Cornell-Harvard at MSG

[Dafatone]

We may have to stop playing these MSG games.

[Scersk '97]

It just doesn't matter... all that much.

Stupid to play Harvard for this game; disappointing to lose.

Win the next two.

[Iceberg]

That was sloppy and forced from start to finish. The 1st was OK, but then Harvard started to adjust

[BearLover]

I think a lot of the blame falls on Schafer, who couldn't convince his team to not take moronic retaliatory penalties against the best PP in the country.

[upprdeck]

not a bad effort in the offensive end.. a couple break downs on D which is to be expected when you are playing deep into the bench.  we cycle well, but Harvard as always has those 2-3 guys who are just bit quicker.  and you cant take bad penalties.

still a bunch of shots inside 10ft we cant seem to put home.

[Dafatone]

not a bad effort in the offensive end.. a couple break downs on D which is to be expected when you are playing deep into the bench.  we cycle well, but Harvard as always has those 2-3 guys who are just bit quicker.  and you cant take bad penalties.

still a bunch of shots inside 10ft we cant seem to put home.

I thought the same thing. We had plenty of chances and had the better of play. I think with a healthier blue line and a few more big stops in goal, we'd be a really, really good team.

But we do need a healthier blue line.

[BearLover]

not a bad effort in the offensive end.. a couple break downs on D which is to be expected when you are playing deep into the bench.  we cycle well, but Harvard as always has those 2-3 guys who are just bit quicker.  and you cant take bad penalties.

still a bunch of shots inside 10ft we cant seem to put home.

I thought the same thing. We had plenty of chances and had the better of play. I think with a healthier blue line and a few more big stops in goal, we'd be a really, really good team.

But we do need a healthier blue line.

Harvard recruits better players and doesn't beat itself with terrible penalties and leaving one guy back on D against one of the best PP/transition teams in the country. Given the injuries, not a surprising result. Not much offensive talent on our team with our three top goal scorers from last year gone. Agree the team would be good defensively if healthy. Played overall a pretty good defensive game tonight.

[margolism]

Schafer was pretty pissed with the team in his post game comments.

"Disappointing. Really disappointing, how we played tonight," said head coach Mike Schafer '86. "That's the least physical I've ever seen a Cornell team play in a game against Harvard.

"No life on the bench. ... How could you be lifeless in this type of game?" Schafer said of his team in front of 14,132 at Madison Square Garden.

[ugarte]

If you thought they were good in the offensive end I don't know what you were watching. What I saw was a lot of guys who thought they could skate through traffic or thread needles with passes and kept turning the puck over and wasting the chances they had. I also saw wide open guys in space get the puck passed firmly into their skates or into nothing or blindly to a guy in crimson. Absolute crap and awful to watch. I hated almost every second of this game.

[Beeeej]

If you thought they were good in the offensive end I don't know what you were watching. What I saw was a lot of guys who thought they could skate through traffic or thread needles with passes and kept turning the puck over and wasting the chances they had. I also saw wide open guys in space get the puck passed firmly into their skates or into nothing or blindly to a guy in crimson. Absolute crap and awful to watch. I hated almost every second of this game.

On the other hand, at least the beer prices have gone up.

[margolism]

The only hope I have is that we will be a better, more determined team once we are are at full strength - we still have four players out, and four important ones, including two of our best Ds.  I have to imagine that the reshuffling of lines to accommodate for their absences has played a part in our performance to a certain extent.  Plus, we are overworking our healthy Ds and top players, so they are probably experiencing more fatigue and wear and tear.  I had read somewhere that coach expected three of them back for the MSG game but that unfortunately wasn't the case.  I have to imagine that probably was a bit of a morale blow.  When they do return, I hope it is both a morale and performance boost.

[Trotsky]

Minority opinion here: I liked the camera work as a different way to watch the game, after I got used to it.  It was off-putting for the first few minutes, but after adjusting I enjoyed the mental calisthenics of having to infer the big picture from the close up angles we were shown.  There were many excellent intervals when we intimately saw corner battles or the chaos of the crease when the offense was pressing.  I'll grant we also had several close ups of a puck sitting against the boards without one player in frame.

I wouldn't want to watch every game like this, but I enjoyed it as a change.  As with essentially everything in life, moderate use to add variety to the vanilla broadcast would satisfy the most people.

[Trotsky]

The only hope I have is that we will be a better, more determined team once we are are at full strength - we still have four players out, and four important ones, including two of our best Ds.

It did not appear to me that we adjusted our style to account for this.  There's something to be said for staying within your game and not allowing externals to dictate your play, but it felt like last night we could have stayed back a bit and respected the fact that we were undermanned.

BUT, we faced the same situation against Princeton, played our game, and creamed them.  So I don't know.  After 38 seasons of this I still haven't settled on any precept other than outscore the opponent.

[BearLover]

There wasn't much difference between the Princeton game and this one, IMO. In both we played well on defense, showed little cohesion on offense, and Galajda was solid in net. The difference last night was that Harvard is more talented and Cornell made two inexcusable mental errors.

I would like to see our success the past two seasons translate to an uptick in recruiting, especially of forwards. So far I don't think there's any evidence it has.

[Beeeej]

There wasn't much difference between the Princeton game and this one, IMO. In both we played well on defense, showed little cohesion on offense, and Galajda was solid in net. The difference last night was that Harvard is more talented and Cornell made two inexcusable mental errors.

I would like to see our success the past two seasons translate to an uptick in recruiting, especially of forwards. So far I don't think there's any evidence it has.

I seriously don't know what game people were watching who think we played well on defense last night. It's understandable that we didn't play well on defense last night given our injury situation, but I wouldn't even say we played well on defense considering our injury situation.