors on a given night.

Examples:
Goals in a game: 6 by 2 juniors, 4 by freshmen, sophomores, seniors
Goals in a season: 37 by a junior; 29, 32, 39 by other classes
Assists in a game: 6 by 2 juniors and 1 senior
Assists in a season: 60 by a junior, 30, 46, 52 other years
Points in a game: 8 by 3 juniors, 1 senior, 1 sophomore
Points in a season: 83 by a junior, 59, 78, 74 other years

- Cornell is still very much in contention for an at-large bid.
- McKee should have had the last goal. Goalies seem to be more prone to give up bad goals on 5-on-3's because they are thinking so much more than usual.
- Can't stand the music that is played during EVERY stoppage. Miserable.
- Cornell is a better team than Maine and should beat them tomorrow.
- Cornell can play with the likes of Boston College any day of the week.
- Certain key players were not noticable tonight.
- This game was a good experience for Cornell and I have a strong feeling that they are gonna play BC in the NCAA's and beat them a la Miami-Ohio in 1997 (after losing a close one to them earlier in the season).
- The three teams I hate most in college hockey are Minnesota, Boston College, and Maine. Would LOVE to beat up on a very overrated Maine team tomorrow.
- Sawada and Krantz both played their best games of the season.
- Pokuluk and Cook both struggled, particularly on the powerplay.
- Officiating was ridiculous. Most calls were legit, but the timing of many of them was brutal and uncalled for.
- BC plays a defensive style unlike that of any ECACHL team in that they don't clog up the middle at all. Their defensive zone strategy is actually clutching and grabbing on the boards. It took Cornell a period or so to adjust to that style, and once they did, the consistently carried the play.
- I wrote a game reflection that should be up Wednesday some time.

Ari is right on about Pokuluk (despite what Adam Brown said) and Cook. I also agree about McKee on the last goal (and so did the announcers on CSTV). I didn't notice Sawada much until the third period, leading me to think he didn't do much (in fact, that whole line seemed MIA).

This was a hard game to judge us (or BC) by -- the number of penalties, and 5-on-3's, really prevented any sort of flow from developing.

I didn't feel like we had a significant number of quality chances, plays where fans say "ooh" after we missed an opportunity. Kaltianen wasn't so spectacular, but BC's defensive effort was impressive.

All in all, it was a winnable game, if we had done a bit better on the PP (especially during the major, when I thought we were more passive than we should have been).

At least we get a shot at Maine.

You saw the game in person or on TV? On TV, there seemed to be about 10 highlights-caliber plays of Topher Scott (and others) swarming the net, deking, and scoring, or batting home rebounds. Well, actually everything but the scoring part. There were a half-dozen plays where we could have scored. Good chances in close near the net. Every game has some; it looked as if Cornell had more than that.

You're absolutely right that the penalties disrupted play. As for the game-turner (the five minute major on top of the existing BC penalty that gave Cornell a 5x3 on which we scored but nothing more): But once you're heading toward the midpoint of the season, you have to know you push a guy into the boards, you're gone for five minutes plus the game misconduct. That was a dumb play by BC, notwithstanding the announcers' claim that Cornell was sort of turning away as the hit occurred.

It almost seemed as if Cornell got called for too many midway through the third and the refs kind of evened it up by calling too many on BC late in the game.

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

You saw the game in person or on TV? On TV, there seemed to be about 10 highlights-caliber plays of Topher Scott (and others) swarming the net, deking, and scoring, or batting home rebounds. Well, actually everything but the scoring part. There were a half-dozen plays where we could have scored. Good chances in close near the net. Every game has some; it looked as if Cornell had more than that.

You're absolutely right that the penalties disrupted play. As for the game-turner (the five minute major on top of the existing BC penalty that gave Cornell a 5x3 on which we scored but nothing more): But once you're heading toward the midpoint of the season, you have to know you push a guy into the boards, you're gone for five minutes plus the game misconduct. That was a dumb play by BC, notwithstanding the announcers' claim that Cornell was sort of turning away as the hit occurred.

It almost seemed as if Cornell got called for too many midway through the third and the refs kind of evened it up by calling too many on BC late in the game. [/q]

Not sure who you're asking, but I was at the game. I gave Topher Scott first star for Cornell. Cornell did not have a ton of good chances, but clearly dictated the play in the second and third periods.

If Topher could shoot a puck he would be Dangerous. Until that happens he is strictly a set up man. He simply cannot rip one past any DI goalie that I have seen and any non rebounds that he has put on net are low angle butterfleis. It is a problem because he does create a lot of opportunities for himself that are uncapitalized upon!

Re the allegation that Topher Scott comes up short in the shooting accuracy department: From three feet away, I think it's as much luck as skill in putting the puck in. Reality is, on those could-woulda-shoulda situations in front of the net, you score on, what, one in five, one in ten? Otherwise all hockey games with be 8-6 not 4-2.

Ouch, that hurts. You want to give some examples? Or is it just contradict and agree? Man, I always feel on the defensive with you guys...

There is one play specifically that I can remember of Sasha slashing through the crease, taking two men with him, opening up the weak side for a wide open shot by another Cornell player. Should have been a goal and could have been a game winner. That was a freshman defenseman showing determination and aggressiveness.

All of our players sucked on the power play. BC was pressing us like we haven't been pressed before. To say a freshman was crappy on the power play the first time he was pressed hard so therefore he had an overall crappy game seems naive. It's like saying O'Byrne played great game just because he intercepted that one pass and scored the two on one. The only special teams players that really stood out were Cam and Carefoot and that was on the kill. And to compare Cook and Sasha? Cook is a much more established player but he looked lost yesterday the entire game. He's one of those older guys that disappeared.

You must not have seen Sawada hitting or crashing the net. He's not Topher. He's not going to carry the puck into the zone. As a freshman, his role is to create space, be physical, and attack the net. I thought he did all three. He only stood out in the third period? Well, we started to control play in the second and really dominated in the third so that would make sense.

I thought Kaltianen was really good, especially during the five on three in the third, but you're also right that BC's defense was spectacular. I thought their players would pass out by the third period...they tired significantly (haunched over, begging for subs) but maintained their intensity even after losing Alberts.

also, besides Moulson, who is our only sharpshooter, we play for the rebounds and deflections.

looks like USCHO agrees about Kaltiainen

[www.uscho.com]

Too bad they didn't fly Avash down because that recap was pretty poor.

Did the CSTV announcers mention the screw-ups with the penalty clock? In both games there were occasions where the penalty clock didn't run although the game clock did. At least in our game they caught it and "fixed" it by running the elapsed 12 seconds off the penalty clock and the game clock, but never put them back on the game clock (since it was in the 3rd period they were clearly remedying having screwed BC by giving us extra PP time but then screwed us by taking time off the game clock). And in the first period, they took the wrong penalty off the board after BC's 5x3 goal:

    COR-1 Ryan O'Byrne (2-Holding) BC 1x1 1:14
    COR-2 Jeremy Downs (2-Interference) BC 1x2 2:01
    BC  1 - 0  6x4 PP  Dan Bertram (6) (Joe Rooney, Ned Havern) 2:40

After the goal, they let O'Byrne out of the box, but took Downs's penalty off the board, so
that Downs got out after 34 seconds rather than the 1:39 that it should have been. They caught it and sent him back, but put something like 1:20 on the clock instead of 1:05, so BC got 15 more seconds of PP for free. And who knows what they did with the game clock.

On CSTV they did mention there were problems with the clock but the announcers couldn't figure out exactly what was going on. When we had the huge delay, no one knew what was going on but Greg correctly pointed out that it would calm us down and let us regroup.

Thanks for explaining what happened!

He does not shoot from the high slot or even the slot because every time he does it is easily gobbled up. He passes up a lot of shooting opportunities simply because he can't burn a netminder at this point in his young career. Accuracy is not his necessarily his problem shooting, but the fact is he can't bury a shot from beyond the crease.

"also, besides Moulson, who is our only sharpshooter, we play for the rebounds and deflections."

I would have to think that Hynes, Obyrne, Knopfli, Carefoot, Cook, and Abbott are all more than capable shooters. They may not have the snipe and quick release that Molson posesses but are all good and getting better.

Pokuluk too but he's the one creating the rebounds and deflections! (Side note: At the beginning of the season I was cold on Pokuluk because it seemed like he was dogging it a little bit behind the play...if you haven't noticed, I've become a big fan as I've watched him develop)

Sure they can shoot, they're D-I players. But only Moulson can release an effortless shot off of his heels from the slot and hit the upper corner. Hynes is a deflection guy and rebound guy but Bitz has allowed him to open up a little bit. O'Byrne released a nice wrister yesterday but the BC goalie got caught leaning for a pass and was beat shortside. It's like McKee giving up 5x3 and 5x4 goals...you can't fault him...but come on (Family Guy), feel for the post and make the shortside save! Ari was right on when he said that goalies think too much during odd man situations. (edit: maybe it wasn't Ari...I'm trying to find the post) (edit: yup, it was Ari) [elf.elynah.com]

Thanks for posting your views, Harrier! It's good to hear from you!

I haven't noticed this mentioned yet, but it seemed like to me (and the others watching in DC) that O'Byrne's breakout that led to the shorthanded goal seemed so slow. Where was BC during that play?

Also someone mentioned that there was an interview with Ned Harkness? When did that happen? I did notice the Hobey Baker feature before the game (much to the dismay of everyone at the sports bar because that was the one time they had the sound for CSTV going throughout the bar).

I'm assuming the interview with Ned Harkness was on audio.

The 2 things that bugged me most about the BC game (besides the general fact of getting beat on special teams play):

1) the 2nd BC goal. The exact same play occurred about 20 seconds prior to the goal. McKee made a shoulder save on the first one. That the defense would allow the same player to be in the same spot receiving the same pass and still be on his feet and that wide open for the one-timer... grr.

2) unforced errors on the breakout. We looked petrified when there were any forecheckers in our own zone. Sloppy, indecisive, and unconfident passing. Yes, they were fast, but sheez. When we were playing lights-out the first few games of the season, the standout part of the game was the efficiency CU got the puck through the neutral zone.

Yeah, the interview was over the radio and Greg said that the recording of the audio should be on the athletics website in a few days. I missed it but I'm really excited to hear it. Ned is hilarious!

I am still wondering when the coaching staff is going to get O'Byrne mentally to a place where he stops taking penalties at the beginning of periods (he put BC on the PP during the first 2 minutes of both the 1st and 2nd periods). This has been a problem for him all season it seems, and as good as the Cornell PK is, when you face top 10 teams you cant put yourself a man down constantly (comment made without getting into my general impressions of the officating last night)

CSTV is replaying the game at 2pm this afternoon...I can't say I'll be watching it but it's another opportunity to see the game for those that missed it last night.

[Q]Cornell95 Wrote:

I am still wondering when the coaching staff is going to get O'Byrne mentally to a place where he stops taking penalties at the beginning of periods (he put BC on the PP during the first 2 minutes of both the 1st and 2nd periods). This has been a problem for him all season it seems, and as good as the Cornell PK is, when you face top 10 teams you cant put yourself a man down constantly (comment made without getting into my general impressions of the officating last night)[/q]

Let alone the timing of penalties, the ones he takes seem to usually be dumb penalties. Like wrestling an opponent down to the ground along the boards when you're right in front of the referee.

Ah, thanks. I must have missed the word "audio" when people mentioned Harkness' interview.

We're seeing a lot of guilty-conscience penalties:

- A marginal penalty (that might not be called) and the aggressor leaps back from the play, or looks at the ref for approval (or in denial), or holds his arms out in an "I didn't do it" gesture and to referees, as to cops, sometimes that looks like a guilty gesture.(One sees this also in soccer below the professional level with inadvertant handballs, where the player stops playing and makes it all the more obvious that he thinks he did something wrong. The ref may whistle the play based on the player reaction.)

- You get away with a borderline call and then - guilty conscience? sense of immunity? - you do something equally as bad or worse and get called for the second one. Or maybe you figure you were getting called for it so you may as well ride him completely off the play and it's the finishing shove that gets you penalized.

I bet the BC message board is talking about their dumb penalties, all, what, 12 of them. That's a lot, even discounting for a couple concurrent minors.

I agree with you. After watching Minnesota, Wisconsin, CC and DU on the Dish over the first couple months of the year, our passing looked extremely sloppy last night. I hope it was due to rustiness from the 3 week layoff (first Cornell game I've seen this year), because if last night was indicative of the team's capabilities, the Big Red are sadly nowhere near national contenders this year. Turning the puck over on a 5x3 PP with a minute to go to give up an ENG was awful.

I have extraordinarily mixed feelings after watching the game last night. All have been said here except:

Where was Moulson? I honestly can't remember a single shot on net, but I may be confusing things in my head. Either way, he was certainly not a presence and the power play was not fluid enough to get him a quality chance.

Being down 5 on 3 so early in the game really hurt and didn't allow the Red to get into an offensive flow until later. Also, the fact that Downs and O'Byrne, 2 of our better defensive defensemen, were in the box together in that situation hurt as well.

Lastly, what does everybody think about pulling McKee with the penalty. Hindisght is, of course, 20/20. I thought it was probably the right move at the time, but was wondering what everybody thought about it.

It was the right move, but it obviously would have been better to wait until we had control of the puck in the offensive zone, given the problems Cornell had moving the puck up the ice.

Although I had some reservations about the announcers, one point that was made early-on deserves being mentioned. After a long layoff, one part of the play that takes a hit is the pp. It takes awhile to get back into the groove, as opposed to the pk, or even strength.

Not counting the 10 min misconduct there were 57 min of penalties, in a combined 120 min game. That doesn't allow anyone to get their flow going. So I don't know how much we can project from this. Today will hopefully be a more normal game.

Ari, I'm not sure what you mean by the timing of the penalty calls being "brutal and uncalled for". If the calls were legit, as you said, then the timing is, pure and simple, when they occurred. Now, if you mean they disrupted the flow, I couldn't agree more.

That was Topher, a freshman, and he didn't get the puck deep--Fundamentals that are forgotten by a rookie during crunch time.

"This is where leaders step up."

Our leaders didn't step up.

Unfortunately, I don't think the consolation game is going to be on TV.

[q]Ari, I'm not sure what you mean by the timing of the penalty calls being "brutal and uncalled for". If the calls were legit, as you said, then the timing is, pure an simple, when they occurred. Now, if you mean they disrupted the flow, I couldn't agree more.[/q]Most of the calls looked "legit" from the telecast, although Hunt called the game a little too tight for my taste. He was certainly consistent.

[Q]atb9 Wrote:
... I thought their players would pass out by the third period...they tired significantly (haunched over, begging for subs) but maintained their intensity even after losing Alberts.[/q]
maybe this is stating the obvious ... TV games do not help our style of play. too many stoppages and too much recovery time.

just a thought

[q]2) unforced errors on the breakout. We looked petrified when there were any forecheckers in our own zone. Sloppy, indecisive, and unconfident passing. Yes, they were fast, but sheez. When we were playing lights-out the first few games of the season, the standout part of the game was the efficiency CU got the puck through the neutral zone.[/q]I've now seen three games so far this season (MSU and BC) and in all of them the breakout was very tentative and slow. Looking smooth and efficient in the neutral zone may be easy against Sacred Heart and Army. It takes a little more effort against top teams.

Yeah, definitely. The first time I was really struck by this was in Buffalo at the Final Four. The TV timeouts--not to mention the review of our goal--were brutal.

The CSTV announcers for the BC/SCSU game said that they heard the ref had to ice his arm down after last nights BC/Cornell game in which there were 28 penalties called.

1-0 SCSU on a v. soft goal

1-1 late second on a BC pp goal

so after watching almost three complete CSTV games from Florida ... is it just me or were/are the anouncers HEA homers??? every penalty against Maine or BC was a marginal call but somwhow they believed (or rationalized) just the opposite for those called (or not called) against Cornell and/or SCSU.

OTOH, the U Maine radio call was v. good, glad it was free and would listen to those guys anytime (hoping Maine loses of course)

EDIT: One is U Mich '91 and the other is Ithaca '88 ... that said i still think they sound like HEA homers

I swear in his interview just now Alberts said "Cornell's got a really good defense and is keeping us to the perimeter" (or something to that effect) when asked why they haven't had too many shot attempts. Pretty funny. We must have really got in their heads, hehe. Too bad we couldn't pull it out.

> Just confirmed by announcer from IC.

Quick question:

With the score 1-1 with 4 seconds left in regulation, what are we rooting for here? We want BC to win as many games as possible (except games against ECACHL teams) from here on out right? I guess I don't have a firm grasp of how the schedule strngth/success of the teams we play affects us.

Thanks

Definitely rooting for BC as much as it hurts to do so. SCSU is 8-9-2 so if they beat BC, that would mean that we lost to a team that lost to a .500 team. After they finish their league play, SCSU could be below .500

You root for BC to beat SCSU because you'd rather lose to a team that's climbing back to #1 rather than a team dropping to 6, 7, or 8. In other words, even though it's quality wins that get measured, you're less stung by quality losses to really good teams.

Plus BC is an eastern team.

(One of the reasons the announcers seemed to be homers was maybe it was all those spots for Hockey East last night and none (that I saw) for the ECAC.

[Q]billhoward Wrote:
Plus BC is an eastern team.

(One of the reasons the announcers seemed to be homers was maybe it was all those spots for Hockey East last night and none (that I saw) for the ECAC. [/q]
1. Right. Always root for an eastern team.

2. CSTV frequently showed HE standings. Did they ever show ECACHL standings?

Chris Collins GWG 0:59 double overtime

[q]CSTV frequently showed HE standings. Did they ever show ECACHL standings? [/q]CSTV also frequently showed commercials for HE, but I never did see one for the ECAC. Things are better in the league office, but obviously not perfect yet...

To help Cornell's strength of schedule, record against common opponents etc. and thus our shot at an at-large NCAA bid we should root for:

1. Any ECAC team playing a non-conference game
2. Michigan State - since we played them twice, their games count 2x on our SOS
3. BC and Maine - TUCs that we have played once
4. Army, Sacred Heart and Canisius - non TUCs that we have played once

Beyond those teams in general root for eastern teams playing the WCHA and CCHA since the ECAC plays more NC games against HEA and AHA than the western conferences, helping our opponents' strength of schedule. Also root for the CCHA vs. the WCHA for the same general reason, and that we played 2 games against a CCHA team, with zero vs. the WCHA. These have a realtively marginal effect compared to 1-4 listed above.

Alles klar?

When it comes to the NCAAs, I'll generally root against HEA even against the WCHA because:
1. I get tired of HEA fans putting down the ECAC and forgetting where they came from.
2. If HEA continues to have much more success in the NCAAs than the ECAC it makes it a tougher recruiting sell for players from the east who want to stay in the east to choose the ECAC over HEA.

[Q]KeithK Wrote:

CSTV also frequently showed commercials for HE, but I never did see one for the ECAC. Things are better in the league office, but obviously not perfect yet...[/q]

Maybe they're waiting for the official name change to whatever the ECACHL will become. Of course, what's to prevent them from using the same footage in a new ad next year, just changing the logo/voiceover in the commercial, I don't know.

Al, I don't recall seeing any ECAC standings nor any promos for the ECAC as a league, whereas there were multiple (the same one) promos for Hockey East hyping the million fans a year, all the pros, all the excitement.

The standings for ECAC not being shown (at least during BC-Cornell and Cornell-Maine), I think that's the fault of the production team. The promo for Hockey East, I couldn't see them not running both (plus for St. Cloud and WCHA) unless the leagues didn't create and provide them. If that's the case, I think that's something the ECAC hockey PR staff should get rolling on. And isn't that Cornell's ex-SID, or does she have a management not PR management, position?

[Q]Steve Marciniec Wrote:

1. I get tired of HEA fans putting down the ECAC and forgetting where they came from.
2. If HEA continues to have much more success in the NCAAs than the ECAC it makes it a tougher recruiting sell for players from the east who want to stay in the east to choose the ECAC over HEA.[/q]

Your last point is a good about the one time when you wouldn't want HE to be successful. Their players are probably more likely to be considering ECAC Hockey than CCHA and WCHA.

[Q]Will Wrote:

KeithK Wrote: CSTV also frequently showed commercials for HE, but I never did see one for the ECAC. Things are better in the league office, but obviously not perfect yet...[/Q]
Maybe they're waiting for the official name change to whatever the ECACHL will become. Of course, what's to prevent them from using the same footage in a new ad next year, just changing the logo/voiceover in the commercial, I don't know.[/q]

Out of common decency, the ECAC ought to not use an acronym more than four characters long. Sure, they are sort of feuding with the ECAC mother ship and all, but still. I think I said before it's too bad we can't have a nested acronym, EHL, where E stands for ECAC and HL stands for HL, except there already is an EHL. Maybe we could use Hockey 1200 for the league monicker, as in the average SAT even an athlete needs to get in. OTOH, as safety schools go, BC, BU, etcetera aren't exactly academic wastelands.