Cornell at Harvard postgame

[billhoward]

Disappointing weekend. Hard to tell which was worse:
- Cornell's offensive play ...
- Cornell special teams PP and PK ... or
- the CSTV feed. So many choices.

[edit add] We're left to rooting for RichS to cheer home Clarkson over Q'pac so we get a home ice bye if I have the playoff options correct. And wondering just how far this season will go.

P.S. I'm not trying to hog the postgame thread first-posts. I even waited about 10 minutes. But nobody else seemed psyched.

[Rita]

The PP. Definitely the PP.

[ithacat]

Oh, Matt Moulson...how I miss thee...

[French Rage]

So where do the possible outcomes of the other games leave us?

[billhoward]

[quote ithacat]Oh, Matt Moulson...how I miss thee...[/quote]

... you miss having somebody else to rag on for our lack of scoring punch?

[Rita]

[quote French Rage]So where do the possible outcomes of the other games leave us?[/quote]

I'm not sure, see JTW's sight, or Sully's update in the Clarkson game thread. Union is in 12th place according to the standings board just shown on EspnU.

[billhoward]

For ECACHL playoffs, I believe it's

1 SLU bye
2 Clarkson bye
3 Dartmouth bye
4 Cornell bye if Clarkson beats Quinnipiac <-- this happened
4 Quinnipiac bye if Fighting Deerticks win/tie Clarkson <-- didn't happen
5 Cornell or Quinnipiac host Union first round
6 Princeton host Brown
7 Harvard hosts RPI
8 Yale hosts Colgate
9 Colgate
10 RPI
11 Brown
12 Union

Standings with some not all Saturday games in 
 Team GP  W-L-T Pts. GF-GA     GP  W-L-T GF-GA 
1 St. Lawrence 22 16-5-1 33 73-55     34 20-12-2 105-91 
2 Clarkson     21 12-5-4 28 70-52     33 20-8-5 118-84 
3 Dartmouth    22 12-7-3 27 69-60     29 16-10-3 89-79 
4 Quinnipiac   21 10-7-4 24 73-59     33 16-12-5 121-91 
  Cornell      22 10-8-4 24 64-55     29 14-11-4 88-74  
6  Harvard      22 10-10-2 22 67-65     29 12-15-2 80-82 
  Princeton    22 10-10-2 22 69-63     29 13-13-3 89-83 
8 Yale         22 8-13-1 17 56-72     29 11-15-3 75-91 
  Colgate      22 7-12-3 17 53-60     36 13-19-4 91-92 
  Rensselaer   22 6-11-5 17 55-84     34 10-16-8 86-123 
11 Brown       22 6-12-4 16 65-69     29 10-13-6 88-86 
12 Union       22 7-14-1 15 54-74     34 14-17-3 98-111 

[ithacat]

[quote billhoward][quote ithacat]Oh, Matt Moulson...how I miss thee...[/quote]

... you miss having somebody else to rag on for our lack of scoring punch? [/quote]

I miss the discussions about how all he could do was score powerplay goals.

[jtwcornell91]

Damn, I forgot that my alarm only works if I turn it on, and thus woke up at 3:15, once the game was over.  Listening to Tech-Q now.  Fortunately all of my interests align:

A Q loss lets Cornell back into a bye. :-)
A Cornell-Q tie for 4th would come down to record vs top 8, while the RPI-Colgate-Yale tie for 8th comes down to record vs top 4.  I.e., infinite loop time! :-D
Clarkson is my second favorite team in the ECAC. :-}

[billhoward]

[quote ithacat][quote billhoward][quote ithacat]Oh, Matt Moulson...how I miss thee...[/quote]

... you miss having somebody else to rag on for our lack of scoring punch? [/quote]

I miss the discussions about how all he could do was score powerplay goals.[/quote]

Now that we could use a lot of. Seems like the Fab Four, or however many high-scoring freshmen we have, are no-shows every other weekend.

[sah67]

Just got back to the hotel from Bright, and some notes:

Scrivens played well...the first H goal was a beautiful wrister that was ripped from the point, and was essentially a heat-seeking missile. The second goal happened during a scramble in front of the net, and barely actually went in...it zinged in barely under the crossbar and skipped right back out, but apparently crossed the goal-line for about 3 milliseconds. The third goal was a freak tip off someone's stick (a Sucks players I believe)...absolutely not softies though, and some good saves for Scrivens to boot.

On that note, major props to Tyler Mugford for diving to clear a puck that snuck through Scrivens's five-hole and was sitting on the goal line behind him.

The PP was terrible, and seemed to have changed with Milo now on the point and Salmela down low? It seemed to be clicking much better with Salmela running the plays. Not that we had many opportunities to cycle though as Harvard's D was very stingy. The McCutcheon goal was similar to to our failing PP earlier in the season when we would rely on Bitz and 'Cutch shots from the point...just happened to work this time.

Harvard's D was very tight as I mentioned before, and they had a real aggressive forecheck...we weren't able to clear our zone very often, which led to a few of their goals.

The guys just didn't seem to have the jump in their step that they had for the last 3 weekends. Even with Scrivens pulled (which barely happened thanks to Harvard's forecheck), they just didn't seem desperate...pretty unbelievable considering how important this game was standings-wise...although thanks to Clarkson, we go running back to Ithaca with our tails between our legs, barely getting that bye.

[oceanst41]

Not much to say about that one. The highlight may have been the pregame festivities at John Harvard's. Then after missing the first period to a broken water main on Soldier's Field Road (1 hour to inch a mile down the street), I was treated to that ::pain::.

Once Bitz took the 5 minute major the offense seemed to reel it in a little, and there was no more buzz around the net. Cornell was losing all the little battles, and needed a two man advantage to muster a score.

[Trotsky]

That was Cornell's first zero-point weekend in league play, not counting home-and-home series with Colgate, since 2001.

[billhoward]

[quote Trotsky]That was Cornell's first zero-point weekend in league play, not counting home-and-home series with Colgate, since 2001.[/quote]

... after getting 19 goals and going 3-0-1 the previous two weekends, we were on a roll. We thought.

[Trotsky]

[quote billhoward][quote Trotsky]That was Cornell's first zero-point weekend in league play, not counting home-and-home series with Colgate, since 2001.[/quote]

... after getting 19 goals and going 3-0-1 the previous two weekends, we were on a roll. We thought.[/quote]Yeah, the true measure of this team is somewhere in between the last two weekends.  They truly aren't as bad as they look when they lose nor as good as they look when they win. ::wtf::

Quinnipiac is going to rock Union, so we're looking at a very interesting series in two weeks.  I'll be taking Friday and Monday off, just to be sure.