ECAC SF#2: Cornell 4 Princeton 3 - Postgame Thread

squeak

What a freakin' great game. It seemed Princeton had a step on us for large chunks of time during regulation, but we turned it up a notch at the end of the third and never looked back. Other than a few scary let-up moments in the two overtime periods, we kept crashing the net and working the boards like the Cornell teams we've come to know and love, and shelled Kalemba until he finally gave.

I'm sure I'll be able to talk again by tomorrow.

Patrick Kennedy hit everything that moved in the above mentioned end of the third and in the OTs. There were loads of near calls in the OTs. You could hear the ref yelling for the players to stop holding. Great to enjoy some old fashioned bangin' - lots of fun to watch the Red take it to them.

Yeah, it got a wee bit chippy and grabby in the OTs, but the refs heroically backed off, even on a couple I would have been okay with them calling.

By the way, Blake Gallagher is my hero for this game - the guy was on crutches a few days ago, and he took a lot of shifts and worked his ass off. Without him on the ice, who knows how much steam the rest of the forwards would've had in the second OT?

Ahhh...sweet revenge! It almost takes all the pain away from our 3-2 loss at home during the regular season. (Not ALL the pain but most of it.) This has to be one of our biggest comebacks in the ECAC tourney doesn't it? The only game bigger that I can remember was our comeback against Harvard in '03. I think it was '03.

We're now at 8T in the pairwise and have a GREAT chance to steal a 2 seed with a win tomorrow.

This post was more appropriate for the postgame tread:

What an incredible three game series between these two teams this year. A 1-0 nail-biting CU win @ Princeton in the season opener. The heartbreaking loss where Princeton scores twice in the final minute to win 3-2. And now this, score twice in the final three minutes, one an extra-attacker goal, to force OT, and then win in double OT against a goalie having an incredible game. That's as good as it gets.

Also, I think the new poll in the upper right should be edited to include Sean Whitney. What a great game that kid played. Very aggressive and confident, even after he wasn't able to score from the slot.

Germ
Ahhh...sweet revenge! It almost takes all the pain away from our 3-2 loss at home during the regular season.

Must not be too painful if you forget the score.

Chris '03

Germ
Ahhh...sweet revenge! It almost takes all the pain away from our 3-2 loss at home during the regular season.

Must not be too painful if you forget the score.

2-1 my bad. But you're right...it could have been a 3-goal lead that we blew in that game and (with tonight's win) I wouldn't care all that much. If we win tomorrow I won't care about alot of other regular season losses either.

Too many times we've been the one come-from-behind on. This is sweet. Even more so with R Nash and Greening attoning for penalties that almost did Cornell in.

Been a long time since I saw Cornell so dominant as in the first 3-4 minutes of the first overtime. All without scoring, but coming close oh-so-many times. It was scary because Princeton could still get one lucky break, especially once we let down some from the high-energy level that began the OT. That's what makes hockey in OT so exciting in the playoffs.

Hard to believe shots on goal were nearly even (Cornell 43-40 total including 10-10 and 4-3 in the two OTs). It seemed that Cornell carried play the majority of the game. One exception: In the middle of the third, I thought there was a letup where we forgot to forecheck.

I sat behind the Princeton goal all five periods. (Talk about not crowded - the box office offered me second row behind the glass a few minutes before the faceoff. I think the crowd would have fit in Lynah, no matter what the box office attendance says.) It was impressive to see how often Cornell beat Princeton to the puck and how often Cornell came away with the puck after the scrums along thje boards and picked up loose pucks in the offensive zone, even if we shot wide or the ensuing pass didn't go exactly where it was supposed to. Friday night, Cornell seemed well schooled in the basics.

My personal sense, even though Cornell makes such good use of all players suited up for the game, was that the OT seemed a little scary when the first line wasn't out there. Maybe it was just me.

Zane Kalemba really is a first rate goaltender. He didn't deserve to lose, but Princeton did, and that was his team.

I saw a lot of St. Lawrence fans who stuck around for game 2 while Yalies were barely in appearance. Maybe because the SLU fans were in Albany for the weekend while the Yale fans, such as they were, may have driven back to New Haven for dinner.

billhoward
Too many times we've been the one come-from-behind on.

That's what she said.

According to the recap on USCHO, Greening beat Scrivens high for the GWG. (Yes, I've already alerted Mr. Sullivan to the error. I'm just sayin'.)

A few observations:

1. We carried the play and puck possession for much of the game, perhaps with the exception of the 2nd period. This was a well-deserved win.

2. Sean Whitney was a revelation. Showed surprising (to me anyway) offensive skill, and didn't seem at all intimidated by the big stage. Hard to imagine he won't be a regular on the blue line next year.

3. Barlow was (again) our best forward, even ignoring his amazing goal. Mugford was outstanding as well. Nash and Greening seemed off their games, but came up big when it counted. AMazing that Gallagher was a strong as he was coming off what sounded like a bad ankle injury.

4. Scrivens was not stellar, but did enough. Kalemba had to make at least a handful more difficult saves. Our gameplan was clearly to shoot high, and we missed some golden opportunities just over the net.

5. Nice to get another crack at Yale, knowing that our NCAA tourney life is (apparently) not dependent upon a win. Yale has to be the favorite, but if we play with the passion from Friday, we have a very decent shot.

Beeeej
According to the recap on USCHO, Greening beat Scrivens high for the GWG.

Kind of like when a softball team only has 8, so one of the guys on the batting team helps out by playing catcher?

So glad that game was on tv last night. The people at pepsi got a treat with both games yesterday. I wish we had been there. Best I can get us I think was 6th in the PWR and worst was I think #11. It is possible for 3 ecac teams to make the tourney but not 4.

I just wish that the final was not tape delayed - so strange for the semis to be live and the final to be tape delayed by a day

I was surprised that the Barlow goal was not on sports center this morning. What a great goal.
LGR!

Germ
This has to be one of our biggest comebacks in the ECAC tourney doesn't it? The only game bigger that I can remember was our comeback against Harvard in '03. I think it was '03.

One of the biggest, yes, but for the biggest, though it was a "different" ECAC, I still have to go with Providence.

jy3

I was surprised that the Barlow goal was not on sports center this morning. What a great goal.
LGR!

Agreed, there were several less impressive, ho-hum plays selected (even trying to remove my bias). It may be that the broadcast caught no one's attention at ESPN.

JasonN95

jy3

I was surprised that the Barlow goal was not on sports center this morning. What a great goal.
LGR!

Agreed, there were several less impressive, ho-hum plays selected (even trying to remove my bias). It may be that the broadcast caught no one's attention at ESPN.

ESPN's crew putting together highlights top 10s is probably a small bunch of people under time constraints and what catches their attention outside basketball is the oddball event like our almost-against-goal. But, yes, Barlow's goal was simply amazing that he outwaited the goaltender and also didn't get pummeled by a Princeton defender or stick-checked. The puck has to bounce our way eventually. Speaking of bounces, at the start of each period with the ice just resurfaced, on some long passes and icing passes, the puck crossed the blue line or thereabouts and just flipped up in the air. Wonder if the ice surface was bad in other ways? The plexiglas panels were horribly pitted and not very clean.

The box score lists attendance as 3517. So we could have held the event at Lynah and had room left over. Were there 250 Princeton fans there?

I always remember Albany as having poor ice conditions.
That memory is most clear thanks to Harvard's rink-length shot at CU's empty net in the 2003 championship game. I swear that puck was going in, before it skipped up on end after crossing the blue line and rolled wide of our net. The resulting icing set up the face off in Harvard's zone that we scored off of to send the game into overtime. What a game.
Last night was amazing, too. Wish I was there.

I second the poor ice conditions. It seemed that every time the two zambonis drove around the ice, they would miss small slivers of ice and have to go back again to fix what they didn't get the first time around.

The other thing are the boards. The boards near the Zamboni doors had a kink in them. There were several passes around those boards that got re-directed, especially those that were at glass level.

billhoward
The box score lists attendance as 3517. So we could have held the event at Lynah and had room left over. Were there 250 Princeton fans there?

More to the point, were there 3517 fans there? I can't figure our why the east's fan base outside of the Boston area is so blase about the league finals. I am also somewhat disappointed at the fan numbers during the Albany regionals. It is a big arena to fill but there are always too many empty seats.

JasonN95

jy3

I was surprised that the Barlow goal was not on sports center this morning. What a great goal.
LGR!

Agreed, there were several less impressive, ho-hum plays selected (even trying to remove my bias). It may be that the broadcast caught no one's attention at ESPN.

What?? Show a lovely coast-to-coast goal? Show a winning OT goal? Show one of the several late in the game goal flurries? No. Not when you can show a Dwayne Wade shot from beyond half court that didn't even count.

But hey, they did show a basketball highlight that involved a bounce pass. I didn't realize the kids today knew how to make a bounce pass.

Yeah, I too thought that ESPN just might have put on a college hockey highlight or two on. What was I thinking.