UMass 0 at Cornell 0 (Friday) postgame

Awesome game by Ben Scrivens. 45 saves?

Nice job holding #11 or #10 team in country scoreless.

Cornell played better late than early. Even against a better team, couldn't we have scored once?

Still, we wuz lucky.

What happened to Schafer's Shots-Per-Sixty scheme, ideally holding the other guys under 20 shots per game allowed?

3 stars of the game:
1. Scrivens (wild guess)
2. [edit add] Topher Scott "sound game" "tried his best" [announcers]
3. Tylor Mugford "effective early on"

Union beats Quinnipiac and RPI beats Princeton -- a good night for Cornell in the standings.

I also missed the pregame and there's no mention on the game thread: were the Devins healthy scratches?

Scrivens deserved the W. A lot of the UMass shots were junk, but Scrivens was outstanding. He got off to a shaky start, with his usual poor positioning/falling down and almost let in a couple early goals, but got it together and played great. I questioned why Schafer wouldn't go with Davenport after Scrivens let in 5 goals on Saturday, but Ben made him look good.

The team was lucky to escape with a tie. We were outplayed for the first 50 minutes but got things together at the end. Wasted the PP at the end of regulation/first 1:30 of OT...that was our best chance to win.

Scott, like the team, started off slowly but found his place as the game went on. It seemed like a couple years ago he was the flashy (if undersized) play-maker, but Romano took that role last year and Topher decided to be more of a passer. I think we'll see Topher move back into the limelight this season.

That's all for now....a good result against a quality team.

Everybody has a senior or junior who, in his/her opinion, hasn't progressed much beyond freshman or sophomore year. On that, Raymond Sawada is the poster child for a lot of people. I'm a Topher Scott fan but ... seems like he does an awesome job controlling the puck behind the net skating back left, back right, reversing to back left, and yet as a result, the puck doesn't get to somebody who's free to score.

Maybe this is just frustration with Cornell playing okay-not-great hockey so far this year. Maybe the fault is people not getting free to be fed the puck. Maybe it's just the sun/stars/moon alignment.

All I want for Xmas is some speedy forwards.

Well, the best I can say is that we got better as the game went on. Scrivens still worries me, but you can't argue that he somehow gets the job done (usually). UMass is the best team we've played. They are much faster than anyone else. Their fore check was almost all based upon quickness. That meant when they did get a turnover they could easily get the puck to an open man. A lot of shots from the blue line, but Scrivens still had to be sharp. The penalty at 15:21 of the third should have been a 5 minute major. There was an elbow to the head and it was right in front of the ref.

Well it's nice to know we can play a full game that we could have given up on, as they had to know they were outplayed. Again, it's good that we could get better as the game went on. They have to get some confidence from it. Also nice to see Scrivens acknowledge the crowd after the game ended. The students at his end, D-G, were shouting his name and he recognized it. Nice touch to a difficult game.

It was a good game and the fact that we managed a tie and held scoreless what is a very good UMass team shows that our team is playing better. I really don't understand how people still can't acknowledge what was a really good game by Scrivens and say he still cause for worry. Last weekend he matched his career-high 36 saves only to surpass it today with 45 saves. They main reason we didn't loose was because he was solid. On the other hand I am really getting frustrated with Sawada; he just seems to stand out there and be clueless about what to do. He missed lots of passes and totally fumbled a couple of good scoring opportunities where the UMass goalie was compromised. At least Topher shows some effort and sets up plays. I didn't think Moulson was the best captain while I was there but Sawada certainly makes him look like a great leader just by the example they set forth.

Either way I am happy with the result and looking forward to Florida. LGR!

The frustrators for me are Sawada and Krantz, with Barlow on the bubble. Michael Kennedy might be making his way onto my list.

In the past, there were so many momentarily, but few that endured. For me, the real frustrators were: Bitz, who never seemed to become the dominant Bâby-type we needed; Hynes and O'Byrne, for obvious reasons; Ryan Moynihan, who never magically transformed into Trent Andison; Jeff Oates, who never met a puck he couldn't fall on; Jason Dailey, who never learned that he was not a "one man team"; Dan Dufresne, who never really did learn how to stay out of the box; and Kent Manderville, who, frankly, always looked like he dogged it even when he was scoring bunches.

There are the near misses, with Chartrand and Drouin being the chief examples. Oh my, their senior year was fantastic.

And then there are the ones who--surely more frustrating for themselves than the fans could ever understand--never got their chance because of injuries: Ryan Smart, Vinnie Auger, and Denis Ladouceur.

That's not to say I didn't love watching some of these guys play. Dan Dufresne was a force in the crease, even if he did take inopportune penalties. ("This seat reserved for Dan Dufresne." And Oatsie, Oatsie, Oatsie made me jump for joy and go running down the isles when he scored a shorty or, frankly, did anything good at all.

For every frustrating player, though, there is the unlooked-for surprise; for every Hynes there is a Paolini. Boy, could this year's team use a Paolini.

Fantastic game, I thought. Scrivens was terrific, and I'm excited to see what this does to his SV%. The fans were louder and roudier than I've heard them in a long time. Cheers lasted a long time, and many were new and funny. I suspect some people went to their first ever hockey game this past weekend, in a certain garden somewhere, and decided to go to a second game tonight.

A certain conversation sprang up in A:

At the end of the third period, Topher Scott had one of his famous puck-handling rallies...It really reminded me of his freshman year game against Army.

Eventually, the U (have) Mass forwards got tired of chasing him and joined the defenders in front of the net, leaving Topher completely alone and unchallenged behind the goal for about 3 full seconds, at least.

I thought, "What about 'The Michigan!'" I know it's rare, and I know it's not something they seriously practice, but as a goalie who's had it done to him, I was angry that he didn't at least try.

Regardless of whether he thought about trying it or not, the subject came up, and my friend quickly said that lacrosse style goals are now against NCAA rules. Is it?

a moral victory that would have probably been a victory in 05-06. this team lacks the killer ability to take advantage of the momentous surges of energy provided by the likes of the end of game PP chance. it seemed like umass almost expected to lose for a time in the 3rd period, but the coup de grace did not come. of course it's hard to be disappointed about tying the #11 team with a shutout and a career performance from Scrivens. sawada and krantz need to step up.. if they have it in them.

LaJollaRed
Regardless of whether he thought about trying it or not, the subject came up, and my friend quickly said that lacrosse style goals are now against NCAA rules. Is it?

Yes. It is now illegal to possess the puck on your stick off of the ice surface.

Well, you partly got it today. Scali looked fairly fast all game. He's impressed me, both with is physical ability and his quickness.

That was a great game to watch. It seemed like cornell gained confidence as it went on and carried the momentum at the end of the game. I couldn't imagine what it would have sounded like if we scored at the end. Crowd presence was the best it's been all year.

One thing I think is worth noting is that this was problably the best reffing job I have ever seen at the college level. That guy was very good at letting the bulls*t go and calling stuff that was actually a penalty. I hope we see more of it.

I was able to catch about half the game, including most of the 3rd. Strange game in that UMASS's forecheck and speed caused us a lot of problems, but I didn't see them get a lot of high-quality scoring chances. While we didn't have the puck in their end for much of the game, our chances in the third period were more dangerous than UMASS's. Scrivens was definitely solid and confident.

I am concerned with our ability to finish our chances, and like others have said, I have been disappointed in Sawada's play all year. You certainly would expect more from a 2nd-round draft choice.

Agree with most comments made already - We played hard and with conviction and effort.

- couldn't understand the tripping penalty on Nichols - thought U Mass guy scissored his legs and brought him down (what did I miss)?

We seemed to be loosing a lot of face offs - only Gallagher seemed to win his share - a good indication of their quickness - several times they tied up our guy and stepped in low and kicked puck back with foot, a soccer pass.

Liked flashes of confidence and movement we saw from Fr D Berk. Liked our hustle across the board - with gold stars to Mugford, Barlow, Fontas, Greening and Scott who gave it seemed extra effort evey shift. We did not have the number of shots, but we had at least 8-9 good scoring opportunities (from my game notes) and could not convert. Their Keeper played well - and made 2-3 great saves. U Mass has foot speed and hand speed.... They had sticks on our guys A LOT; a lot of little slashes and hooks on our guys, hard to move puck and pass when a lot of that goes one. Ref was OK - He missed things both ways and let them play.... The clothesline of Greening from behind (3rd period) wasn't called and on next play Greening just crunched a UMass player as he did most of night.

Overall enjoyable game - on edge of 'bench' all night - exciting - good college hockey!
LGR

duffs4
That was a great game to watch. It seemed like cornell gained confidence as it went on and carried the momentum at the end of the game. I couldn't imagine what it would have sounded like if we scored at the end. Crowd presence was the best it's been all year.

One thing I think is worth noting is that this was problably the best reffing job I have ever seen at the college level. That guy was very good at letting the bulls*t go and calling stuff that was actually a penalty. I hope we see more of it.

I agree Chip MacDonald did an excellent job last night. I did have problems though with some of the linemen's icing calls. There were a couple times where I thought a player had the red line and a couple that I thought got close enough to a player to be waived off. And I'll say that I probably disagreed with about an equal number of icing calls on each team.

Overall, really good job by MacDonald and his crew.

I won't repeat what everyone's been saying- clearly, we agree it was a great game.

Patrick Kennedy is a very good stickhandler, which I hadn't realized before. Too bad he doesn't pass, too.

The Riley-Barlow-Greening line was awesome, especially early on.

Sawada needs to throw his weight around. Nobody else is big enough and willing to do it. We've got to have some senior leadership from people not named Topher.

Much of what I have to say is redundant (Scrivens was awesome, UMASS is very good, crowd energy was great, as was the reffing.)

My main gripe is Schafer's refusal to make Greening-Nash-Barlow-Nash-Gallagher the top PP unit. The difference in talent between them and the Scott-Sawda unit is unit and day, yet topher's unit is getting the majority of the extra man time, Everyone and their mother knows that Greening-Nash-Barlow has been our best line all year, they should be getting %60-%70 of PP time.

Also, does anyone know what's up with Mike Devin? He was missed last night.

BMac
Patrick Kennedy is a very good stickhandler, which I hadn't realized before. Too bad he doesn't pass, too.

A couple of us in B remarked that P. Kennedy had some flashes of Romnano last night with the selfish stickhandling...hope his brother gets on him for that

evilnaturedrobot

Also, does anyone know what's up with Mike Devin? He was missed last night.

Nagging injury that developed during the week according to today's IJ. Joe, and Roeszler (thank god) were healthy scratches. Poor Jacob Johnston

well, he's got almost a month to rest up now, hopefully that heals him up. I'm looking forward to seeing him on the other side of Nash on the PP again.

major kudos to someone either in the back of A or in thee band who led one of the best "[university]...sucks" cheers i've heard in a while. "University of Massachusetts..AMMM-HERST..." lol.

I couldn't agree more. This was one of the best ref'd games I've seen in 4 years here, especially since the NCAA started calling games more strictly and keeping an eye out for obstruction. Compared to Dell, Feola, and Hansen, MacDonald seemed to show proper restraint and was definitely very fair. God, I hate Dell so much...

Up until the end of the game, I thought our players were trying to get too fancy. Make that one extra pass, try to make that one extra move to get past the D, but UMass was too fast for that to work. I really thought they just needed to get more pucks to the net. Often times a player had an open shooting lane but elected to pass the puck for a golden scoring opportunity that just turned into a broken play. The only way Cornell could've scored this game was on a garbage rebound type goal.

I was really angry that Schafer didn't put out the Nash's pp-unit to open OT. It's not like the line was tired, and they create more opportunities on the ice in one shift than Ray Sawada and Justin Krueger have all season. I'm really starting to get fed up with Sawada's play. There's no passion for him. He celebrated harder for his first goal of the season at Dartmouth than Bitz did when he scored the meaningless goal there last year.

It's great to have Brendon Nash back on the blue line...although he got burned for the (I think it was) third goal against BU, he definitely has the most offensive talent of any of our blueliners. Nash can really generate some offense by pinching down-low at the right times.

I thought Greening played his most physical game of the season, and that helped create some of Cornell's better scoring opportunities.

Otherwise a pretty solid effort by the team, and I think most of us feel we exceeded expectations tonight by not losing to UMass. The shots don't tell the entire story, although Scriven's was huge when he had to be.

There's always a whipping boy when things aren't going great. Sawada is this year's.

Might as well go into the break now, to give Brendon even more time to heal, and get rid of some of the nagging aches and pains to some of the guys. I think the effort they turned in last night against a clearly superior team was outstanding. Overall, as Schafer has said, they haven't progressed far enough to be a breakout team, but I think they have more raw talent than any Cornell team since at least '05, and likely '03.

Just got back from the game and thought I'd include my thoughts. First off, not only was this my first game at Lynah in the two years since graduation but it was also my first at Lynah where I wasn't seated in the student section.

So that leads me to my first comment. The crowd sounded excellent. I know being opposite the students really let's them project the cheers to you but I heard from numerous people that it was the best crowd of the year.

Second, this game reminded me a lot of Cornell teams of the past where the plan was to check and cycle them to death and eventually wear the other team out. That was exactly how this game played out. Cornell was really hanging on by a thread until almost the third (Scrivens kept them in this game early, because it easily could've gotten out of hand). His post to post save in the second was a game saver. That forward will be having nightmares about that one.

UMass was a very quick team and gave our breakout fits, especially when the figured out our bread and butter is to hand it off to a forward behind the net and let them carry it out. It was fun to watch the coaching take place as Toot put his forecheckers on the half wall to stop that breakout, the Schafer countered by faking the handoff and having the defense skate it up the middle.

The third period is where Cornell really started to show something. There were a couple shifts in what seemed like a row where Cornell controlled the puck for a few minutes. It started with the Nash-Greening-Barlow line, continued with Topher et al, and then finshed with the 4th line. Really gassed UMass for the rest of the game, they didn't put too much together after that.

Obviously Scrivens played his best game of the year, along with Topher and in all honesty I thought Sawada looked a lot better than any game I've seen him in so far this year too. Also, P. Kennedy may have been a little selfish but he nearly blew the game when he pinched on the point (covering for Nash I believe) leading to a 3 on 1 the other way. It was down the far end from Section O so I couldn't see who broke it up. Krueger also had an excellent break up of a 2 on 1 in the 2nd.

Finally, boy could this team use some finishers.

amerks127
I'm really starting to get fed up with Sawada's play. There's no passion for him. He celebrated harder for his first goal of the season at Dartmouth than Bitz did when he scored the meaningless goal there last year.

Could you explain what you mean by this? I'm not sure I follow what you are saying by the Bitz:Sawada celebration analogy. Thanks.

Sure. Let me first go back and quote Ari's article from Week 15 last year, Traveling Back in Time.

Ari
Perhaps more concerning was the night before when Bitz tipped a shot past Mike Devine with under nine minutes left in the third period to make the game 4-1. Bitz celebrated the goal as if he had tied the game or won it in overtime.

All I'm saying is that Sawada scored a soft goal on Devine to open the scoring of the game, and he celebrated the goal in a similar fashion. It's the only time I've seen him fired up all season. Before that, I think he'd only put the puck in the net in the Red/White game.

He needs to dig a little deeper and start making an impact somewhere on the ice. It doesn't necessarily have to come by goals, but Sawada has to do something to elevate his game to that next level.

amerks127
Sure. Let me first go back and quote Ari's article from Week 15 last year, Traveling Back in Time.

Ari
Perhaps more concerning was the night before when Bitz tipped a shot past Mike Devine with under nine minutes left in the third period to make the game 4-1. Bitz celebrated the goal as if he had tied the game or won it in overtime.

All I'm saying is that Sawada scored a soft goal on Devine to open the scoring of the game, and he celebrated the goal in a similar fashion. It's the only time I've seen him fired up all season. Before that, I think he'd only put the puck in the net in the Red/White game.

Dartmouth has had our number at Thompson since before Sawada arrived at Cornell, and he drew first blood. It's one thing to say he doesn't play with enough intensity. But now we're picking nits about when and how players are allowed to celebrate?

Thanks for the clarification. I completely agree that Sawada has to step it up. That said, perhaps he realizes it as well and that's why he reacted so strongly to what was a relatively big goal at the time (soft or not). Of course my point is somewhat hurt by the fact that he was only so-so at MSG, and pretty bad last night (by all of your reports, I didn't see the game). It really would be upsetting to me if this was just an effort/desire issue, since I never thought that would be a problem for Ray after his fresh/soph years. I even got his freshman home jersey. Here's to Ray stepping up his game and leading to a stronger second half.

Edit: Beeeej summed up some of my point well as I was typing this

My point is just that Sawada has not been pulling his weight (which is a lot) all season. I don't think this team can turn the corner, or "breakout" as Schafer has been saying, without Ray elevating his game. He is an impact player, and Cornell desperately needs production from the second line. Ray provides the leadership to that line and can support the Kennedy-Konnection by playing more cohesively with them. Maybe that's the issue though. Perhaps it's difficult for Sawada to mesh with brothers...but at the same time, he started the season with Greening and Nash, and now Barlow is the one who is providing traffic in front. Ray has one penalty all season, and while that may be a testament to him playing smarter, one has to assume that if he was being anywhere near as physical as he should be, he would get called for a few more penalties merely out of the nature of the sport.

I'd like to see Schafer mix up lines 2 and 3. I think putting Sawada with Gallagher or Scott (even though it might monopolize the senior co-captains) would help provide the spark he has been missing. Furthermore, the Kennedy's have 0 goals and 3 assists between them...bringing that line to a grand total of 5 points. Here's a stat for you: Nicholls and Scali combined have 4 points.

On a team that very obviously lacks finishers, Cornell needs him to light the lamp as many, if not more times, than he did last season. Right now he is on pace to score half as many goals.