Quinnipiac 3 at Cornell 2 postgame

[billhoward]

Nice that we came back most of the way from 3-0 down after two. I guess we expected this year's team a) wouldn't go down 3-0 and b) if it could get back 2 goals could get back 3. The Yale loss you could call a fluke or part of the randomness of hockey. The loss to Quinnipac suggests we have a depth (a low) we hadn't previously considered. Not a good weekend if you include also the basketball team's reality check game against St. John's, and the slender wrestling loss to Maryland. Was this really the first time in Cornell uniform that Colin Greening got tossed? Can't overlook Tuesday's game but it's really the BU game that is on everyone's mind. No matter what BU's record, what people will remember about MSG is whether we beat or lost to the defending NCAA champ.

[imafrshmn]

All's not lost if this team can learn some lessons from this game.  Most importantly, as Casey Jones mentioned after the game, the team needs to be prepared to come out in the first period with intensity.  Secondly, we can't expect to win close games if we take bad penalties.  But, I'd say of equal importance, hockey games can have a very nonlinear way of unfolding, where bad breaks (such as the game misconduct call on Greening) precipitate unforeseen hardship.  Anyone who's been around the game long enough understands that funny things can happen in hockey games and the best team doesn't always win.  I'm pleased that the team at least had the character and leadership in the void of Greening's absence to fight back when the game seemed out of reach.

[MattShaf]

just two notes:
(1) We needed a better game out of Scrivens. The goal in the last minute of a period was an energy killer and the third goal was soft. Yale and Q are clearly the class of the ECAC, and Scrivens has had some breakdowns in both games.
(2) This is a continuation from last year: teams with real speed give us problems. We fail to either effectively forecheck or to clog up the neutral zone to slow them down. Thus, we allow their speed to dictate the tempo of the game which puts us on our heels and forces us into taking bad penalties.

[Scersk '97]

just two notes:
(1) We needed a better game out of Scrivens. The goal in the last minute of a period was an energy killer and the third goal was soft. Yale and Q are clearly the class of the ECAC, and Scrivens has had some breakdowns in both games.
(2) This is a continuation from last year: teams with real speed give us problems. We fail to either effectively forecheck or to clog up the neutral zone to slow them down. Thus, we allow their speed to dictate the tempo of the game which puts us on our heels and forces us into taking bad penalties.

From what I was able to see from the third period, the solution with Quinnipiac seems to be to take it to them, i.e., I wonder if the correct strategy with this year's Cornell team will ever be to "clog up the neutral zone." If we had not gotten those three consecutive penalties in the 3rd, I wonder whether the comeback would've happened earlier and, therefore, we would have had more time to try and get that 3rd goal.

Of course, if we had played the way we did in the 3rd from the get go——a kind of no-holds-barred fury——we may never have ended up in the situation we did.

I see it as a teachable moment, and I hope this game leaves the correct impression.

[lynah80]

In my opinion, the first Q goal should have been disallowed.  Check the Redcast replay and fast foward to 47:11.  Wong takes the puck in the corner and skates out in front of Scrivens on the glove side.  Scali pushes Wong into Scrivens, who gets dragged out of position.  That's not the violation.  The puck ends up on the stick of a Q forward, on the stick side of the net.  The Q forward sweeps it across the slot and it ends up on Birch's stick, who tries to clear, but is unsuccessful.  The Q forward then tackles Krueger and makes sure that Scrivens doesn't get back into position in time to stop Davies' shot.  The tackle should have been called as interference.

edit:  I've attached 3 photos

1) Wong skating out
2) Wong clears Scrivens out of the crease
3) Q forward makes the tackle at top left of crease

[ACM]

Was this really the first time in Cornell uniform that Colin Greening got tossed?

No.

RIT.

Blue Cross Arena.

10/27/07.

[Scersk '97]

(1) We needed a better game out of Scrivens. The goal in the last minute of a period was an energy killer and the third goal was soft. Yale and Q are clearly the class of the ECAC, and Scrivens has had some breakdowns in both games.

Let me begin by saying that in no way have I ever been a Scrivens apologist.  He wanders and flops far too much for my liking,  But I don't think he played poorly.  We spent a lot of time in the box tonight, and Q went 1 for 7 (14%) on the power play when they had been clicking along at 13/54 (24%).  Take a look at the goals:

(1)  I find lynah80's description accurate:

The Q forward then tackles Krueger and makes sure that Scrivens doesn't get back to into position in time to stop Davies shot. The tackle should have been called as interference.

(2)  Scrivens was screeend, a triple from M. Devin, D'Agostino, and some Quinnipiac player.  And the shot was a perfect clanger to the bottom left corner.

(3)  A very fluky goal that bounced all over the place.  I really have very little idea what Krueger was doing on that play.

So, we lost to Yale by a score of 3-2, away, with an ENG and to Quinnipiac 3-2, home.  If they're truly the "class" of the ECAC, then I'll take two close games and hope that we figure them out the next time.  Check out this page of Trotsky's, especially 2005.  And that season ended up pretty well, even though we had some trouble vs. the "class" of the league.

I think someone's being a negative Nelly.

[ebilmes]

Perhaps I am also a "negative Nelly," but I don't see many positives to take away from tonight's game.

The first period was absolutely dreadful. Three minors from our top defensive pairing, including two from B.Nash. Then Greening's hit; there wasn't any malicious intent, but it was a hit from behind and the Q player went down hard. If you ever doubted Greening's importance to this team, let tonight be a lesson. Absolutely nothing going offensively until the last seven minutes. They had only three legitimate scoring chances earlier in the game; they got the puck to Gallagher with a clear shot to the net on one of the PPs when it was only 2-1 -- he missed wide. Then Kennedy missed an open net off a rebound on a 2x1. Then Riley Nash and Scali came down on a 2x1; Nash passed to Scali, who clanked a weak shot wide of the net.

The goal at the end of the first period is one of those backbreakers. Had we gone into the period down only 1-0, I think it's a different game. But the 2-goal deficit seemed daunting given that we only mustered 4 SOG in the first.

Not to focus on B.Nash again, but his play in the final minute was miserable. 6x4, Cornell holding the zone, he seems unsure of what to do with the puck along the far boards and holds it long enough to lose it; Q clears in a crucial moment. Then, carrying the puck back through the neutral zone, he falls down and nearly gives Q a clear look at the empty net. Both he and Whitney had some nice plays tonight, but those guys are incredibly inconsistent.

Losing Greening really messed up the lines. Collins replaced him on the top line and played pretty well I thought, but Schafer kept trying different combinations with the other lines. At one point we had Riley-Scali-Nicholls take a shift together during even strength, which was totally bizarre. None of the lines were generating offensive chances, so I don't think the coaches had much choice but to switch things around.

Esposito continues to try to make these solo, spin-around moves to get around defensemen, and they always result in his being pushed off the puck. He's a talented skater, but he's gotten his goals off of more traditional plays. The stuff which worked in juniors does not work in D-1.

Krueger was probably our steadiest d-man tonight. I have a lot of confidence with him on the ice.

Q was a fast team, but it wasn't like they peppered us with shots. (Remember how they had like 65 shots against Robert Morris.) We actually outshot them 25-19 tonight -- 21-10 after the first period.

Let's face it; Cornell hasn't proved much of anything this season. They've proved they can beat up on the cupcake teams, which is certainly a prerequisite for having a good season, but isn't indicative of having a good season. The only two decent (in my opinion) teams they've faced have been Yale and Quinnipiac, and they've lost both games.

Watching tonight's game reminded me somewhat of the game at SLU(t) last year. The team had so few offensive chances for most of the game, and the Cornell fans were completely out of the game until the end. Between Greening getting kicked out of the game, to the last-second goal at the end of the first -- these were things you really had to be watching to believe.

One final note -- the PP seems to be coming back to Earth because teams have realized we only have two options. There's the shot from the point, which has been a staple of the Cornell PP for the last few years (if only to keep opposing teams honest to set up something down low), and then there's the angle from the left side with Gallagher. Teams seem to have caught onto this and we haven't been getting good looks from that side. Of course, missing Greening for most of tonight also hampered the powerplay considerably. But we blew a 25-second 5x3 late in the second, and then couldn't get the job done on the 6x4 for the final 1:56. Those were huge missed opportunities.

Let's beat Colgate on Tuesday and head into MSG a respectable 6-2-0. It's a long season and we'll have another crack at both Yale and Quinnipiac next semester.

[andyw2100]

In my opinion, the first Q goal should have been disallowed.  Check the Redcast replay and fast foward to 47:11.  Wang takes the puck in the corner and skates out in front of Scrivens on the glove side.  Scali pushes Wang into Scrivens, who gets dragged out of position.  That's not the violation.  The puck ends up on the stick of a Q forward, on the stick side of the net.  The Q forward sweeps it across the slot and it ends up on Birch's stick, who tries to clear, but is unsuccessful.  The Q forward then tackles Krueger and makes sure that Scrivens doesn't get back into position in time to stop Davies' shot.  The tackle should have been called as interference.

I did not have a great look at what you describe above, but sitting in the second row off the glass, directly behind the middle of the Cornell bench, I did have a good look at what went on between Schafer and the refs as Schafer was trying to get the goal reviewed. Initially it seemed the refs were completely ignoring Schafer. Eventually Schafer yelled out to Kotyra, who at this point was on the far side of the ice, something to the effect of, "We got the god-damned review system--use it!" To this Kotyra responded in a way that I took to mean it was the other ref's call. Schafer immediately turned his attention to Baker. The glass is quite thick, so I often can't hear what these guys are saying, but Baker clearly mouthed "not reviewable."

So if lynah80s description is accurate, and if that was, in fact, why Schafer wanted the goal reviewed, it seems plausible that that kind of interference penalty might not be reviewable. On the other hand, perhaps it is reviewable, and Baker was wrong, or perhaps none of this is why Schafer wanted the review.

Schafer continued his conversation with Baker before the start of the second period, and I again saw Baker say "not reviewable." At that point Schafer was motioning toward's Kotyra, possibly saying that Kotyra said it was your (Baker's) call, which would imply that Kotyra thought it was reviewable, but that whether to review or not was Baker's call.

After the game Schafer spoke to one of the refs (I don't recall which) for a fair amount of time again. I really think that all the extra discussion boiled down to Schafer feeling quite strongly that whatever happened was reviewable, and that he felt Baker got that aspect of it wrong.

[Jim Hyla]

Perhaps I am also a "negative Nelly," but I don't see many positives to take away from tonight's game.

Perhaps?:-}

Not to focus on B.Nash again,...

Then why are you?::help::Yeah he screwed up. But you're, meaning all the B. Nash critics not just you, a lot harder on him than others on the team. I wasn't able to see Greening's penalty, but he does have a history of some dumb penalties, remember last year. If that penalty was for real, it had a much greater impact than anything B. Nash did. However no one bad mouths Greening for that. All we do is say how important he is. If he's so important, and I do believe he is, then that should be the focus of our disappointment, not Nash. Or if you want to, talk about the dumb plays (penalties) R. Nash takes. He had a slash that could have put us 2 men down, if it was called. My point is that when we are off, it's generally everyone's fault; so why is B. Nash always brought up?

Losing Greening really messed up the lines. Collins replaced him on the top line and played pretty well I thought, but Schafer kept trying different combinations with the other lines. At one point we had Riley-Scali-Nicholls take a shift together during even strength, which was totally bizarre.

I think during a lot of the time he double shifted Riley and Kennedy to different lines.

Let's face it; Cornell hasn't proved much of anything this season. They've proved they can beat up on the cupcake teams, which is certainly a prerequisite for having a good season, but isn't indicative of having a good season. The only two decent (in my opinion) teams they've faced have been Yale and Quinnipiac, and they've lost both games.

They did prove they could skate with the best teams in the ECAC, which we didn't last year. If you mean we didn't prove we are the best and deserve a top 4 in the nation, I agree.

One final note -- the PP seems to be coming back to Earth because teams have realized we only have two options.

Two is better than one.:-DReally, I think this is still the best PP I've seen in years, but we need Greening.

Let's beat Colgate on Tuesday and head into MSG a respectable 6-2-0. It's a long season and we'll have another crack at both Yale and Quinnipiac next semester.

On this I'm totally in agreement.::cheer::

Finally, I'd like to go back to your first statement,

but I don't see many positives to take away from tonight's game.

The biggest positive I took away was listening to Casey Jones after the game. He didn't complain about the officials, but put it squarely on the fact that the team wasn't ready to play when the game started. I'm confident that this coaching staff will get the most out of the players that they can.

And double finally, I'm not trying to pick on you personally; it's just that you put it all down on one post.

[HockeyMan]

Not to focus on B.Nash again,...

Then why are you?::help::Yeah he screwed up. But you're, meaning all the B. Nash critics not just you, a lot harder on him than others on the team. I wasn't able to see Greening's penalty, but he does have a history of some dumb penalties, remember last year. If that penalty was for real, it had a much greater impact than anything B. Nash did. However no one bad mouths Greening for that. All we do is say how important he is. If he's so important, and I do believe he is, then that should be the focus of our disappointment, not Nash. Or if you want to, talk about the dumb plays (penalties) R. Nash takes. He had a slash that could have put us 2 men down, if it was called. My point is that when we are off, it's generally everyone's fault; so why is B. Nash always brought up?

Oh geez, here we go again.  B.Nash gets brought up because he keeps making mistakes that a player of his natural ability and his experience should not make.  Period, end of story. Last night he and Whitney had huge problems dealing with the Q forechecking--I thought they were clearly our least dependable pairing.  On Friday night Schafer could be easily seen chewing B.Nash out for icing the puck unnecessarily, and last night Schafer again shook his head when Nash tried a two-line pass that was way too hard and off the ice and resulted in another icing. So we're hardly alone in complaining about his decision-making.  It's baffling why you keep objecting like this.  And please, don't reply that coach keep using him and therefore must know better; nobody is claiming that he's unimportant to the team or that he doesn't have great natural skills.

[CUontheslopes]

This game doesn't bother me as much as it seems to have bothered a lot of you. It was clearly just not our night, but we fought back and made a game out of it even without our captain. Shows you how important Greening is though. Just a few notes:

2nd QU goal was a backbreaker and it was a bad goal to let in for Scrivens. Yes he was screened, but he got beat LOW, under his pad. It's one thing (particularly for a butterfly goaltender) to get beat up high on a screened shot like that, but you simply cannot get beat low in that situation. End of the period, scrum in front of the net, the only shot you're going to get is low. Also, as a whole, I thought Scrivens was C+/B- last night at best. 3 goals in 19 shots? That's not too good...The third goal was very flukey. Looked like the puck hit the post then went in off Scrivens' back. That's bad luck, but Scrivens was beat badly blockerside high. As usual, when facing an oncoming rush, he looks jittery and out of position. He never comes out to cut down the angle, he just backpedals, gets lost and then beat. I've been trying to figure out what it is that Scrivens does (besides all the weird playing the puck stuff) that is so dissatisfying. I think this weekend clarified it for me: he's just AWFUL on shots coming off a rush. He's very solid positionally usually on set plays and he's got good lateral motion post to post, but against a rush or on a breakaway I cannot recall a save he's made. Recent examples would be that horrible blueline goal against Yale (though someone said it may have been tipped), both Princeton goals on Friday night, second Harvard goal scored on a 1 on 1 rush, and the 3rd QU goal last night. Makes it that much more important for our Dmen to not allow shots off the rush.

The Greening penalty was legitimate. It could've been called as a 2 min minor, but I didn't have a problem with the call. It was a LOUD, hard hit and the QU player sold the call well. A lot of the other calls, however, I thought were very questionable at best. We seem to have this problem against smaller teams all the time. They seem to get away with lots of clutching, grabbing and interference, but when we hit someone, we get whistled. The elbowing call on Birch was a perfect example. Birch had 5" plus on the guy he hit, so the hit was more to the shoulders than the midsection, but the ref calls contact to the head/elbowing. Overall, I thought it was one of the most poorly officiated games I've seen in a long time at Lynah.

The end of the game was refreshing. Cornell started playing Cornell hockey. Bodies were flying all over the place. We were hitting and hitting HARD. We used our size to wear down QU and really started to turn the play in our favor. If Cornell's going to win, it's going to be because they hit harder and beat daylight out of the opposition. In the last few years, that hasn't been happening. If you go back to the better teams from the last decade, there are two things that stand out - outstanding special teams and physical dominance of the opposition. When we use our size and get rough, we do to the other team what their speed often does to us. We make them play our game. That's what we did against Princeton and what we did at the end of the game. Love to see that more.

OVerall, I wasn't too upset with last night's game. It just was not our night. We hit a post, we had our captain tossed, we had a goal scored with 00 showing on the clock. I think we can figure QU out in a rematch. I kept thinking how much we missed Greening on the PP at the end of the game. I think if he's in the game, we win or tie. He makes everyone around him better.

[RichH]

Esposito continues to try to make these solo, spin-around moves to get around defensemen, and they always result in his being pushed off the puck. He's a talented skater, but he's gotten his goals off of more traditional plays. The stuff which worked in juniors does not work in D-1.

See Romano, Tony.

Krueger was probably our steadiest d-man tonight. I have a lot of confidence with him on the ice.

Say, where has Keir Ross been?  IIRC, he's only gotten to play in 1-2 games this year.  He seemed very solid last year as a freshman.

Let's beat Colgate on Tuesday and head into MSG a respectable 6-2-0. It's a long season and we'll have another crack at both Yale and Quinnipiac next semester.

That's the spirit.  BTW, it's important to remember, unless you played in 1969-70, good teams lose games.  They aren't getting blown out.  The two losses are to top-10 quality teams, if you ask me.  It happens, and seeing that competition and responding to it like the team has are good things this early in the season.  Most of the great seasons over the past 10 years have had hiccups early on, and the best CU teams find that extra gear around late-Jan.  I happen to think that this team is already running at a higher level at this point in the season than in the last few.  They're clearly better conditioned than most of their opponents as they are dominating 3rd periods:

Scoring           | 1st 2nd 3rd OT  TOT |
Cornell           |   8   6  14  1   29 |  
Opponents         |   6   4   5  0   15 | 
Difference        |  +2  +2  +9 +1  +14 | 

IMO, that's the difference between this team and the '02-'03 era teams.  They would get let you play in the first, get a lead in the 2nd, and lock you down in the 3rd.  This current team will play with you for 2 periods and give you a good fight, and then just POUND you aggressively in the 3rd.  It'll be interesting if this trend keeps up, but I like having a team that can finish a game strong.

[CUontheslopes]

Esposito continues to try to make these solo, spin-around moves to get around defensemen, and they always result in his being pushed off the puck. He's a talented skater, but he's gotten his

Scoring           | 1st 2nd 3rd OT  TOT |
Cornell           |   8   6  14  1   29 |  
Opponents         |   6   4   5  0   15 | 
Difference        |  +2  +2  +9 +1  +14 | 

IMO, that's the difference between this team and the '02-'03 era teams.  They would get let you play in the first, get a lead in the 2nd, and lock you down in the 3rd.  This current team will play with you for 2 periods and give you a good fight, and then just POUND you aggressively in the 3rd.  It'll be interesting if this trend keeps up, but I like having a team that can finish a game strong.

You hit the nail absolutely square on the head. That's Cornell hockey at its best. They'd wear you down so by the time the third period started you were bruised, bleeding and scared. Also, it's amazing to see what a great hit does for the momentum in a game. The crowd gets fired up, the  team gets fired up and good things happen. We need a few good Murray or a Baby type hits every game in addition to a general beating. We've got the size, so I'd love to see us end up at that 02-03 level. I think we are doing a MUCH better job this year than in previous years controlling the third period with physicality. See last night and Harvard.

[ebilmes]

I'm not going to try messing with the quote formatting, but to respond to Jim's comment...

I think one big reason why some of us tend to focus on B.Nash is that he gets the start every single game. It's absolutely mindboggling when he has a terrible game (i.e. Yale) and then his name is called during introductions the following night. If the coaching staff proclaims Nash to be the top defenseman, then we should hold him to a higher standard. Yes, Whitney makes plenty of mistakes, and Birch is struggling as well. But those are younger guys who should be expected to make those mistakes.

I also heard the Casey Jones interview; I think he used a word like "immature" to describe the team's play in the first period, which seemed apt.

As others have said, yes, we looked great in the last few minutes. Very physical play, the cycling, and everything else which defines good Cornell hockey. But we were completely outplayed for the first 53 minutes. I'm not convinced this proves we can compete with Q. On this front, the Yale game was more encouraging since it was a fairly even battle for most of the game.

Rich -- not sure about what's going on with Ross. It seems like Birch and D'Agostino have won themselves regular roles, so either Whitney and Ross has to sit. Birch has a lot of speed and that's been helping on the breakout plays.