Union 2 @ Cornell 1 (postgame thread 11/18/05)

observations from watching the web cast this year (2 msu, dc and union) so take these however you like. it appeared we have a few major issues to address:

(1) leadership; is there any? don't get me wrong, there are a few guys who seemingly fly all over
    the ice but that doesn't necessarily translate into motivation for the other guys. but this team 
    plays a lot like the ry-ry team of 03-04. no killer instinct. 

(2) goaltending; weak at best. not cornell-like in the slightest. mckee has been soft all season and 
    continued that streak tonight. in addition, our d-men are still failing to clear rebounds in the 
    low slot. get it together boys!

(3) our breakout; it sucks and reminds me of past big red teams who could not get out of their own zone.

(4) power play: this teams PP is reminiscent of the 01-02 team that just couldn't get off a shot. 
    i'm not sure passing is going to put the puck on goal. or if they count so many passes as a goal. 
    And sit O’B … can you say liability. 

(5) finishing; for a team with as much talent as this one has, there is little to no reason we have scored 
    so few goals. We cannot continue to hope #24 carries us on his shoulders.

if this team continues this type of play we're in for a long 00-01/01-02-type season (minus the stifling defense). i did like some of the line combinations Coach put out late in the third. i think carefoot on the top line with bitz and moulson looked solid. we need to get glover back in the line up and O'B needs to sit his ass out for a few games. brutal, absolutely brutal. although davenport was worse, get salmela some pt, we can’t do much worse than davenport did. they did seemingly skate well tonight but this program it’s in it for moral victories they’re not out there to say “we gave it our best shot, better luck next time.” i’m starting to believe this might just be a case where a team cannot live up to the lofty expectations placed upon them. dare i actually say it ... but this team might just be a 3-4 place ECAC(HL) #14-15 nationally ranked team. maybe that's where they belong. apparently they'll have do better and prove me wrong b/c that's the way they've begun to play.

just some thoughts.

It seems to me as if the second goal wasn't O'Bryne. From how I see it:

1) O'Byrne has trouble behind his own net, which happens.
2) Tries to pass it to Davenport.
3) Davenport, inexplicably, tries to bring it out in front of the net and bobbles.
4) The Union player scores before McKee can even react.

Oh, and O'Byrne was back there without support because Davenport over-committed on chasing the faceoff.

It seems to me an immediate key is to win tomorrow night. If we can get that game and then (hopefully) sweep Niagara over Thanksgiving, then we'll have a three-game winning streak under our belts. Hopefully the team can use this stretch to really gel and figure out what the hell is going on.

We've lost to Union at home more than I would have thought, but not recently........'92, '94 and '98. I saw the '92 game and it was a big deal because we hadn't lost to them yet as a D1 team - that may have even been their first year in the conference but we were awful that year despite Paris Duffus' best efforts. I'm amazed that we lost at Lynah to them, their record is inflated. Who cares about the rankings at this point but say goodbye to a top 10 ranking with a loss at home to Union.

[Q]ben03 Wrote:

(2) goaltending; weak at best. not cornell-like in the slightest. mckee has been soft all season and continued that streak tonight. in addition, our d-men are still failing to clear rebounds in the low slot. get it together boys![/q]

On the bright side, though, it's given Chabot a chance to show that he doesn't suck quite as much as most of us used to think, and is probably actually a worthy backup in a crunch.

For the most part, I thought we looked a lot better tonight. Especially our defense, we cleared rebounds much better than in the past.

I thought Krantz looked pretty good for once. The only defenseman who struck me as truly off was Davenport. O'Byrne was streaky, but played well at times. I don't know why we sat Glover, he was playing well.

Same with Barlow, would rather have him out there than Kindret.

[Q]Dafatone Wrote:
The only defenseman who struck me as truly off was Davenport.
[/q]

I thought he got a lot better after he gave up the goal...but then again I might have just been trying to stay optimistic

[Q]Same with Barlow, would rather have him out there than Kindret.[/q]

Why bench a guy who was seeing regular minutes for a guy who Schafer didn't feel comfortable puting out there for a regular shift?

[Q] And what was up with the Tuba tonight? I think that summed up the game, though I did laugh a lot....[/Q]

He's a freshman player...none of the other tubas were around tonight due to a marching band road trip to Penn. He did an amazing job though...I'd never want to solo in front of the entire Lynah crowd!

[Q]
I posted this on the USCHO game thread this afternoon, but I don't think we have enough goal scorers. We have a ton of setup guys just not enough scorers. And tonight it caught up with us.

[/q]

Perhaps this is the reason for the current small-ish, possibly high-scoring recruiting class. Coach may have made a decision that we'll never get all the way without at least a couple of serious finishers. That said, I like our dominant physical style, so we'll just have to wait and see if they can keep both. I think the most important thing is that they just need to work harder right now. Yes, they were the better team tonight, but they definitely didn't seem to want it more.

I agree, I think Barlow was probably playing the best out of any of the freshmen and was just starting to get comfortable... the other freshmen just look lost...

The last season during which we didn't, at some point, have a long, learned, and entirely plausible analysis of not having enough finishers was 1991. We do this every year -- they lose one game, and we scramble for reasons within that game. Now that it's two games, we look for reasons in the team composition. Not sure what happens at three games. The stars, maybe, or divine retribution. Maybe we'll find out tonight.

Re.

Lax.

McKee looked like a turtle that had flipped over and couldn't get off his backside. Disturbing.

Interesting article on David in today's Journal:

[theithacajournal.com]

Some quick thoughts - on the game:
- was watching our dominance in possession and face-offs and thinking long run that should lead to goals ... not last night.
- despite being forced to play alot of desparate D. Union moved their feet. Many of our penalties were when we were beat in that sense. eg. Chris Abbott taking the hooking interference after winning a faceoff in our end; no D-man got to the puck but one of their forwards did . . .
- Our pp points were being fronted well by the Union pk and when we hit the guy in th mid slot boards in that case they were not agressively moving in to the slot or to the net thus setting up a shot or drawing the defensive box in.
- I had face-off stats of 38 wins, 14 loses, and 9 neutral/ties for the game.
- Union Captain Scott Seney was their only strong face-off presence and he started the game playing on the wing...
- We need to find our feel on the power play for quick teamwork, shouldn't take a 5-3 for us to score and we had some good chances but we were a tad off last night.
- officiating was fair and even - missed a few things -like the pushing puck out of zone w/ broken stick but overall no - complaints as it was both ways.
- in last 4 mins or so we seemed to have an aversion to passing back to the point - which allowed Union D to collapse into red zone and force us to corners.

Looking forward to the team improving tonight on last night!
And was disappointed by numbers of folks leaving also - We are long term section N hockey fanatic and always stay to salute the team -- win or lose.

i think we just need to face it -- last year was our year. mckee is absolutley terrible. much worse than mediocre. it's so easy to see how overrated he was. no defense (minus cook and downs), he lets in 2+ goals a game (only facing 13 shots!!!) our offense cant score. yeah, we outplayed union, but we still didnt win, so its a moot point. and union college? are you kidding me? they would get destroyed by any one of the top 10 teams (excluding us of course). without hynes, iggy, knoefpli, downs, cook -- we suck. excuse my language, but moulson is a huge pussy. he plays like one, and acts like one on the ice. it's disappointing. the ONLY player who i can say is actually having a somewhat decent season is carefoot. he's the man. our freshman suck ass. im gonna stop complaining, but ya'll get the point. we blow. something needs to change....

I wasnt at the darmouth/colgate game to know this, but from the score and recap did anybody see a connection between that game and last night? Us outshooting the other team like crazy but still losing by one goal? I'm being optimistic and hoping we continue the trend and go out tonight and play the game that they played against us last saturday. Lets go red!

jackie

What killed the team last night was poor play from the point on the powerplay, whether it was O'byrne, Sasha, Bitz or even (gasp) Moulson. The word that sums up the play of our point men last night is indecision. Too many times it seemed like the guy on the point had no idea what he wanted to do with the puck. If your gonna shoot it: shoot, if your gonna pass it: pass, but don't hold the puck and not know where it's going. I saw alot of week wristers from the point last night that could have been one timers had the decision to shoot been made decisivly. Instead the puck was held for 2 seconds before the decision was made to wrist a shot into the frey which everyone could see coming.
The first (and only) cornell goal last night is proof of why it's always a good idea to put the puck on net. Put a nice hard shot on net and chances are decent that somthing might happen, in this case it hit a union defenders stick and went in. Our point men are two concerned with creating the perfect setup or having the perfect shooting lane. When in doubt just put it on net and see what happens (and make the decision to do it when you get the puck, not two seconds later when everyone knows it's coming.)

CHILL... THE FUCK... OUT

Last year we went 0-1-1 against MSU and then tied Vt and lost to Dartmouth. And didn't have a very good showing in Florida.

Even in the marvelous 2003 we had a pretty poor showing in Florida, losing two to teams that two definitely should have beaten that year. Oh, and btw, tied Brown.


Yes, this year's team needs improvement, this years team was overrated and saying we would walk away with the ECAC wasn't being fair to last year's senior class. Yes, we need to figure out a number of things.

Btw, McKee let in one goal last night and O'Byrne/Davenport let in the other. When you're criticizing Moulson, despite having 1.43 ppg, DESPITE having 5 men watching him closely every time he steps on the ice, I know you've lost it.


CHILL... THE FUCK... OUT

[Q]DeltaOne81 Wrote:
When you're criticizing Moulson, despite having 1.43 ppg, DESPITE having 5 men watching him closely every time he steps on the ice, I know you've lost it.
Edited 1 times. Last edit at 11/19/05 11:46AM by DeltaOne81.[/q]

What do you want me to say? When he's played the point he's made many of the same mistakes that O'byrne and Sasha have been making when they play the point. If you ask me it has less to do with the induvidual pointman than the overall powerplay philosophy that this team has had all year. They've just been too hesitant as a team.

I never said he's perfect... as I said, a lot of people and the team as a whole need to improve. But calling him a pussy is too far. And you need to chill out.

Maybe you need to get a software upgrade to the "goodnatured" version

I think everyone here needs to realize that McKee has only had one stellar season here. We need to all start thinking about what the team needs to win, and maybe realize that McKee won't be the same again. I'm not saying he will be this bad all season, but numerous teams have replaced their sieve at Lynah. Why should we leave McKee in all game when he clearly is off his game? It shouldn't be done as punishment, incentive, etc., but we do need to win and I think Chabot has shown that he is capable of keeping us in the game. I don't know when to pull McKee, what part of the game or in the season, if he keeps this up, but we shouldn't sit here and praise him as he continues to let in soft goals. McKee so far has played worse than O'Byrne, yet we use him as everygame's scapegoat. This team is coming around, and we will win, but McKee may not always be on his game and we should realize that.

I have to agree. From my seat in A I was on a line where I could see the Union shooter, then Pegs trying to block his shot, but NOT McKee. I am just assuming that if I couldn't see McKee then McKee couldn't see the shooter fully.

That was a pretty good play by Bitz, faking the dump in and then throwing it on net instead. Mayotte must've gotten in a routine of coming out of the net early to stop the dump ins. One miss step or a goal stick that was an inch shorter and that's a goal.

[Q]DeltaOne81 Wrote:

I never said he's perfect... as I said, a lot of people and the team as a whole need to improve. But calling him a pussy is too far. And you need to chill out.

Maybe you need to get a software upgrade to the "goodnatured" version [/q]


I called him a pussy?

On the contrary, I've been very impressed with Moulson and I think he's been carrying the team. The point that i was trying to make was that even Moulson has looked bad on the point, which leads me to beleive that this a system problem rather than a player problem.

Okay, it wasn't you I was responding to initially then. I was responding to thr33. I think everyone needs to chill out a bit around here, but he's the only one that needed to chill the fuck out

Well on the bright side he only let up two goals on 13 shots, at DC it was 5 in 13 shots

Pulling McKee wouldn't have helped tonight, as he didn't let in any goals after the 2nd one.

Hell, it was my fault. I'm down in section G. Union was on a PP, let a shot go from the point that missed wide by almost a yard, I shouted "You Missed!" 30 seconds later we were down 2-1.

Anyway, We did look bad at the point tonight, but I think we weren't used to Union's penalty kill. They were much more passive than most of the kills we've seen, crowding in front of the net, and not attacking the point fiercely. Normally, I'd think this would help us, allowing us to get easier puck movement, but last night we couldn't free up any good shots.

But I agree that we had a lot of weak, indecisive shots coming from the point that could have been stronger slapshots/one-timers.

Last, anyone catch what happened to Moulson's shot at the last second? I thought it went off Mayotte's blocker, but a friend thought a Union player knocked it away. For a moment, I really thought we had a goal there.

Perfect faceoff win right to him, he moved to his left and the puck rolled off his stick as he shot it. That about sums up the night there.

He missed the net with a defender getting a piece of his stick.

from my experience watching our power play over the last 5-6 seasons i’ve seen there is one way to shut us down: high pressure on the point men. dartmouth has been doing this to us for years and it appears union has finally caught on as well. hell, if i were scouting us that’d be on top of my list of “keys to beating the big red.” whether it’s murray, baby, o'b, sasha, moulson, or whoever ... high-pressure on the point screws up our flow. we have a one-dimensional PP scheme and IMHO it’s easy to defend (obviously easier said than done). we need productivity/creativity from our wingmen and need to stop looking for the perfect shot from the point. this is exactly the problem we saw in 01-02. if we don’t adjust and get some variety, our PP will likely be stagnant all year. we had at least two long 5-3's last night and nothing to show for it. this is a problem. it is much a personnel problem as it is a system problem and most definitely a combination of the two. and as i mentioned above, this is not anything new to a schafer-coached power play. hopefully he'll find a solution to get them back on track.

in schafer we trust.

LGR!!!

[Q]
edhair34 Wrote:

Drew042 Wrote:

Just back from the game; here are a few notes:

*Seminoff probably played the best of any of the defenseman, he was solid and did not make nearly as many mistakes as he did the weekend against MSU. However, he is still being beat off the puck as noted by the penalty he took in the first.
*As I have said in previous posts, O'Byrne is simply not fit to be the top defenseman on this team. He made at least 6 mistakes with the puck that led to turnovers (including GWG, and then on a faceoff in the second went to shoot the puck around the back of the goal and came close to scoring Union's 3rd goal (This may have been hard for anyone to see save for those of us in O). The mistakes that he continues to make are mindboggling and unacceptable.
*The problem with this team is that there is no defined leader as there has been in past years. No one on this team has stepped up yet to assume that role, and until it happens it is going to be a very long year.
*That said, they did play a full 60 minutes (or close to it) and I think we are moving in the right direction. See everyone tomorrow night!!

LGR!!

It was Davenport that made the mistake that lead to the GWG [Q]

Although Davenport and O'Byrne were at fault, McKee should have stopped that goal. He did not cover his posts well at all. There was a large gap between his left skate and the goal post and the Union player just slid it through that hole. If the union player had got the puck up over McKee and went in, then it would not have been McKee's fault.

He is just too tentative out there. Although your team didn't score any goals, as a goaltender you have to give them a chance to win, which he didn't. In his last two games, McKee has given up 7 goals on 29 shots. A save percentage of .759 - simply unacceptable.

For those of you defending McKee and telling us to give him a chance. We have given him 7 games and his numbers are awful.

[Q]ben03 Wrote:

and get some variety, our PP will likely be stagnant all year. we had at least two long 5-3's last night and nothing to show for it. [/q]

Actually, we had one goal to show for it.

It's early in the season. Lots of time to improve. However, the thing that worries me the most is the defense/goaltending, which has always been the hallmark of Cornell. In the first 7 games this year we've allowed 21 goals. Last year we allowed 45 goals in 35 games. At the rate the team is going they'll allow 105 goals (!) if they get lucky enough to play 35 games.

[Q]Bryan '06 Wrote:

And what was up with the Tuba tonight? I think that summed up the game, though I did laugh a lot....[/Q]He's a freshman player...none of the other tubas were around tonight due to a marching band road trip to Penn. He did an amazing job though...I'd never want to solo in front of the entire Lynah crowd![/q]I think he did a great job despite being a freshman and also a pretty quiet player, and I think he made the right decision in playing as slow as humanly possible. When you're out there all on your own, there's no better way to mock the opposing bench than that.

Other good things to take away from the game: When I was leaving, I heard some student from Section A mutter "Well, at least Harvard still sucks."