GoalieInput

Age's 'would you start David McKee next weekend?' poll got me wondering what people's thoughts of McKee's performance this weekend.. how do you think he did? Do you think Todd is a better goaltender? Do you think our defense slipped? What about Chabot.. when do you think he will be able to play..?



Post Edited (11-06-03 16:12)

Todd didn't impress many people vs. the USA under-18 team, but he could have been having an off- night
McKee got so much better as the weekend went along. Im much more willing to grant him a break as he has so little NCAA experiance them I am Marr. McKee is learning fast. He handled the W Mich breakaways really really well, and one of the saturday goals on him was through a screen of every player on the ice save himself and Foster. I feel that he needs better defense support and he'll be quite respectable.
Chabot, on the other hand, does have that 1.00 save percetage.....

I think that Marr is great and that he's much quicker than McKee. Can't wait until he's better, and back in the game.

McKee did okay, but sometimes he screwed up, but things happen.

Chabot looks great, and he should get more chances to play.

Our defense needs to improve (Murray graduationg was a huge loss).

My take on things (both a prediction and what I would do myself) is that if Marr is ready, we platoon Marr and McKee, but if he's not, we start McKee both games. So I voted for "yes" because I think he should start at least one game.

Any thoughts on who's the "A" and "B" opponent next weekend? Princeton stayed a lot closer to St. Cloud than Yale did to NoDak.

I think McKee will rise to the challenge if he's presented with more opportunities, and I'm thinking he will be. Once he settled down, he played quite well - quick and aware.

Does anyone know the story of his helmet? Lucky one perhaps?


Our defense was a bit flat, but that doesn't excuse all our missed chances on offense. It's good to see most people aren't blaming McKee for the loss - just a few bad breaks. It's going to be an exciting season.

Ack wrote:

Our defense was a bit flat, but that doesn't excuse all our missed chances on offense. It's good to see most people aren't blaming McKee for the loss - just a few bad breaks. It's going to be an exciting season.

Blame McKee, no, but I suspect had the only difference rosterwise in the first game been that Lenny was in goal, it probably would have been a 4-2 or 4-3 win for us, and perhaps a 2-2 tie for the second game.

I agree that with LeNeveau (or Elliott or Underhill) in goal we definitely would have won the first game and probably tied the second. Mckee was fighting the puck the puck most of the first game and part of the second, but I thought at about the ten minute mark of the second period of the second game he really settled down. He seemed visibly more confident, his puck handling improved and he made some very good saves that nice poke check on the wraparound.

I think it's likely Schafer will play both goalies this weekend, I McKee has to be the guy if we're to have a good season.

So far our empty net has comparable stats to Chabot last year: 0.00 GAA, 1 save on 1 shot, 1:15 played, +2. It's still got a way to go to match the empty net from 1999-2000, which finished with a better GAA than most Clarkson goalies and even registered an assist in the Dartmouth game.

my memory may be lapsing, but didn't the empty net go something like seven minutes @princeton/yale in the 1999-2000 season without getting scored upon? in a very miserable weekend it might have been the mvp.

And now, the starting lineup for the Big Red! Starting in goal, a freshman from Nowheresville, Ontario, #0 M.T. Nett!!!

i have the most confidence in mckee in net. on a note completely unrelated to his performance, i think he's gotta get a new helmet. it's green and it says "texas tornadoes." you're in the big leagues now. step up and get your helmet painted red.
i saw marr in florida last year against ohio state, and again vs rpi, and i thought he did a good job as well.
i have no confidence in chabot. i have said that before on this board, and everyone jumped down my throat. i can't even mention chabot without someone firing back the phrase "highly touted." no, i am not an nhl talent scout. no, i have not watched him for countless hours. but i have seen him in several practices, and he doesn't hussle to get the puck. he just sits there and sort of hopes it hits his pads. with or without our defensive woes, that's just not the kind of goalie cornell needs in net.
i want somebody who will work to stop the puck and is always paying attention to the game and repositioning in net even when the puck is down at the other end. that's why i go with mckee. after all, he's the only goalie who actually played in a significant number of games last year, and he has the recent experience in the tie-breaker with marr. but i would go with new-helmet mckee.

-mike 04

Give the guy's helmet a break - he only found out in July that he was coming to Cornell this fall, and goalie mask art is expensive and takes time! $$$$ He probably wanted to wait to actually get on campus before coming up with a design, too, so he could have SOME sort of idea of what would fit in with the team, etc - I mean, how embarassing would it have been if he'd gotten a helmet that had a Brown-style bear on it?

I assume that the team doesn't pick up the tab for custom art, either, but I don't know that. I assume they'd issue him a factory-white helmet and he can choose to get it painted if he so desires, so he may have only had his Cornell mask since October 15 (when official practice starts).

The fact that McKee played both games this weekend, after being shaky on Saturday, tells me that Coach isn't too high on Chabot. If Marr is healthy I'd expect him to platoon with McKee because at this point in the season you need competition in net. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think last year was the only season that Schafer didn't use a goalie platoon early in the season.

The one other exception was the 1997-98 season, in which Jason Elliott played every game for which he was able to skate.

Mike wrote:
i saw marr in florida last year against ohio state, and again vs rpi, and i thought he did a good job as well.

Marr didn't play against RPI... are you possibly confusing them with Clarkson? In any case, I thought Marr performed quite creditably during the stretch last season when Lenny was away at the WJC, certainly well enough to get a shot this season once he's healthy.

Thanks Craig. Your example proves my point though. The only seasons without a platoon were the ones where we had one established goalie who was head and shoulders above the other options. (1997-98 was the year after Pelletier left leaving Ian Burt and Nate Hicks to backup Elliott.)

About the helmet--at the 'post-game reception' I asked when he was gonna get color-coordinated, and he said his CU helmet was due four weeks ago, there's been some sort of snafu with the helmet artiste. He feels "embarrassed" by the current one, so let's hope he gets the real deal soon or we'll have to donate a can of carnellian red spray paint....

McKee can't get his helmet, we can't get our new band CDs...what's this world coming to?!

Don't you mean Nowheresville, BC?

JH

Sounds like trouble with the artwork.

JH

damn, those helmits cost a lot!

as for his current one, i kinda love the big hatchet on the side so i am cool with the one is using now

i thought that he really didnt have a chance on many of the goals this weekend because the defense left him out to dry. lenny may have made a few more saves on those shots but I have a feeling that McKee may be able to make some of the saves as he becomes more experienced b/c he will learn how to better read the defense and anticipate moves. it wasnt that he let in soft goals it was that he didnt make enough spectacular plays to get the win or tie. make sense?

i think mckee looked understandably shaky at the onset of game 1, but settled in pretty fast. i can't really fault him for any of the goals that got past him, i can say though that he showed a little of what he's got in game 2. some of the saves he made there shouldn't have been made (the 3 on nothing comes to mind). not only that but he showed good composure when faced with WMU crashing the net. he stood in there and got the puck and didn't worry about getting knocked around a little. thats all i can remember from being there right now

[Q]some of the saves he made there shouldn't have been made (the 3 on nothing comes to mind)[/Q]
One thing about that, and this isn't to take anything away from McKee, but the stupidity of the WMU player turned the 3 on 0 into a 1 on 0. He cut in front, going in solo, completely not using the other two guys he had. Dave was free to concentrate on him and ignore the other two, cause the way he was going a pass would have been very difficult, and he made it definitely seem like he had no intention to do so. It wouldn't have been Dave's fault had he let something in and a 3 on 0, you can't expect him to make that stop, but the WMU guy did everything he could to make it as easy as possible.

i agree completely, but it's still not an easy save to make. any rebound would have been slammed home with ease, so mckee turned it into the corner instead where his teammates had a better chance of getting posession. but yeah, it could have been a lot worse with some basic passing between those three players

How ironic it is that, last year, the apparent SUCCESS of LeNeveu was so often attributed to our defense, but during this past week, the apparent FAILURES of McKee have been blamed on him, with no mention anymore of our defense. It's a little unfair. He's not LeNeveu, but anyone who was there saw that, once he settled in after his first collegiate period, he's better than his current GAA.

I know some people have touched on this, but at least 4 of those 5 goals on Friday and ALL THREE of Saturday's goals against McKee were the result of defensive mistakes that just didn't happen last year when Murray, Bell and Mark McRae were around.

Now that said, I'd still start Marr this weekend in at least a game, provided he's healthy

Avash '05 wrote:

How ironic it is that, last year, the apparent SUCCESS of LeNeveu was so often attributed to our defense, but during this past week, the apparent FAILURES of McKee have been blamed on him, with no mention anymore of our defense. It's a little unfair.

I'm not going to go through all the posts on this forum, but there have been a number of people (probably on the game threads) who provided good game analysis that singled out the defensive mistakes and didn't heap the blame on McKee. Most people have praised him for settling down and being much more stable after the first 30 minutes of Friday.

I know, I know....I agree with you. I should have been more clear. My post was only in response to those people who are very quick to judge McKee without considering the awful defensive mistakes we made during the games (especially during the first game).

Avash '05 wrote:

I know, I know....I agree with you. I should have been more clear. My post was only in response to those people who are very quick to judge McKee without considering the awful defensive mistakes we made during the games (especially during the first game).

Anyone who criticizes a freshman goalie especially one in McKee's situation this weekend has never had pucks whizzing by their head at God knows how many MPH. Or maybe, just maybe they were hit in the head with a few of the aforementioned pucks.

Well this has nothing to do with goalies (and it's extremely pointless, so feel free to stop reading), but anyway...

I remember thinking to myself, after Friday night's 5-5 tie, that if we saw a lot of shootout-style games like that this year, it would be a pretty exciting season. After all, Lynah was electric during that third period and overtime. But then I began to wonder of the liklihood of actually winning games like that. And since I'm bored and don't feel like watching the Cavs and Nuggets play on ESPN, I just looked up how we did in the last 5 seasons when giving up four or more goals a game, and our record was an awful 3-26-2, with the last of the three wins coming on Dec 27, 2000 in a 6-5 OT win over Ohio State. Also, in games in which we AND our opponents scored at least four goals a game, we were 3-3-2. So I guess my point is that, in recent history, we haven't done too well in high-scoring games, making it all the more important for our defense to improve, which I think it will.

Um, now I have to find something else to waste my time on.....



Post Edited (11-05-03 21:54)

[Q]i agree completely, but it's still not an easy save to make. any rebound would have been slammed home with ease, so mckee turned it into the corner instead where his teammates had a better chance of getting posession. but yeah, it could have been a lot worse with some basic passing between those three players[/Q]
Yup. I agree. Wasn't trying to say it was easy. Just wanted to point out that it wasn't like he was really stopping a 3 on 0, but a 1 on 0 with 2 guys trailing. Still did plenty well though.

Avash-
You are totally right. Keeping the other team from scoring is the job of the whole defense. Mckee was shakey at the begining, but he got it together really fast for a freshman goalie. The defense as taken a mighty loss [Bell, Murray & McRae, three steafast preformers] and has much to learn, but they have good talent that will hopefully come together.
Those of you who are trashing McKee's preformance, give him a break. He has made a mighty leap in the last few months and we should be priviliged to have him.
On the same note, lets give Marr a second chance, perhaps against Princeton this weekend. Just like McKee, he had a rough first preformance. A second ECAC game early in the season will allow to him get his mind back in the game without going up a team like a hahvard .

-ben rocky

Well, it is possible to win a lot of high scoring games. You need to have a high scoring team, with speed and offensive talent. You also probably need a system that encourages offense. Naturally our recent record in high scoring (4 or more goals for both team) games will be relatively poor or at least mediocre because Cornell plays a system that is not conducive to high scoring games.

I'll go out on a limb and say that as long as Schafer is the coach when Cornell plays a lot of high scoring games the results will not be very good.

Keep in mind also that, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we currently have the worst power play in the country right now? We had plenty of opportunities to win both games with the penalties WMU took, but couldn't convert. If someone has the figures on-hand feel free to post them (and the PK #'s too).

Jeff Puchalski '02 '03 wrote:

Keep in mind also that, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we currently have the worst power play in the country right now? We had plenty of opportunities to win both games with the penalties WMU took, but couldn't convert. If someone has the figures on-hand feel free to post them (and the PK #'s too).

Well, UConn is 1 for 23 on the PP and is twice as likely to allow a SHG as score a PPG on the PP. Can't imagine we are worse than that....

Keith K '93 wrote:
I'll go out on a limb and say that as long as Schafer is the coach when Cornell plays a lot of high scoring games the results will not be very good.

I don't think that's really going out on a limb all that much.

Oh, it's a limb. Just a very thick, sturdy one

Well, as long as Schafer is the coach, Cornell will not play many high scoring games.