CU vs Yale

[Trotsky]

Daily Sun weekend preview.

[flyersgolf]

Krill Gotovets makes one of the best blocked shots you will ever see as time runs out in the third.

[ugarte]

blecccccccccccccch

Though it really sounded like Cornell had a lot of chances to win this one against a talented team.

[Trotsky]

We had many, many chances to win.

That was a wild game.  Lots of mistakes by both sides, and a very fast pace.

[scoop85]

Just finished watching on the DVR. Painful loss, but not horribly discouraging. Yale's a damn good team, and each team had their moments.  Miller missed a bunch of chances, and Iles was excellent.  I don't have a lot of complaints other than the result.

I thought Ferlin was just terrific (except he should have shot on the two on one in the 2nd period), and I thought DeSewardt had maybe the best game I've ever seen him play.  Espo also played well and showed nice hands on his goal.

It was a bit bizarre how Birch lost his footing on two occasions, with the second time almost costing us the game in the last minute of regulation.

Gotta bounce back against Brown tomorrow.

[ebilmes]

Agree that there was a lot of falling down in the defensive zone. Maybe something was up with the ice?

We certainly had plenty of chances and looked pretty good from what I saw. Officiating was typically miserable, with some phantom hooking calls and easy embellishments. I'd love to see what this team can accomplish with some consistent and opportunistic play down the stretch, but we're running out of time.

[HeafDog]

Just finished watching on the DVR. Painful loss, but not horribly discouraging. Yale's a damn good team, and each team had their moments.  Miller missed a bunch of chances, and Iles was excellent.  I don't have a lot of complaints other than the result.

I thought Ferlin was just terrific (except he should have shot on the two on one in the 2nd period), and I thought DeSewardt had maybe the best game I've ever seen him play.  Espo also played well and showed nice hands on his goal.

It was a bit bizarre how Birch lost his footing on two occasions, with the second time almost costing us the game in the last minute of regulation.

Gotta bounce back against Brown tomorrow.

Agreed on everything. I think the Mowrey horse collar, while entertaining, was ill-timed, and we probably could have done without it. The Lowry (?) embellishment should have been a penalty on us. Not to cause a potential tangent, but as much as I love soccer, diving is decidedly not one thing I'd like to see in more sports.

[MattS]

Just finished watching on the DVR. Painful loss, but not horribly discouraging. Yale's a damn good team, and each team had their moments.  Miller missed a bunch of chances, and Iles was excellent.  I don't have a lot of complaints other than the result.

I thought Ferlin was just terrific (except he should have shot on the two on one in the 2nd period), and I thought DeSewardt had maybe the best game I've ever seen him play.  Espo also played well and showed nice hands on his goal.

It was a bit bizarre how Birch lost his footing on two occasions, with the second time almost costing us the game in the last minute of regulation.

Gotta bounce back against Brown tomorrow.

Agreed on everything. I think the Mowrey horse collar, while entertaining, was ill-timed, and we probably could have done without it. The Lowry (?) embellishment should have been a penalty on us. Not to cause a potential tangent, but as much as I love soccer, diving is decidedly not one thing I'd like to see in more sports.

If we're going to talk about bad penalties then the Lowry slash (actually a spear) after the second Yale goal has to be at the top. At least Mowery was helping out a teammate.

[carpy85]

It was a bit bizarre how Birch lost his footing on two occasions, with the second time almost costing us the game in the last minute of regulation.

I wonder if there was something wrong with Birches skates because I noticed Sean was doing something with his skates during the last media time-out.

[andyw2100]

Was at the game and have not watched my recording of it yet. Does anyone know (did they speculate on the broadcast) what the cause of the review was after the second Yale goal? After it was ruled a goal Schafer had quite a lengthy conversation with one of the refs.

And related to that, just after that Arthur announced that Cornell had taken its timeout. I can understand the refs forcing Cornell to take a timeout if Schafer was stalling and refusing to send skaters out, but he was engaged in conversation with one of the refs. The time between the ref that was talking to Schafer skating off and Arthur making the announcement was a very short amount of time. I'm actually not certain Schafer heard the announcement, because he didn't react at all, and to me, at least, that seemed a ridiculous thing for the (presumably other) ref to do.

[Trotsky]

I'd love to see what this team can accomplish with some consistent and opportunistic play down the stretch, but we're running out of time.

Well, the thing about a stretch run is... you don't really run out of time until you're out of time.  

I think the team is loaded with talent and creativity, and they might be able to pull it together during the tournament.  The only real achievable, meaningful goal until then is to pick up a bye.  Mean points for 4th place since 1987 is 26.6.  17 points over the second 11 games would be an 8-2-1 record, which seems... highly unlikely.

In those 25 full seasons, 4th has been captured:

11 times (44%) with 26 points (8-3-0) or fewer.
8 times (32%) with 25 points (7-3-1) or fewer.
5 times (20%) with 24 points (7-4-0) or fewer.
2 times (8%) with 23 points (6-4-1).

[BearLover]

This has been a horrendous season thus far.  No way around it.

[redice]

......I think the team is loaded with talent and creativity, and they might be able to pull it together during the tournament.  ........

Ya know, until I saw Yale last night, I thought the same thing about CU's talent & creativity.    After watching Yale, I'm not so sure that CU's talent level hasn't been surpassed.    All the statistics show that that was a close game.   But, I saw Yale as a much much more talented team last night.

[Johnny 5]

......I think the team is loaded with talent and creativity, and they might be able to pull it together during the tournament.  ........

Ya know, until I saw Yale last night, I thought the same thing about CU's talent & creativity.    After watching Yale, I'm not so sure that CU's talent level hasn't been surpassed.    All the statistics show that that was a close game.   But, I saw Yale as a much much more talented team last night.

We looked spectacular in the first half of period one. Then we went into hibernation for quite a stretch. Again.
So, the second period was almost all Yale. It looked like we were playing zone defense on one long Yale power play. Standing off the Yale players, puckwatching, getting badly outhustled.
The third was much better for us. Checking again. Pouring shots on the net. I think we had a slight advantage. Several great chances. One pipe ringer.
But, the stupid penalty monkey keeps rearing his ugly banana.
And, if we can't handle the likes of Brown tonight, like we couldn't handle the pathetic RPI, we may have to admit something to ourselves.
This was one incredibly talented team that never seemed to live up to all the hype.

Oh, and can somebody ask WHCU to run a different commercial during breaks in their broadcast?
If I have to hear that stupid Pepsi Throwup ad again I may do just that!!
"Drink it good, in your mouth!!"

::help::

[scoop85]

......I think the team is loaded with talent and creativity, and they might be able to pull it together during the tournament.  ........

Ya know, until I saw Yale last night, I thought the same thing about CU's talent & creativity.    After watching Yale, I'm not so sure that CU's talent level hasn't been surpassed.    All the statistics show that that was a close game.   But, I saw Yale as a much much more talented team last night.

Yale clearly gets the style points, so yes they probably have more pure hockey "talent" top to bottom.  But I didn't feel we were overmatched last night as I did when we lost to Yale 8 in a row prior to last year.  Guys like Ferlin, Lowry and Esposito can play with anyone, and our 3rd and 4th lines do a solid job, although they don't score enough.  And on the defensive end we can get the job done.

While we're surely not at the level of the early-to-mid 2000's teams, my feeling watching this year is not so much that we're in any particular state of decline, but that the rest of the ECAC has gotten so much better.  No real cupcakes anymore, and for whatever reason we're not getting much puck luck at critical times. Enough of a season remaining that we can make a strong run.  Given what I've seen, come playoff time, neither a run to the title nor a first round loss would surprise me.