Cornell 2 Yale 2 postgame thread

Two-thirds of the way through January without a win. Incredible.

Hard to tell from without being at the rink if Cornell has lost an emotional edge, as Ari notes. (See the end of the game thread for some postgame comments.) Cornell is winning the stats war but it's not a decisive margin: shots 25-17. Wasn't the Schafer-of-year-past goal that Cornell should hold opponents under 20 shots a game? 1x8 on the power play is barely better than Cornell's dry spell over a couple games.

For those who saw it: Was the against-goal Davenport scored a fluke or did he make a bad play and it cost Cornell?

Right now it's hard to recall that a freshman-heavy team is only going to improve over the course of the year. OTOH Cornell has had some brutally bad Januarys this decade and then turned it around in February.

Note the boxscore (which has sometimes just been incomplete) [cornellbigred.cstv.com]

Three stars:
1. None
2. None
3. None

From what I could see over in section M, Davenport went behind the net to stop the puck, and lost his balance. There were other players around him and he could not get up, and the puck got away. I'm not sure who it bounced off of, but it went off of someone's skate or body and spun its way around and into the net.

both yale goals were interesting. the first was the reason why sometimes you just throw the puck at the net when you are unable to get quality shots. a screen = a goal.
the second goal was so disappointing. davenport when back behind the net and lost his footing and the puck was kicked by him or another player out front and then hit a leg and went in. at least i think that was how it happened.
this was our first game at lynah this year. the new additions to the rink are very nice and we got to sit on the first new bench behind B which was cool.
the game overall was what happens when you have a young team that is unable to finish against a clearly inferior yale team. I thought that yale looked bad except in the last few minutes of the third and then in OT. they iced the puck many times and also launched it to center many times. dont get me wrong there were moments for them, but overall I was not impressed. Cornell looked good most of the game but then just got deflated after that tieing goal. Yale was just hungrier. It seemed the whole that Cornell would find a way to not win the game. taking penalties while on the PP, getting bailed out by feola and his horrible officiating = bad calls against yale. the no goal was too far for us to see.
anyway, looking forward to another game tonight

From my point of view, Davenport went behind the net to play the puck, slipped, fell, kicked the puck up into the air and over the net, where it bounced off a defenseman's shoulder, off a post, and in. Personally, I can't really blame Davenport. Just a ridiculous fluke, or series of flukes. Karmawise, it makes up for our lucky goal against Michigan, perhaps?

Anyway, we had our issues, but if you remove that goal, we won 2-1. We got no offense going towards the end, and Yale constantly was threatening, but we did hold them off, really.

As to the non-goal/penalty shot, I really think the refs just missed it completely and figured a penalty shot was sort of like flipping a coin. From D, I couldn't see anything. There was a pile-up, and then Topher dove into the net, and the puck seemed to go in. But Topher was in the crease, and maybe play should have been stopped anyway. Honestly, given that I don't think anyone saw anything, the penalty shot might've been the fairest thing to do.

Could anyone who had a good view of it share what happened?

Yet again, it was a high shot on Davenport.. It was actually a really nice shot, which I barely ever say about the opposing team. He had a wide open shot to the net, and took advantage of it.
This is from my point of view in M...

This is my post from the game thread. There's no way that we would get a penalty shot just because "the penalty shot might've been the fairest thing to do." Come on, the refs might not be right all the time but they don't just make up rules. For God's (or anybodies else's) sake they have to explain it to each coach.

[Q]marty

[Q]Beeeej

[Q]Al DeFlorio
"A shot by Romano snuck through the traffic in front of the goal and was loose in the crease when Matt Nelson covered the puck with his glove. Nelson's hand then went into the goal with the puck underneath, but he quickly pulled it back out of the goal.[/Q]


How is that not a goal for Cornell?[/Q]


An interesting question, because one could say that the puck is dead as soon as he gloves it and thereby delays the game - the rule book might have a specific clause concerning this.

But I imagined that the Feola didn't see it clearly enough to award the goal.[/Q]


It seems clear that Feola didn't see it. The goal judge put the red light on, after a long delay, with the red light still on, Feola finally went to the goal judge. I could see him making a hand motion that would support him seeing the puck going in under a Yale player's hand.


I don't know the rule, but I'm just guessing that once he touches the puck in the crease the play stops, much like even if you score when your team has a delyed penalty against it, it doesn't count since the play stops as soon as you touch it. Unfortunately that helps the team who is to get the man advantage while in our case it hurt the team getting the advantage.

Jim Hyla
I don't know the rule, but I'm just guessing that once he touches the puck in the crease the play stops, much like even if you score when your team has a delyed penalty against it, it doesn't count since the play stops as soon as you touch it. Unfortunately that helps the team who is to get the man advantage while in our case it hurt the team getting the advantage.

I may be mistaken, but I seem to remember something similar happening in the Stanley Cup Finals last year when Chris Pronger scored on a penalty shot.

Home games have never had the three stars filled in, not just this one. That means nothing...

jy3
both yale goals were interesting....

looking forward to another game tonight

I know I've said this before, and you've responded to it, however I have to say you are giving yourself a disservice by not using punctuation. This post is almost impossibly hard to read. You use caps, etc. for some situations but not others. Your comments are interesting but so hard to read that I suspect some just skip them completely. If you spent two minutes more it would be great. Thanks.

billhoward

For those who saw it: Was the against-goal Davenport scored a fluke or did he make a bad play and it cost Cornell?

When Davenport slipped, the puck slid out from under him and bounced off Seminoff's skate and in...not off his shoulder, and it didn't touch the post either. IMHO, I don't think Davenport needed to leave the crease and play the puck with Seminoff and Mugford right there and no Yale players nearby, so I would argue it was at least partly a bad move...but obviously the slip-up was a fluke, as was the unlucky bounce off Seminoff's skate.

Jim Hyla

jy3
both yale goals were interesting....

looking forward to another game tonight

I know I've said this before, and you've responded to it, however I have to say you are giving yourself a disservice by not using punctuation. This post is almost impossibly hard to read. You use caps, etc. for some situations but not others. Your comments are interesting but so hard to read that I suspect some just skip them completely. If you spent two minutes more it would be great. Thanks.

At the risk of piling on, I agree, strongly. It's consideration to the reader. It may be true in twenty years that due to texting the at large population will be used to it, and capitalization will be a thing of the past. But for we old fogeys, please.

Oh, and try to mix in a "thou" or an "yclepped." I just like those.

Mandatory hockey content: the tragedy of this game wasn't the fluke goal -- that can happen. It was that Cornell had only a one-goal lead when it happened. Given the difference in talent between the teams, it ought to have been a footnote in a 4-2 or 5-2 win.

Trotsky
Mandatory hockey content: the tragedy of this game wasn't the fluke goal -- that can happen. It was that Cornell had only a one-goal lead when it happened. Given the difference in talent between the teams, it ought to have been a footnote in a 4-2 or 5-2 win.

It is an interesting phenomenon that recent Cornell teams can pretty much control a game and yet generate very few good scoring chances while doing so. I wish I could figure out why that is.

Trotsky

Mandatory hockey content: the tragedy of this game wasn't the fluke goal -- that can happen. It was that Cornell had only a one-goal lead when it happened. Given the difference in talent between the teams, it ought to have been a footnote in a 4-2 or 5-2 win.

That's just it. Cornell decided to win the game 2-1 and hardly put any pressure on after they took that lead. Yale didn't get many chances either but you've gotta deliver the knock out punch when you're on home ice against an inferior team. Instead, they just let them hang around making what should otherwise be a worthless goal be the game-tying goal. Too bad McCutcheon and Bitz kept playing paddy-cake with the puck on the two powerplays in the third period rather than actually doing what other powerplays do.

From my view above the net in G, the puck was about 3/4 of the way across the line when the red light went on and the crowd reacted so I didn't really hear any whistle. The goal judge seemed to not be sure if the entire puck had crossed because the Yale player had his glove over it when play had stopped. The odd thing about all of it was that later on during a pile up in front of the net, a Yale player, who was outside of the crease, literally picked up the puck to show it to Feola for the whistle, but Feola refused to stop play.

I was in F, just behind the goal line about 15 rows up. By my (admittedly detiorating) eyes the puck had crossed the line. After that, there was a pile-on, and in the process of that a Yale player apparently covered it. I say apparently, since there were so many bodies in the crease, it was hard to tell what was going on. But IMO, that was a goal. I thought all the debate was about whether it was a goal or not, and I had no idea why there was a penalty shot until it was announced after the shot was taken.

On the second goal, I consider it a fluke. What are the odds of a puck deflecting boards, over the net, and then off our defender and in? Although the boards for the most part were pretty dead, so Davenport's fall probably kicked it back (or deflected it backwards). I don't think his going behind the net for that one was a mistake. He'd been doing a good job of stopping the puck and leaving it for the d-men behind the net to that point.

But there's no way we should have only been up 2-1 at that point. In the first period, I thought we really were the better team, though the SOGs didn't show it. Yale fought back in the second, but we fought them off to a draw and outshot them, but we should have been up more. After that, it's clear we were simply trying to preserve that 2-1 lead. On top of that, we stopped hustling, just like we did in the only other game I've seen this year (Princeton). We let Yale's forecheck have an impact and had trouble in our own end.

I also felt the officiating was a bit weak. It looked like there was a new directive to stop calling interference and obstruction and call more charging penalties. Feola also seemed to be looking for even-up calls until the third when he changed his approach and only called penalties on us.

Defensively, we really played good team hockey, and made some great plays in our defensive zone. There weren't many points where I felt Yale really threatened. I didn't see many really scary passes and I don't remember any Yale odd-man rushes except for the first goal.

OTOH, offensively, there was no cohesion at all. The power play was content to pass it around the edges, and let Yale collapse four defenders on our one man in the slot. There was no movement, no cycle, no offensive threat at all. Romano's goal was individual skill. At another point, he tried to go one on five, and his dipsy-doo fooled nobody.

I was very disappointed by the faithful. Sections A & B were active, but by the time you got to F, poeple were sitting on their hands. Nobody even knew to clap along with the cowbell. I think they just thought it was an accelerating clap cheer. 3/4 of the cheers were "Yale...sucks!" and we never got any cheer going that lasted more than 5 seconds (other than the one "bend over" Also E & F were half empty at the start of the game (with many people showing up late). They filled up by the third period. Unfortunately, two facetime bimbos sat down behind me and jabbered on about what clothes they bought, what guys in the crowd were hot, and so on. Ugh.

Jeff Hopkins '82
Unfortunately, two facetime bimbos sat down behind me and jabbered on about...what guys in the crowd were hot...

Today's burning question, Jeff, is: Did you make their list?

Al DeFlorio

Jeff Hopkins '82
Unfortunately, two facetime bimbos sat down behind me and jabbered on about...what guys in the crowd were hot...

Today's burning question, Jeff, is: Did you make their list?

Well, I think I earned some points for explaining to them what charging is (with regards to hockey, anyway), but I'd have to think I wasn't even in contention for their list.

Jeff Hopkins '82
Well, I think I earned some points for explaining to them what charging is (with regards to hockey, anyway), but I'd have to think I wasn't even in contention for their list.

Um, Jeff. If you're class of '82 and they were students, you're on the list of "guys who look like my Dad, only older."

Trotsky

Jeff Hopkins '82
Well, I think I earned some points for explaining to them what charging is (with regards to hockey, anyway), but I'd have to think I wasn't even in contention for their list.

Um, Jeff. If you're class of '82 and they were students, you're on the list of "guys who look like my Dad, only older."

I know. I even thought it. I just wasn't about to voluntarily put it in a post.

Jeff Hopkins '82

Trotsky

Jeff Hopkins '82
Well, I think I earned some points for explaining to them what charging is (with regards to hockey, anyway), but I'd have to think I wasn't even in contention for their list.

Um, Jeff. If you're class of '82 and they were students, you're on the list of "guys who look like my Dad, only older."

I know. I even thought it. I just wasn't about to voluntarily put it in a post.

Which is not to say you don't have a shot. Just wear something expensive. One of the few perks for being male.

From Section H row 10, on the isle. The puck came to rest on the back of the goal line. It was not a goal. The scrum that ensued caused people to fall on the puck. I can't say that a defenseman covered it, but the puck did not appear to be in the goal when I lost sight of it.

Also, I heard that Romano frustrates the hell out of Davenport and Scrivens on penalty shots in practice. A shame he couldn't put this one in.

I agree with the comment of Cornell slackening when it was 2-1. Almost a complete collapse after the tying goal. This was a very winnable game that got away from us.

As for the tying goal, Davenport went behind the net(this was making me nervous all game, he takes a lot of risks back there) fell at the boards, and a quick deflection off him and into Seminoff?/Mugford?(can't remember which) and in.

One final note. A noticeable and considerable absence from the game last night: the crowd. Especially after the tying goal.

From the Ithaca Journal re: Romano's penalty shot:
"While Feola was doing his mulling, Richards was constructing a mound of ice shavings in front of his goal in an effort to slow down Romano's upcoming penalty shot. The Big Red's Mark McCutcheon then skated over and flipped the ice shavings away, to the roar of the crowd."

I totally missed this, but did glance over when Richards was angrily gesticulating at Feola who had probably just made him get rid of his little "ice castle". Anyone else catch this?

sah67
I totally missed this, but did glance over when Richards was angrily gesticulating at Feola who had probably just made him get rid of his little "ice castle". Anyone else catch this?

Jason pointed it out on the broadcast. I saw Richards whining in the aftermath. It was very funny.

sah67
From the Ithaca Journal re: Romano's penalty shot:
"While Feola was doing his mulling, Richards was constructing a mound of ice shavings in front of his goal in an effort to slow down Romano's upcoming penalty shot. The Big Red's Mark McCutcheon then skated over and flipped the ice shavings away, to the roar of the crowd."

I totally missed this, but did glance over when Richards was angrily gesticulating at Feola who had probably just made him get rid of his little "ice castle". Anyone else catch this?

I saw it. It was hysterical. McCutcheon isn't allowed to go into the zone like that before a penalty shot, so Richards went ballistic, but Feola got right up in his face and gestured towards the ice in front of the net and appeared to be telling him that he started it, so he should shut up and let the officials handle it. Then the AR started sweeping the ice shavings away with his skate.

As for the penalty shot itself - the d-man *definitely* covered it up. I couldn't tell if the puck was over the line, but the guy standing next to me said he saw it cross the line. The defenseman came in and swept at the puck with his glove, pushing it back under Richards, but he basically covered it himself. Feola was in no position to see whether or not the puck crossed the line due to the way Richards was positioned on the play, but he could clearly see the Yale d-man cover it up. I knew it should be either a penalty shot or a goal as soon as the play was dead, and after talking to the goal judge Feola decided that he couldn't award Cornell the goal, so he correctly called the penalty, and Schafer elected the penalty shot. That was not a make-up call for a coin flip or any such thing.

As for Davenport - he's a bit too aggressive playing the puck for my tastes, but I'd rather see him playing aggressively than retreating into a shell in net. The play behind the net was completely routine - someone was saying the Cornell D was right there, but they weren't - they were still near the circles, and Davenport went behind to stop the puck and leave it for them, which is exactly what he should do in that situation. If he doesn't play that puck, and it zips around the boards past the Cornell D, and onto a Yale player's stick, suddenly the kill is stuck out of position and Yale's got a great scoring chance.

He caught an edge and fell over, and the puck bounced off of his leg, over the goal, off of a Cornell player, and into the net. If he had fallen down and the puck had bounced *anywhere* else it would've just been a funny moment after a brief scare, since Yale was nowhere near the play, but it bounced in exactly the wrong way and ended up in the net.

Tom Lento
[Davenport] caught an edge and fell over, and the puck bounced off of his leg, over the goal, off of a Cornell player, and into the net. If he had fallen down and the puck had bounced *anywhere* else it would've just been a funny moment after a brief scare, since Yale was nowhere near the play, but it bounced in exactly the wrong way and ended up in the net.

Any chance that this is being ripped from the archived game and YouTubed?

Trotsky

sah67
I totally missed this, but did glance over when Richards was angrily gesticulating at Feola who had probably just made him get rid of his little "ice castle". Anyone else catch this?

Jason pointed it out on the broadcast. I saw Richards whining in the aftermath. It was very funny.

I saw it. I just figured he was putting snow there to slow down Cornell's attack in general. When McCutcheon came over and cleared the snow, he was shooed away by the refs first, then when Richards started whining, the refs turned on him.

I have to be honest, when the linesman put the puck at center ice, I never even contemplated a penalty shot. I just thought that it was in advance of calling it a goal and having a face-off at center ice. When Romano went out for the penalty shot I was just stunned and confused as to what happened. I thought, as some mentioned, that Feola couldn't figure out if it was a goal or not so we got a penalty shot as compensation (which I now know is incorrect). But by that point, the ice castles had slipped my mind.

I thought, as some mentioned, that Feola couldn't figure out if it was a goal or not so we got a penalty shot as compensation (which I now know is incorrect).

I'm not so sure its incorrect. It might not be in the rules, but that doesn't mean its not what actually happened.

DeltaOne81
I'm not so sure its incorrect. It might not be in the rules, but that doesn't mean its not what actually happened.

Obviously I'm not privy to what was going on in Feola's head, but from where I was sitting, that's not what actually happened. Based on the end of the play, the only two outcomes which could be correct under the rules were 1) Cornell goal or 2) Cornell with the option to take a penalty shot. The puck was on (or possibly just over) the goal line behind Richards, and the Yale D-man put his glove on it. His glove moved back behind the line and then forward under Richards, but at that point the puck was not visible - it's possible (albeit *extremely* unlikely) that he pushed it under Richards and didn't have it in his hand when he swept his arm back into the goal. Since the goal judge didn't put the light on until after Yale covered the puck, I'm guessing Feola ruled that there was no definitive evidence that Cornell had scored, and so he waved off the goal.

Given that the Yale defender clearly covered the puck in the crease, Cornell had to be awarded a penalty unless they had scored before the play was blown dead. Schafer obviously elected to take the penalty shot when the penalty was awarded.

I was 99% sure it was a penalty shot when they put the puck down, because the refs pretty much never place the puck on the ice in the faceoff circle before a draw - they hold on to it. The only reason I wasn't 100% sure is because I didn't see Feola make any signals - usually the ref will cross his arms over his head to indicate a penalty shot, but there didn't seem to be any hand signals on that play at all.