Cornell 2 vs. WMU 3 FINAL Game 2

[atb9]

Sorry for the stream of thought sentences...trying to pump this out fast...

I definitely think we had a lot of those almost-goals-but-misses last night.  It seems like we are taking more chances with dangerous cross ice passes on the power play that I very rarely saw the past few years--Maybe because we have more playmakers and less power at the point.  Marr is still out with a tweaked groin; McKee seems really nervous out there especially when he flips the puck out of his glove to the face off circle as fast as humanly possible.  It especially rung true on Friday when McKee missed a penalty and was trapped in his thoughts in the goal.  Downs had to go out to him after the whistle to wake him up and remind him to go to the bench on a penalty.  Gleed makes me nervous whenever the puck comes his way...it always seems to jump over his blade and trickle out of the zone or get caught between his skates.  Hornby played his ass off this weekend--his usually spark plug self but he also flashed some nice stick work this weekend.  Vesce had trouble with faceoffs when I thought he was one of the elite faceoff guys in the ECAC last year.  WMU was able to play with us along the boards even though I was expecting them to be midgets that we would easily push around.  Schafer has a lot of work to do but this freshmen class is the real deal--but still only freshmen.  It's going to be a tough week of practice for the guys and at the same time I've got to keep reminding myself to be patient.

[David Harding \'72]

Was the condition of the ice any better Saturday than in was Friday?  Did that make a difference?

[calgARI \'07]

I was actually very happy and surprised with Gleed's play this weekend.  He skated extremely well.  I will concede that he played better on Friday night, and Schafer likely agreed as it seemed as if his ice time was significantly lower on Saturday.

[Section A]

Patience is most definitely important right now. It's very common for teams to start off like this and then become dominant later in the season. Schafer even hinted at this trend in a quote from Friday's Daily Sun, saying, "The biggest thing for a lot of guys is not to get frustrated, knowing that we will be a much different team in two weeks, and five months from now."

The team still has quite a bit of gelling to do; at times during the games this weekend, it was as if there were 5 skaters trying to do things all by themselves, not playing as a team. I'd imagine that this week's practices will be intense, and hopefully we'll start to see some of the work pay off next weekend against Yale and Princeton. Also, since we're ranked #58 (out of 58 teams) in special teams, lots of time should be spent on the PP and PK.

[Josh '99]

calgARI '07 wrote:
- Special Teams were a huge factor.  Cornell just cannot execute on the powerplay.  They went 1 for 9 on the powerplay, including a short handed goal against.  Even though the second unit scored the powerplay goal, I thought they particularly struggled.  Neither McCutcheon nor Pegaroro shoot the puck and you need the pointmen to get pucks to the net on the powerplay.  McCutcheon and Pegoraro are not guys with huge shots so only one of them should be back there, probably Pegoraro.  McCutcheon should be down low with his strong playmaking ability.  O'Byrne should definitely be getting powerplay time just because he has a huge shot and that alone will generate a lot more chances.

I'm speculating that with different personnel than last year (i.e. no Murray, Bâby, or McRae to shoot from the point), we'll see a different power play scheme than last year.  Seems like the team had some success with low cross-goal passes, if I recall correctly.

[Ben Rocky \'04]

Those passes looked great, they just didn't connect this weekend.  Hopefully on the road they will start to.

[Josh '99]

Well, they did at least once (Hynes's goal on Saturday).

[Richard Stott \'70 (110-5-1)]

Remember, Mark McRae, Baby and Murray last year were playing on the power play for their fourth year, that doesn't happen very often.  There's a lot of talent out there and I think they probably will get it together.  Salmela can really fire the puck, he has a quick release  and does a pretty good job of keeping it on the goal.

[DisplacedCornellian]

Richard Stott '70 (110-5-1) wrote:
  Salmela can really fire the puck, he has a quick release  and does a pretty good job of keeping it on the goal.

Keeping it on goal was something they seemed to have trouble with this weekend.  Anybody else notice that everytime McCutcheon shot the puck it seemed to go about 3 feet above the crossbar??

[ugarte]

WMU dropped a pair at UAF this weekend. Ugh.