Game Thoughts

Definitely an uncharacteristic game for Cornell. Clearly, the difference in the game was special teams. Powerplay was AWFUL. Cook and Moulson both had bad games. How many opportunities is Pegoraro gonna get? He just can't find his game from last year. Penalty Kill was AWFUL. McKee looked a lot like he did earlier in the season in not challenging shooters. Defensive zone coverage was pretty inconsistent. Officiating was shockingly bad, but it was more in Cornell's favor for sure. Team really missed Vesce on the powerplay and on faceoffs. Just a poor hockey game from Cornell. Clarkson played desperate and stuck to their gameplan throughout. Cam Abbott. Man o man, how many breakaways are you going to get before you score? Nickerson had a great game. Need a lot more tomorrow night from this team or the season will end.

It isn't the end of the world. Nice comeback (twice), they just couldn't get #5 before Clarkson. I hope we can take an early lead tomorrow.

Definitely not a Cornell type of game.

I found myself thinking that maybe we might even see Marr. Not becuase McKee was so off but just because Cornell needed a kick in the butt.

I scheduled air travel for right during game time tomorrow. How damn presumptuous of me.

I thought Marr should go in after the third goal. McKee didn't see the first one, but likely would have wanted the second and third ones back, and the fourth one for that matter too. He was not challenging shooters like usual, staying deep in his net.

Not sure if this has been brought up already.. but that evil little BITCH Nickerson played on the same team that McKee did before he came to Cornell... kind of an interesting fact.

Anyone know why the first Cornell "goal" was disallowed?

[Q]paulspen Wrote:

Anyone know why the first Cornell "goal" was disallowed? [/Q]

Apparently, Hynes was in the crease when it happened. What the ref chose to ignore was that Hynes was (once again) pushed into the crease by a Clarkson player.

Well, we definitely got in Nickerson's head last night. During warmups he skated over to section B, and shot (actually just flipped, but shot sounds better) a puck at us. Nice to see him sporting those two big shiners. Should be interesting with Vart returning to the lineup tonight, especially if one team is down by a bunch near the end. I have to say, I'm not big on superstition, but I can't help but think that chanting "Season's Over" during Friday's game was the direct cause of Cornell losing. Hopefully the hockey Gods have forgetten or forgiven. Let's Go Red!!!

Whoever shouted 'Season's Over' should be drawn and quartered. I think not having Vesce added but did not directly cause the outcome of the game. I think the last-minute switch as it appears to have been may have caused a bit of confusion. I won't be a homer and say that I don't think Murphy did a bad job. If he did a bad job then every ref does a bad job (some of you think so). How many people were saying that Murphy would lose control of the game and what does he do - he calls just as many penalities on Nickerson as on the rest of the Cornell team. He didn't really try to even penalties up as was suggested on the game thread and by Adam.

Pulling McKee would have been wrong. One two many men on the ice penalty is bad but two is wrong. I was thinking McKee could stop McFeeters on the breakaway for the fourth goal but in hindsight, taking down McFeeters may have been the better option. It looked like he could have been brought down

PP execution has got to be there. If you get six more PP's than your opposition, you've got to win the game. It took a 5 on 3 to finally get a PP goal. The PP difference won't be as big tonight. But hopefully Vesce will be back and factor in big and Cornell can score early and leave Clarkson frustrated.

[Q]Whoever shouted 'Season's Over' should be drawn and quartered[/Q]

Unfortunately it was most of sections A and B, including the dolt behind me bragging to his girlfriend that he could probably sucker some idiot into buying his tickets to Sunday's game becuase "we obviously won't be playing it".

Season's Over was in reference to Matt Nickerson in anticipation of him getting a DQ.

That makes a lot more sense. Still a bit premature but I was worried there for a bit.

[Q]calgARI '07 Wrote:
Season's Over was in reference to Matt Nickerson in anticipation of him getting a DQ. [/Q]
Still, that's presumptuous that there wouldn't be a game 3 for him to come back to if he had been DQ'd for game 2. Any chants like that are always a gamble... if it turns out the way you anticipated, it's incredibly frustrating and demoralizing for the opponent and their fans, but at the same time you're risking big embarrassment if they turn around and make a comeback. Kind of like the people who shook their keys at the 4 minute mark during the game 1 would-be shut out... only to have Clarkson score 18 seconds later. Best just to save that kind of taunting until the series is clearly wrapped up.

[Q]Cornell Fan Wrote:

calgARI '07 Wrote:
Kind of like the people who shook their keys at the 4 minute mark during the game 1 would-be shut out... only to have Clarkson score 18 seconds later. Best just to save that kind of taunting until the series is clearly wrapped up. [/Q]

That's why I don't shake my keys anymore at all. Sometimes the jingling just seems like asking the hockey gods to strike our team down. However, I don't prevent other people from shaking their keys, so long as they know the rule. ( [www.elynah.com] )

[Q]Cornell Fan wrote:

Still, that's presumptuous that there wouldn't be a game 3 for him to come back to if he had been DQ'd for game 2. [/Q]Except that he already had one DQ this year, so if he was DQ'd again he would be out 2 games, thus all of this series.

Enough of this. Shaking keys, making chants. Means nothing. Let's get serious. If Cornell shows up last night, this whole thing is over. This stuff just doesn't matter right now. All that matters is winning tonight. The only thing that will factor in is what Cornell team shows up.

I'm not a fan of yelling "shoot" during the powerplay, but I can't help thinking that if we shot more we would have better opportunities for rebounds. That isn't my chief complaint, though.

I think that our PP is somewhat moribund because we play the umbrella so rigidly that we become easier to defense. We don't have players cutting through the slot or across the top of the crease; we seem not to have a person set up in front of the crease as a matter of course to screen the goalie. Either of these strategies would appear to increase the number of opportunities the team has for good shots - or at least to open up different passing lanes.

Feel free to tell me I am talking out of my ass. I've never actually played hockey, so I don't know if this is just very difficult to accomplish on skates. It sure works in basketball, though. Just cycling the puck around the perimeter isn't getting any open shots and seeing the team go 1 for 1,000 last night was beyond frustrating. Especially since it seemed that Clarkson's best opportunities came because they were constantly shifting positions and keeping the D guessing about where the passes were headed.

You make some important points. The powerplay has been brutal in large part because it totally fails to adjust to opposition penalty kills. When you play a team three straight times, that team can perfectly adjust. First game against Clarkson, 2 powerplay goals. I guess the powerplay has scored in the last two games, but it really hasn't been a factor regardless. Cook and Moulson were awful last night. They didn't look for the open man. They scored on the second 5-on-3 because of a screen that was setup from the timeout. But in general, they play the 5-on-3 like a 5-on-4 in that they try to generate chances from the points. Clarkson had TWO men high in defending the 5-on-3, but Cook and Moulson couldn't deduce that that leads there to be ONE clarkson player defending THREE Cornell players down low. On the 5-on-4, Cornell lacks a big shot from the point. That's how teams are successful on powerplays. Getting a huge shot through. Cook is tentative to shoot and Moulson is being covered closely after scoring several times from the same place. Hence they are failing to adjust. Hopefully Schafer recognized these problems and they have been assessed. We will know soon.