Game Thoughts

[calgARI '07]

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.

[ugarte]

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.

[calgARI '07]

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.