North Country @ Central NY

Thoughts? Critical weekend for both Cornell and Clarkson - I think everyone feels like having to go through Schenectady or New Haven will pretty much guarantee exiting the playoffs before Atlantic City.

Yale's been looking pretty mortal, lately.

Remaining RS opponents, games above/below .500:

+0 Clarkson
-6 St. Lawrence
+7 at Union
+4 at RPI
-9 Harvard
+4 Dartmouth
-3 at Brown
+8 at Yale

4 of the final games are against the top of the league and 3 of those are on the road. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

Trotsky
Yale's been looking pretty mortal, lately.

Remaining RS opponents, games above/below .500:

+0 Clarkson
-6 St. Lawrence
+7 at Union
+4 at RPI
-9 Harvard
+4 Dartmouth
-3 at Brown
+8 at Yale

4 of the final games are against the top of the league and 3 of those are on the road. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

I know that I've been rather rosy in some of my comments lately, but your list brings me to my other way of looking at things. I would find it shocking if we didn't win at least four of those games.

So, in the worst scenario I can consider, we, with 24 points, would be virtually assured of avoiding New Haven or Schenectady. There has not been a year since the Great Divorce in which sixth place has required more than 24 points. But, considering how RPI's been playing of late, it'd be best to avoid Troy too.

I'll be pretty happy if they get at least 4 points out of the next 4 games. And since I'm going to be in Ithaca this weekend, I'd like to see them meet that requirement by Sunday.

Well,I definitely think Cornell is a 100% must-win game for Clarkson. If we get into a position where we don't even have a chance to win the tiebreaker with Cornell, it's going to be a lot harder to end up 5th or 6th, if we even manage to catch you guys. Colgate is another must-win, but only because we can't afford to be dropping points to the worst team in the league at this stage of the game. Somehow I think we're going to end up leaving Starr with a loss though

You guys took it to us pretty hard back in November. I hope we return the favor, but I'm predicting a 2-2 tie here. We're coming out of a bad January (2-6) and you're coming in with a 3-game unbeaten streak. Plus it's at Lynah. We never seem to get breaks there.

We'll be "short" on defense, as described by Brandon Thomas in the IJ, see page 2. D'Agostino's one game suspension was for leaving the bench during the fight. As described, an unfortunate call. Also Seymour has left the team.

Sounds pretty cheesey regarding the call on D'Agostino. Any particular reason you have been starting 7 D consistently? Is this classic Cornell under Schafer this year, lots of left wing lock and trap hockey, or is it another high pressure offensive experiment?

Clarkson is going to be undermanned as well - current injury report (unofficial):
out this weekend
captain Mark Borowiecki, D - broken foot (played on it last weekend though)
Nik Pokulok, D - unspecified arm/shoulder injury last I heard
Ben Sexton, F - been out since November with a broken clavicle, could be back in a week or two

Losing Boro is going to hurt a lot, as Boro is our best defenseman in my book. Pokulok has been having a very solid year so far, and has been out since his injury at Yale.

daredevilcu
Thoughts? Critical weekend for both Cornell and Clarkson - I think everyone feels like having to go through Schenectady or New Haven will pretty much guarantee exiting the playoffs before Atlantic City.

On the road is tough, but we have a 4-1-2 record for away games in league play so far, so I'm optimistic about winning against at least Brown and one other opponent. You guys pulled through with a win again Brown and RPI, so I think it's definitely possible for us to get points during those upcoming games.

As to this upcoming weekend? Well, you know where I stand. I am really hoping for a 4-point weekend, but then again, we gave Colgate their second tie of the season, so anything could happen.

daredevilcu
Sounds pretty cheesey regarding the call on D'Agostino. Any particular reason you have been starting 7 D consistently? Is this classic Cornell under Schafer this year, lots of left wing lock and trap hockey, or is it another high pressure offensive experiment?

My guess is that it's more a reflection of Schafer's talent assessment of this team. I think there's no definitive 7th defenseman, or even 5th or 6th. I think there are forwards who he believes are more marginal starters, and he'd rather have the seven d-men dress.

jkahn

daredevilcu
Sounds pretty cheesey regarding the call on D'Agostino. Any particular reason you have been starting 7 D consistently? Is this classic Cornell under Schafer this year, lots of left wing lock and trap hockey, or is it another high pressure offensive experiment?

My guess is that it's more a reflection of Schafer's talent assessment of this team. I think there's no definitive 7th defenseman, or even 5th or 6th. I think there are forwards who he believes are more marginal starters, and he'd rather have the seven d-men dress.

Ross played center at Harvard and (per collegehockeystats.net) also at Dartmouth, so while there were seven guys listed on the roster as defensemen dressed and playing, there weren't actually seven guys taking shifts at defense.

Josh '99

jkahn

daredevilcu
Sounds pretty cheesey regarding the call on D'Agostino. Any particular reason you have been starting 7 D consistently? Is this classic Cornell under Schafer this year, lots of left wing lock and trap hockey, or is it another high pressure offensive experiment?

My guess is that it's more a reflection of Schafer's talent assessment of this team. I think there's no definitive 7th defenseman, or even 5th or 6th. I think there are forwards who he believes are more marginal starters, and he'd rather have the seven d-men dress.

Ross played center at Harvard and (per collegehockeystats.net) also at Dartmouth, so while there were seven guys listed on the roster as defensemen dressed and playing, there weren't actually seven guys taking shifts at defense.

Agreed, he's done that a lot. It also provides for 6 d'men if one is injured, out for a penalty, etc.

daredevilcu
Is this classic Cornell under Schafer this year, lots of left wing lock and trap hockey, or is it another high pressure offensive experiment?

Based on his pregame comments of a week ago, it's a combination of the skills on the roster and his desire to shore up the blueline in a year when we do not have a lot of experience. Having said that, we seem to be getting a fair amount of pressure from the point this year and we have a couple guys who love to shoot from there (though one of them will serving his hiatus Friday).

Trailing Princeton 4-1 mid-2nd period in New Jersey, Union scores four goals in six-and-a-half minutes to go ahead, then adds two more in the third to win 7-4.

Yale, Union, and RPI, where Cornell will play three of its remaining four away games, have a combined 37-2-1 record om home ice.

George Roll in IJ:
Clarkson head coach George Roll said finding ways to score was the beginning of his team's problems.

This guy's a freaking genius!! Hey George, your team just gave up five goals to a team that is not exactly an offensive juggernaut! Don't you think playing defense and staying out of the penalty box ought to be higher on your agenda?

Well, that was about as depressing a game I've seen in a while. Can't believe McPherson didn't score after that move to get open in the slot and draw the penalty - kid has some serious skills. Giving up that shorthanded goal was the real back breaker though. Ugly, very very ugly. It was also painfully obvious to anyone who has watched Clarkson this season that we really missed Borowiecki and Pokulok, arguably our two best defensive defensemen. Good to see Tremblay on the ice after that hit from behind. It looked pretty terrible at first, definitely worthy of the 5 + game DQ in my mind. It would've been nicer if our guys had kept their cool rather than rushed in and taken a roughing penalty to give 2 minutes of the major away right off the bat though.

Overall I thought Clarkson played well for the most part. We definitely had several great chances that we didn't capitalize on. Giving up 2 goals on 4 powerplays is pretty uncharacteristic for us, and both of them were just cannons from the point that Karpowich never saw or had a chance at. Very much typical Cornell style though, great special teams and good defense after you get a lead. I hope we get to play you again this season, but that's pretty unlikely.

That Esposito dangle was great though. Wrap around, look to pass to the point, cut back, deke and score. Easily the best individual goal I've seen this year from the Red.