Princeton Post-game

[Jim Hyla]

As I said on chat, Scrivens has won many games for us, but tonight just didn't have it. However we pushed to come back, and showed offensive spark. Scrivens will not likely play like that again, so overall I'm pleased. Nice to see good play by Garman. It shows how important and difficult a goalie backup has it. This Princeton team is shorthanded but we showed we can play with them. Now we've got to show we can beat Yale.

Great Cornell Band and fans heard over the Redcast, as I watched PU and listened to CU. I'd be interested to hear from some fans that were there about any PU fans, but you guys were great.

[Jacob '06]

As I said on chat, Scrivens has won many games for us, but tonight just didn't have it. However we pushed to come back, and showed offensive spark. Scrivens will not likely play like that again, so overall I'm pleased. Nice to see good play by Garman. It shows how important and difficult a goalie backup has it. This Princeton team is shorthanded but we showed we can play with them. Now we've got to show we can beat Yale.

Great Cornell Band and fans heard over the Redcast, as I watched PU and listened to CU. I'd be interested to hear from some fans that were there about any PU fans, but you guys were great.

The only princeton fans were the bands and a few little kids chanting scoreboard when the score was 4-1. I guess there were also a few families of players but nothing really vocal other than the band.

Scrivens gave up 2 pretty awful goals, but sometimes a goalie just doesn't have it for a night. I was very nervous when Garman first came in because he looked like he was frantic and had no idea what was going on at times. He seemed a lot more settled down in the 3rd period and made some good saves, but also had some scary scrambles where he didn't have to. It was a great effort by the team to battle back to get in the game, but I feel like they could have done a better job of capitalizing on 2 full minutes of 5 on 3. (by the way, can someone explain what happened for those 2 penalties? you can't actually understand the announcer inside the arena so we had no idea whether it was 2 penalties on the play or a penalty and then an extra one for all the whining and delaying after it)

[RatushnyFan]

I was there.  Princeton fans were pretty quiet.  They had a lot to cheer about though.  4th goal was one of the worst goals I've seen given up in a college game among the couple hundred games I've been to.  I guess you can't get a shutout every night.  Scrivens did impress me with his demeanor, after getting pulled Garman made a fantastic glove save right off the bat and Scrivens pounded the side glass enthusiastically.  Despite getting pulled he was cheering for his teammates immediately.  I don't get to see Cornell play much, I was really impressed with Greening and Brendon Nash.  It seemed like Nash played 25+ minutes.  Krueger had a tough night I thought.

Probably on some other thread but where was Riley Nash?

[billhoward]

After Friday's game and seeing how well Scrivens played, I was hoping for back to back shutouts and player of the week honors for Scrivens. Set the sights too high. The best you can say about Saturday at Princeton is that good teams have a couple law-of-averages losses every season. Once again Schafer gets the gift, so to speak, of an unnecessary loss as a way to rally the team for a big upcoming come. Sort of like Cornell rebounded from the non-league Princeton loss in Florida to put together our best game of the season at UNH. We should have won this Princeton game. Given that that score was 4-3 plus the ENG, we might have managed a tie. Shots were pretty close, 38-33 for Princeton, nothing embarrassing like the 2-1 margin for Q Friday night, and we were 2x6 on PP but Princeton was 1x3.

We've done a good job making the league's lower ranks look good: Last place Clarkson we beat but allowed 3 goals, Quinnipiac we lost to in Ithaca and managed only by good defense plus a nice PPG plus one more to beat Friday, and now we've lost to Princeton (second time in 3 meetings) that was 5-9-1 in the ECAC going into the game. We've got six games left, three of them crucial, next week vs Yale, a week later at Harvard, and the final Friday vs. Union. 6-0 would be awesome but I think 5-1 would be pretty good, and 4-2 would start to be disappointing.

[Jim Hyla]

I was there.  Princeton fans were pretty quiet.  They had a lot to cheer about though.  4th goal was one of the worst goals I've seen given up in a college game among the couple hundred games I've been to.  I guess you can't get a shutout every night.  Scrivens did impress me with his demeanor, after getting pulled Garman made a fantastic glove save right off the bat and Scrivens pounded the side glass enthusiastically.  Despite getting pulled he was cheering for his teammates immediately.  I don't get to see Cornell play much, I was really impressed with Greening and Brendon Nash.  It seemed like Nash played 25+ minutes.  Krueger had a tough night I thought.

Probably on some other thread but where was Riley Nash?

Hurt "all over" the last two weekends. CU isn't saying what.

[imafrshmn]

We've got six games left, three of them crucial, next week vs Yale, a week later at Harvard, and the final Friday vs. Union. 6-0 would be awesome but I think 5-1 would be pretty good, and 4-2 would start to be disappointing.

Based purely on KRACH (overall, not solely ECAC play), our expected points for the remainder of the season is 9.9.  Mind you, we actually have seven games remaining (don't forget @Colgate).  So our record for the remainder could be something like 5-2-0 or 4-1-2 to maintain our strength, statistically.  Also per KRACH, it looks like it will take 26 or 27 points to get the first round bye (which shouldn't be a problem for us, obviously).

[A-ron]

I'll let you guys discuss the play but here's my opinion of the fans at Princeton: bad.  You're up 4-1 on the #5 team in the country and only the PU band can make any noise outside of celebrating a goal.  I think my favorite part of the evening was their band's very animated and hurt response after the "ugly blazer" chant.

By the way, the Princeton band had almost a dozen organized chants accompanied by cowbell and drumsticks yet not one of them was clearly audible or well enunciated even though I was sitting two sections away.

[Brian Deerr '04]

It was a great effort by the team to battle back to get in the game, but I feel like they could have done a better job of capitalizing on 2 full minutes of 5 on 3. (by the way, can someone explain what happened for those 2 penalties? you can't actually understand the announcer inside the arena so we had no idea whether it was 2 penalties on the play or a penalty and then an extra one for all the whining and delaying after it)

Over the Princeton audio feed, it sounded like the first penalty was for the infraction on the play, while the second was a bench minor for the excessive whining to which you alluded.

[Jim Hyla]

It was a great effort by the team to battle back to get in the game, but I feel like they could have done a better job of capitalizing on 2 full minutes of 5 on 3. (by the way, can someone explain what happened for those 2 penalties? you can't actually understand the announcer inside the arena so we had no idea whether it was 2 penalties on the play or a penalty and then an extra one for all the whining and delaying after it)

Over the Princeton audio feed, it sounded like the first penalty was for the infraction on the play, while the second was a bench minor for the excessive whining to which you alluded.

The boxscore lists it as TEAM:Bench.

[Johnny 5]

We tied a BU game that we had in hand.
We were outshot & outscored by Colorado College.
Yale skated circles around us.
We lost to Quinny at home & then won the road game despite (again) being outshot.
We somehow won game one against ND after being outplayed big time, & then lost the sequel.
And, two losses to a crippled Princeton squad.

Then, how many bench minors for too many men on the ice?
How many stupid penalties?

And, last night Ben pulls a Crazy Ivan?

Maybe I'm missing something? But, I'm not exactly sure how the team earned a #5 national ranking?
Consistent? Not yet. Convincingly win the big one? Only UNH.

Maybe the Yale rematch will be the one that finally sets the tone.
Here's hoping.
If (?) we can get by Brown first.

::cheer::

[Sarli]

For the 5x3:
I'm pretty sure I heard Princeton's coach yell "you're screwing up the game" while he was going absolutely ballistic after the penalty whistled directly in front of the bench. To me it looked like the ref Teed him up as you would in basketball.

Other observations:
As for the last goal against Scrivens, from behind the CU bench (opposite blue line) I was completely shocked. The only note I had was that the puck was about head high (relative to Scrivens) and flying 'on edge.' I couldn't tell if it curved, but still he should have had it. Garman came in and was immediately tested, flashed a quick glove, and made 2 huge saves.  He did have a few near misses in the 3rd when he'd get most of a shot and it would flutter over the cross bar.  Then there was the attempt at the 50/50 puck out past the face off dot; all I can say is they didn't score.  But I though he did a good job, considering he can't have expected to actually see ice time.

Greening's goal was great individual effort, I'd say highlight reel worthy, cycling out from around the net and across the crease before potting the puck. He was a beast all game.  I thought Esposito looked fast; I'm not sure if he did anything spectacular, but I tended to notice him on the ice.

The powerplay:
scored on the 1st 5x3 on a nice one timer.  
Decent puck movement when we got set up.  I forget when (I think late 2nd), but there was a great backdoor chance that just missed  Then there were some ugly looking PP, that exemplified all previous lamentations on this board.

Good fight till the end, too bad we spotted them 2 in the first.

[tretiak]

How dare you compliment Scrivens! Don't you know he is teh sux0r and his gigantic ego is single-handedly holding us back from national title contention?!

/can't fit in a good centaur joke with this post

[BMac]

Plenty of CU fans, good bands from both sides. The PU band was REALLY loud... did they have more instruments than us? I noticed quite a few of our bandies were sitting in the downstairs section- did they restrict them from playing?

Greening was a monster all game. Just not much help for him. B.Nash had a great game as well- solid as a rock. Krueger had an O'Byrne-worthy turnover in front of goal that we luckily avoided giving away. And, of course, Scrivens' second and fourth goals were soft as all hell... though he seemed ok when they benched him. Garman had some awesome saves, and is SO solid on his skates- he looks much more comfortable skating out of the pipes than Big Ben. That doesn't mean that his 50/50 puck challenge was excusable though!

Garman also had a sweet punt-the-puck move that we all enjoyed.

All in all,we let in soft goals and came back from 4-1 to 4-3. We were handed a 5x3 for two minutes and didn't score. Game over

[sah67]

I noticed quite a few of our bandies were sitting in the downstairs section- did they restrict them from playing?

Yes, Baker had a limit on the number of instruments that a visiting band could play.

[Trotsky]

1. Losing.  Not as good as winning.
2. We'll see where they stand after the Yale game.
3. Don't panic.