Yale 4 @ Cornell 2_ 11/19

I tried loading up the RedCast feed and and got the following message:
"Sorry this event is not currently live. Please try again later"

And from the icon, we only get AUDIO??? WTF. My F*&^%ing Comcast system doesn't carry CBS sports.

Auuggghhh.

I'll try and keep this up-to-date, for you know, posterity's sake.
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Cornell PPG 16:34 1st Mike Devin (Unassisted)
1-0 Cornell

Yale 2:50 2nd Root (sp) (Unassisted)
1-1

Cornell PPG 5:30 2nd Joe Devin (Kennedy, Miller)
2-1 Cornell

Yale 11:32 2nd Little (Kearney, Denny)
2-2

Yale 2:52 3rd Ziegler (Peel, Little)
3-2 Yale

Yale 19:29 3rd ENG Mason (Ziegler)
4-2 Yale

Goaltending:
Yale Ryan Rondeau 15 saves, 2 GAA
Cornell Mike Garman 26 saves, 3 GAA


Bummer.

Other ECAC scores 11/19/10 (all Final):
Brown 5 @ Colgate 2
Quinnipiac 2 v. Dartmouth 0
Princeton 1 v. Hahvard 0

7:30. It starts at 7:30

The game is being televised on CBS college sports in my area. Boston Comcast HD.

cornell hosed on the no call.. to bad they didnt use the tv replay that clearly showed it a goal.

On the no goal, was the ref out of position?

nope.. but he didnt apply the rule correctly.. he blew the whistle after the puck crossed the line,. however they tried to use the cornell replay and no way the camera showed the puck was in when the tv replay did.

Just caught the game off the DVR (awesome to see Lynah in HD!). 1st half of the game we were able to break out of the defensive end without much trouble and had the better of the action. But once Yale tied it at 2, they started forechecking aggressively and we were consistently pinned in our end. That being said, Yale didn't have an excessive number of grade A chances, but they did keep the puck in our zone for long stretches of the 3rd period.

I thought Garman was fine, and can't fault him on any of the goals. Yale's first goal came after Mike Devin lost it in front of the net, and Yale's second goal was as pretty a goal as I've seen in college hockey in a long time. Kearney made an unbelievable backhand pass right to Little's stick, and Little just had to make a quick move to find the back of the net.

Jillson had a great chance in the 3rd after a beautiful rush. We're going to need more of that from him. Not much from Esposito tonight; I thought this was the type of match-up that would be good for him. I thought Mowery played well, as did Joe Devin and Whitney.

Gotovets had a lot of trouble controlling the puck tonight, but he certainly wasn't alone in that.

We could certainly use a bounce-back win tomorrow.

CU went back to their terrible breakout with the d-man behind our goal. Sometimes you have to do that to get a line change, but tonight Yale did a great 2 man deep forecheck against it and we had no come-back. Against that you need a quick passing break-out, they have 2 men in deep and if you pass out before their d-men get up you can move it. However if you sit back and let them set up and then try and skate it out from behind the net, they can get turnovers and keep us pinned in deep. Gotovets had some of the worst attempts I can remember.

The third period, actually starting some in the second, was the worst I've seen in I don't know when. The first period showed that when you play your defense, and get a break-out you can play with them. Obviously we can't let them get behind us like we did on their first 2 goals. Garman had no chance with their sharp-shooters in alone like they were. Overall they didn't have as many quality chances, as just wearing us down with the forecheck.

The only hope I take from this is that if we learn to play our game we might be able to play with them. The first period was the best against them that I can remember in a while. Who would think we could hold them to 5 SOG. If we learn and continue to improve, just maybe.

So, how did Lynah look in HD? Besides awesome that is.

I wish I could tell you. But my provider, RCN, doesn't carry the HD version of CBS College Sports. Nevertheless, even without HD, it sure as hell looked like we scored that 3rd goal.

Yale was the better team. Cornell could have won. Cornell would have tied, at the least ... were it not for the quick whistle on the Sean Collins breakaway where Rondeau trapped the puck and clearly (on TV maybe not on Cornell officiating cam) slid into the net and crossed the line with the puck; since no one else was near Rondeau it's not as if a Yale defenseman could have stopped Rondeau's backwards motion - but regardless, the whistle appeared to come quickly as Rondeau was still in motion (some will say the whistle came once the puck was clearly over the line) and since he was in no danger from assault by any other Cornell player, why the quick whistle - let Rondeau's motion come to a stop?

Cornell's turnover on a defenseman breakout directly in front of our net leading to Yale's first goal is the kind of play Cornell is not supposed to make, except at the other end. On that Yale goal and another, it seemed as if the whole sequence from nothing-out-of-the-ordinary to holy-crap-Yale-just-scored-on-us was about 2-1/2 seconds. And that is the mark of a very good team.

Cornell may kick it up a notch as the freshmen mature, Yale may lose more players to intoxicated falls into swimming pools, or Yale may run away with the RS title, in which case the Princeton and Yale games won't matter, but more likely we'll regret coming away from those two games with 0 not 2 or maybe 3 points. This is a building year, supposedly, and let's see how far we go.

How did the game look on TV? The HD broadcast was sensational although the splotchy, straight-down lighting didn't seem to pick up the full color depth of the jerseys except on closeups. (Whereas Quinnipiac is like a TV studio with ice on the floor.) Seeing the game, you still have to pinch yourself to realize that instant replay is possible in Lynah; there is no force field preventing it as happens with the webcasts. CBS I believe brought a crew of four announcers / sidelines reporters; the color guy had decent insights. The Erin Andrews analog was wearing standard def makeup for a high-def broadcast. CBS must have had extra cameras with nothing to do (or more likely it was shot before the game) but at one point in talking again about what a neat place Lynah is to play and how unique it is, they showed a shot of the outside entrance with the words Lynah Rink and that nondescript brick Cornell must have gotten on sale in 1958 at whatever preceded Home Depot. The announcers several times harped on how much opponents love to play at Lynah. None offered the suggestion that some players / teams may HATE to play at Lynah and at the same time look at it as the four most memorable road trips of their college hockey years.

I started watching about half way through the second period. No question that the 3rd Red goal was a goal. Thats the way the puck bounces, sometimes you get the call and sometimes you don't you can't rely on the ref to win the game for you. That being said the ice was clearly tipped in favor of the Bulldogs. At least for the part of the game I saw they were in a different league, faster, better puck handling, better fore check better between the blue lines. The 3rd period was ugly.

Seeing the game in HD was sweet. It will make going back to fuzzy redcast difficult.

Let's see how we do against Brown tonight. I think it will be a long season unless something changes. On a brighter note the Women won!

My observations from seeing the game in-person:

(1) Cornell looked great in the first period and skated well with Yale, notwithstanding a few whiffed passes. By the third period, they were gassed, and looked absolutely awful in the last five minutes of the game: probably the worst I have ever seen them play. E.g., D'Agostino could barely stay upright. (I'm curious to know what % of the game he played, because he looked very, very tired by the end.)

(2) Mike Devin did just about everything wrong. He continues not to impress me. I don't understand why he continues to get playing time.

Agreed on all points above with one additional observation to Kyle's point.

Kyle Rose
My observations from seeing the game in-person:

(1) Cornell looked great in the first period and skated well with Yale, notwithstanding a few whiffed passes. By the third period, they were gassed, and looked absolutely awful in the last five minutes of the game: probably the worst I have ever seen them play. E.g., D'Agostino could barely stay upright. (I'm curious to know what % of the game he played, because he looked very, very tired by the end.)

The guys were gassed last night because they were not changing the lines quickly enough. Pinned deep in your own end for one and two minutes at a time is a surefire way to become exhausted and you can't change until you are sufficiently up-ice. The breakout is their biggest problem. Going behind the net and inviting the opponent to pressure you just isn't smart hockey. Get the puck in the corner, move it to a wing on the hash marks, up the boards, and a cross-ice pass in the neutral zone and off you go. If I could learn that in pee-wee hockey, and it worked, why not use it here? Back to basics, boys. Move the puck, keep fresh legs on the ice and good things will happen.

That said, one other humorous note from last night's game. CBS wanted to show the cowbell in the second period and asked me with 10:25 remaining in the second if I could come and talk to the reporter in the aisle. Clearly, that wouldn't work. So the reporter came into Section B, stood next to me, confirmed our location and my name with the camera people. I told her it would be the next whistle but I still think she had no idea it was coming when she looked at me strangely when I started playing. When I finished, she informed me that the camera crew had not found us and that she would come back and try again in the third period. She never came which unfortunately meant that none of you got a view into Section B last night. I guess the chaos of Lynah just wasn't made for TV and I'm just fine with that. We weren't about to modify tradition for fifteen seconds of fame on a channel nobody gets anyway.

(2) Mike Devin did just about everything wrong. He continues not to impress me. I don't understand why he continues to get playing time.


Maybe because he scores goals?

dag14
(2) Mike Devin did just about everything wrong. He continues not to impress me. I don't understand why he continues to get playing time.


Maybe because he scores goals?

When your team is defense-first, playing a two-way defenseman who can't handle the puck in his own end is probably not a winning strategy: from these eyes, he gave up more opportunities last night than he created. Just sayin'.

The simple analysis: Yale is really good this year. If Rondeau can have a reasonably good year and no one goes for a midnight swim in early March, they could very well be a FF team. For Cornell, I hope Mike adjusts his approach to the game a little more to fit the skills of the players he currently has and the way the game is being referred. I'm sure he watches the films a lot and can see that imperfect execution of the Schafer style of play is going to produce a lot of penalties.

BigRedHockeyFan
The simple analysis: Yale is really good this year. If Rondeau can have a reasonably good year and no one goes for a midnight swim in early March, they could very well be a FF team. For Cornell, I hope Mike adjusts his approach to the game a little more to fit the skills of the players he currently has and the way the game is being referred. I'm sure he watches the films a lot and can see that imperfect execution of the Schafer style of play is going to produce a lot of penalties.

Excuse me, have you seen these games? (Yeah, I'm being too harsh, sorry.) His style is very up-tempo. There is a lot less dump and run, and a hell of a lot more skating. The problem isn't his style, it's his players being able to execute. I'll say it again, we lost to Yale not because our forwards couldn't skate, but because the D and deep forward couldn't get past their forecheck, and because our D let two of their sharpshooters in alone on goal. We need better play in our defensive zone, not better offense. You're not going to score if you're outshot 14-3.

I only saw a few minutes of the Yale game, but I don't know why every team doesn't send two forecheckers against Cornell. Yale usually does this for at least part of the game against us and has now won 5 (6?) in a row. Memorably, St. Lawrence was able to frustrate us by doing this during that awful 8-1 affair in Canton. I know the talent level of this year's team is a little lower than what we had the last couple of years, but carrying the puck out of the zone has been a consistent problem.

I agree with BigRedHockeyFan that Schafer needs to adjust his strategy based on the players' individual skills. We can already see the advantage of that on a limited basis with Mowrey and Gotovets on second shift and I think our starters just need some good support strategies that can help them bring their potential out.

With this in mind, Jim hits it right on the spot - our defense needs work - more specifically puck handling in our own zone. I am not sure what works best for current players to counter those two man forechecks that Elie is describing, but they are definitely a big issue. One way to minimize those situations, however, and to save time, is to ditch our old setup behind the net and go straight up the ice once puck possession is established. Then, two blueliners should fall back and follow behind the offensive shift and let them take the puck down the ice. By focusing play in the neutral zone and not bringing the puck back, we minimize defensive risks that happen on our side and will keep pressure on the opposing team. Of course, when you're dealing with teams who deploys that same strategy, we need to think of a way to take advantage of our size to dominate the neutral zone, as well as make sure our defensive players know where to position themselves to prevent successful breakaway goals.