Dartmouth Post-game

[Jim Hyla]

[quote BMac]Barlow played the role of young Topher Scott, absolutely flying on the ice and playing with great heart.[/quote]

Totally agree, considering that last year coach had to sit him down to get his head back into it, I was considering posting him as most improved player. He has done everything I would expect, most importantly playing hard the whole game.

[ugarte]

[quote sah67]Sorry to steal your work, Mark, but this one definitely had to be seen...and should definitely somehow be put into use on signs for all future Dartmouth games.



Caption contest anyone?[/quote]
I'm gonna take my puck and go home!

[sah67]

[quote sah67]Sorry to steal your work, Mark, but this one definitely had to be seen...and should definitely somehow be put into use on signs for all future Dartmouth games.



Caption contest anyone?[/quote]

I think I particularly enjoy the woman behind Gaudet with the "Oh no he didn't" face, and the man next to her snapping the photo of his tantrum (or at least that's how it appears).

[BMac]

"OH HA HA HA HA HA, THAT GALLAGHER IS SOMETHING ELSE!"

[oceanst41]

[quote sah67]Sorry to steal your work, Mark, but this one definitely had to be seen...and should definitely somehow be put into use on signs for all future Dartmouth games.



Caption contest anyone?[/quote]

Who...does...#2...work for?

[Will]

"You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!"

[BMac]

"I CANNOT believe that it's not butter!"

[RichH]

Pretty good comments all around.  Here's a few off the top of my tired head.

Krueger is so flippin' good in our zone.  He's pretty much at the point now where I can put him in that class of CU d-men I revere along with guys like Burgoyne, Bell, and Cook.  He just seems to ALWAYS make the right decision.  He broke up one of the few odd-man rushes this weekend by making a wonderfully timed, fully-prone slide.

There were a couple of gigantic stand-em-up hits by Kary early on vs. Dartmouth.  His style (what I've seen of it) is reminiscent of Hornby in the way he lines up his hit and missles to it.

Ross got an impressive amount of ice time, and I like the way he's handling it.  At this point in the season, I like the number of freshman who are looking really comfortable out there already.  

Maybe it's the result of the defensive injuries, but there was a ton of rotating defensive pairings.  Initially, I thought I'd want defensemen to have a set partner that they get used to, but now I kind of like this.  

The Devins have been quiet to me, but Joe found himself a couple nice scoring positions.  Wasn't able to cash in, but if he keeps that work up, the goals will come.

The Kennedys are everywhere.

I was a critic last year, so I'm happy to admit how less nervous I am with Scrivens in net.  He's obviously put in a lot of work style-wise, and now he's using his nervous energy in directing puck deflections rather than leaping and wandering.  :-)  While I'd like to see Garman/Davenport get some real-game experience (maybe some non-conference opponent: Niagara?  UMass?) I have no problem with Scrivens being the clear #1.

I saw a lot of good things on special teams.  It's clear to me that successful Schafer teams are ones that are dominant on special teams.  The failures have always centered on the lack of PK/PP performance.  I saw creativity, and in the 2nd period vs. Dartmouth a lot more speed in terms of vision and passing.

That was one heck of a moment when the crowd rose as one during the flurry as the late 5x3 expired.  No need to say "townies up" for times like that.

Lots of reason for optimism.  This was a significant weekend, not for just the league points, but really it seemed to be a statement of where this team is looking to go.  While last year had a lot of "one step forward, two steps back" weekends, this one was a decision-point between progression and regression, and it's clear that there's a lot of progress as the season has developed.  Our opponents simply did not have more than a couple of grade-A scoring chances at all.  A WCHA team is a good test for that right now, and will expose things we need to work on.  If the team continues to gel as it seems they have started to, it could be a fun spring.

[French Rage]

"I don't know why we're yelling!"

[Trotsky]

[quote cbuckser]The series at North Dakota reminds me of the November 2001 trip to BU, in which Cornell showed that it could play with the best teams in the country.[/quote]Cornell has had several of these "breakout" opportunities during the Schafer era.  Sometimes they've made the most of it (the Lynah sweep of BU in 2002 being the best example), sometimes they've fallen on their faces (Florida in December 2002, which turned out not to matter but at the time felt like a disaster) and sometimes it's been a mixed bag (the trip to BU in 2001, where they outplayed the Terriers and lost and then were outplayed and won, and the split in Estero in December 2006).


BU was 11th in the country when Cornell (then 7th) swept them.  North Dakota is having an atypically down year, 20th coming into last weekend.  Cornell was 14th before this past weekend and may move up 2-3 spots.

[sah67]

From today's IJ:

[quote Ithaca Journal] Ross was injured in the third period on a collision with forechecking Dartmouth winger Rob Pitchard. No penalty was called on the play, but Schafer said the video tells a different story.

"We'll send it in (to the league office) for supplemental discipline," he said. "It was definitely knee-to-knee contact. We'll see what happens."

Ross returned to the game about 10 minutes later, but was used sparingly.

"It was just a little sore," Schafer added. "We kept him out for precautionary (reasons). [/quote]

Anyone see this hit?

[RichH]

[quote sah67]From today's IJ:

[quote Ithaca Journal] Ross was injured in the third period on a collision with forechecking Dartmouth winger Rob Pitchard. No penalty was called on the play, but Schafer said the video tells a different story.

"We'll send it in (to the league office) for supplemental discipline," he said. "It was definitely knee-to-knee contact. We'll see what happens."

Ross returned to the game about 10 minutes later, but was used sparingly.

"It was just a little sore," Schafer added. "We kept him out for precautionary (reasons). [/quote]

Anyone see this hit?[/quote]

Yeah.  I'd agree that it seemed like a knee-to-knee hit...at least that was my impression at the time.  From what I remember, it was in a good amount of traffic, and I chalked it up to being "just one of those things" rather than anything particularly dirty.  Ross skated off gingerly, but was back by the end of the game, as others have said.

[Robb]

[quote sah67]From today's IJ:

[quote Ithaca Journal] Ross was injured in the third period on a collision with forechecking Dartmouth winger Rob Pitchard. No penalty was called on the play, but Schafer said the video tells a different story.

"We'll send it in (to the league office) for supplemental discipline," he said. "It was definitely knee-to-knee contact. We'll see what happens."

Ross returned to the game about 10 minutes later, but was used sparingly.

"It was just a little sore," Schafer added. "We kept him out for precautionary (reasons). [/quote]

Anyone see this hit?[/quote]
The Redcast video missed it, since it was a ways behind the play and along the near boards, but the announcers definitely described it real-time as a knee-to-knee hit.

[oceanst41]

[quote Robb][quote sah67]From today's IJ:

[quote Ithaca Journal] Ross was injured in the third period on a collision with forechecking Dartmouth winger Rob Pitchard. No penalty was called on the play, but Schafer said the video tells a different story.

"We'll send it in (to the league office) for supplemental discipline," he said. "It was definitely knee-to-knee contact. We'll see what happens."

Ross returned to the game about 10 minutes later, but was used sparingly.

"It was just a little sore," Schafer added. "We kept him out for precautionary (reasons). [/quote]

Anyone see this hit?[/quote]
The Redcast video missed it, since it was a ways behind the play and along the near boards, but the announcers definitely described it real-time as a knee-to-knee hit.[/quote]

Jason definitely stressed the knee-to-knee nature of the hit, and seemed to be expecting a penalty.

[Josh '99]

[quote Trotsky][quote cbuckser]The series at North Dakota reminds me of the November 2001 trip to BU, in which Cornell showed that it could play with the best teams in the country.[/quote]Cornell has had several of these "breakout" opportunities during the Schafer era.  Sometimes they've made the most of it (the Lynah sweep of BU in 2002 being the best example), sometimes they've fallen on their faces (Florida in December 2002, which turned out not to matter but at the time felt like a disaster)...[/quote]I don't know that I recall that weekend feeling like a disaster.  Lenny was away at the WJC, remember, so Marr was seeing his first ever action in college games; Maine came into the weekend 13-1-2 and #2 in the USCHO poll (Cornell was #3), though, to be fair, also without their starting goalie; and Ohio State was #11 and 12-4-1.  This wasn't Princeton (that's 2002-03 3-26-2 Princeton, not 2008-09 defending ECAC champion Princeton) that Cornell was losing to.  Plus we knew that Cornell had beaten OSU in their own barn at the beginning of the season, so there wasn't too much worry about that loss.  And then Marr backstopped the sweep in the North Country the following weekend, so any panic there might have been went away fairly quickly.