Cornell 3 St Cloud 4 OT 2010 Florida Classic

What a disappointing night. Cornell was outshot nearly 2-1 in the first but led 2-0 and built up a 3-0 lead late in the second period ... and didn't have the ability to keep up the pace for 60 minutes. The result, four unanswered goals and a 4-3 overtime loss that dropped Cornell to 4-7-1 and gave St. Cloud State the right to be cannon-fodder (?) for Miami of Ohio, an solid 4-1 winner over Maine in what probably should have been the title game, since both were in top ten while Cornell and SCSU were unranked. Also disappointing: the worst-ever attendance I've seen for a Florida Hockey Classic touranment, a combination of the economy and the lousy weather that kept some fans from traveling south. Small consolation: Cornell held St Cloud 0x7 on the PP including a minute of 5x3 early in the third. Also, a lot of the scoring by underclassmen which bodes well for the future, say 2011-2012, not necessarily March 2011.

Photos from the game:

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Cornell's first goal.

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Cornell's second goal.

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St. Cloud outshot Cornell 15-9 in the first but Cornell did a nice job muscling St. Cloud attackers away from the net.

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... while Cornell played a physical game on offense.

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With Cornell up 2-0 early in the second, St. Cloud hit two pipes (one above) about a minute apart, in case there was any question that this would be a runaway.

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Jordan Kary, far left, makes it 3-0.

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St. Cloud gets on the scoredboard late in the second.

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Attendance midway through the first game was weak. There were more Cornell fans than St. Cloud fans (or Miami or Maine) but our numbers were soft, too. This is the section diagonally across from the concentration of Cornell fans.

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SCSU pulls to within 1.

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Tying goal for SCSU with 8 minutes to play.

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Overtime, where Cornell was outshot 3-0, moments before the final goal.

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Cam Reid's second goal beats Mike Garman in OT (26 saves).

Cornell's heros were imperfect heros: Mike Devin got the first goal and four minutes later got sent off for hooking; Matthieu Brisson got the second and also got called for the trip early in the third that gave SCSU its 5x3. We got called for seven penalties (six or seven) but St. Cloud couldn't capitalize despite an aggressive down-low power play, especially early on, that didn't seem as depending on passing from point man to point man. (But still: Cornell 1x4, SCSU 0x7, and a failed 5x3 SCSI opportunity.)

I have no opinion on whether we would have fared better with Andy Iles in goal rather than off playing for the USA juniors. I was watching the broad flow of the gaame and chatting with family rather than keeping a Christmas-like naughty and nice list of Cornell players. I'm sure when a goaltender gives up four in sixty-two minutes of play, somebody's going to say he messed up. Maybe it's the coach's fault, letting us blow a nice lead. Still, it's Tom Coughlin who should be dusting off that resume.

Truth be told, I think St. Cloud wanted this one more than Cornell and outplayed Cornell for much of the game, regardless of the scoreboard the first two periods. Once St. Cloud got that third goal midway through the third, I wondered if the best outcome would be to hold them even through regulation and OT and get lucky in a shootout. Even if a Cornell-Miami match might have been a title game mismatch, at the least it would have been a toughening experience for the Big Red and given the freshmen a feel for tournament play when there's something on the line other than third place. And we did play fairly well against soon to be #1 Yale.

Maine will be a tough opponent and perhaps we'll see the team elevate their game as they did against Yale. Schafer said interesting things in the pregame about which players progressed / regressed during the first third of the season. It sounded (from Jason's broadcast) as if this was a total team regression, though Garman made some tough saves (and the post was our #1 star with three big saves -- I'm looking for big things from the post as its game continues to mature).

I, too, was disappointed in the attendance but South Florida alums who are not die-hard hockey fans may not venture out to watch an unranked Cornell team play on a Wednesday afternoon. Who knows. Most out-of-town fans made their head-south-for-the-holdays travel plans well in advance of the cold snap so I actually would have expected a larger than average turn out in nasty weather. Yesterday was not exactly a great beach, boating or fishing day on the Gulf coast. The outlet mall next door to Germain Arena was busy, but not packed, so I agree that the economy might well play a big part in all of this.

That being said, I was not as disappointed as some posters here in the team's play. We were incredibly lucky in the first period as well as playing good enough defense not to give up a couple of goals. This loss was most defintely not Garman's fault. He stood on his head at times and deserves the first star. He did make more saves than the post did and he was in position for at least two of the three saves that the post did make [suggesting that if the puck had actually been on net, he would have stopped it]. We scored on the first 2 out of 3 shots we took in the game and neither of the shots were so spectacular that they were unstoppable so we got a break in our offensive end as well.

I waited for the often-seen second period breakdown but it didn't come. Other than taking unwise penalties, I think we played to our ability.

And I don't believe there was a huge third period letdown, either. Fatigue played a factor but I wasn't paying enough attention to the line changes to comment on who got how much playing time. There was certainly a change in some of the bounces. The breaks we got early in the game disappeared. I think SCS dominated play through most of the game and were the better team. I really didn't like seeing Cornell lose a game when they started up 3-0 but I am not surprised that they did.

Face facts: this team is not comprised of seasoned, NHL-drafted players and all that it is fair to expect is for them to play hard for 60+ minutes. I think they did that yesterday. No one feels worse about the game getting away than the guys on the ice. I hope this group finds a way to win more games in 2011 than they have in 2010.

dag14
Face facts: this team is not comprised of seasoned, NHL-drafted players and all that it is fair to expect is for them to play hard for 60+ minutes. I think they did that yesterday. No one feels worse about the game getting away than the guys on the ice. I hope this group finds a way to win more games in 2011 than they have in 2010.

Well said.

Fandom is chiaroscuro. The down years are the contrast that makes the up years so satisfying.

Listening the Coach on the pre-game show on Thurs....

Chris Moulson will dress for this game.

Trotsky

dag14
Face facts: this team is not comprised of seasoned, NHL-drafted players and all that it is fair to expect is for them to play hard for 60+ minutes. I think they did that yesterday. No one feels worse about the game getting away than the guys on the ice. I hope this group finds a way to win more games in 2011 than they have in 2010.

Well said.

Fandom is chiaroscuro. The down years are the contrast that makes the up years so satisfying.

Whatever the eff chiaroscuro is (SwiftKey seems to know this word) I have to agree. So the only question is do I use Google or Bing?

another OT loss. Certainly not a collapse like yesterday, but I can't recall any Cornell team surrendering so many leads in any single season.

redice
Listening the Coach on the pre-game show on Thurs....

Chris Moulson will dress for this game.

Moulson played well. Even disregarding his goal, he was making thing happen out there and showed a lot of grit. I hope he continues to get chances to play. Roeszler, Mowrey and Jillson, who played as a line last night all sat out tonight, with Moulson, DeSwardt and Axell playing tonight. Lines tonight were juggled quite a bit, with 7 defensemen dressing as they did last night. Last night Mike Devin (yes, Mike) got a fair amount of time on right wing, but not so much tonight.
Play was much more even tonight, until the 3rd period when Maine started to dominate. In the St. Cloud game the shots ended up fairly close to even, but St. Cloud dominated and had many, many opportunities where they shot wide on good scoring chances.

jkahn

redice
Listening the Coach on the pre-game show on Thurs....

Chris Moulson will dress for this game.

Moulson played well. Even disregarding his goal, he was making thing happen out there and showed a lot of grit. I hope he continues to get chances to play. Roeszler, Mowrey and Jillson, who played as a line last night all sat out tonight, with Moulson, DeSwardt and Axell playing tonight. Lines tonight were juggled quite a bit, with 7 defensemen dressing as they did last night. Last night Mike Devin (yes, Mike) got a fair amount of time on right wing, but not so much tonight.
Play was much more even tonight, until the 3rd period when Maine started to dominate. In the St. Cloud game the shots ended up fairly close to even, but St. Cloud dominated and had many, many opportunities where they shot wide on good scoring chances.

This is a minor trend that bothers me. Protecting a lead used to be our strength.

Just out of curiosity, since we've now lost three OT games this season, does anyone know what the team record is for most OT losses in a season? We might be able to set at least one record this season!

Jim Hyla
This is a minor trend that bothers me. Protecting a lead used to be our strength.

From October 2002 to November 2009 (I don't feel like updating), the team was 115-4-7 when leading after two periods.

Four OT losses in 1981-82, 1997-98 and 2001-02 (two of these in 2OT).

Disappointing night but what a great photo recap! Thank you Bill!

ebilmes

Jim Hyla
This is a minor trend that bothers me. Protecting a lead used to be our strength.

From October 2002 to November 2009 (I don't feel like updating), the team was 115-4-7 when leading after two periods.

Thanks, I guess. I'm not sure I wanted to know we had fallen that far.