Love Means Not Having to Say "You Just Suck": Cornell at Harvard

[Trotsky]

We are where we were last season after 21 games: (13-5-3, 8-3-3) in 2022; (13-7-1, 10-4-0) in 2023.  In each case, coming off a huge upset of #1 Quinnipiac followed by a disappointing performance against Harvard.

Here is what happened over the next couple weeks last season:

Code Select Expand


22. #11 L NR Colgate
23. #11 T NR Colgate
24. #16 L NR RPI
25. #16 W NR Union
26. #18 L NR SLU



Here is what we have coming up (current poll position):

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22. #11   NR RPI
23. #11   NR Union
24. #11   NR Colgate
25. #11   NR Colgate
26. #11   NR Clarkson


So.  Let's not do that again.

[Swampy]

Harvard's five goals all scored by top-three-round draft picks. Maybe we can finally dispense with the notion that draft picks don't matter and that Harvard doesn't play up to its talent.

Only one of them was a snipe. The others were screens and a wide open net from a 2 on 1.

To be fair the 2 on 1 was perfectly executed

Yeah. We had a 2 on 1 and blew it.

[upprdeck]

too bad they had such bad cameras on the over head of the first non goal..  you can see the puck go across the line slightly but not much more than that and who knows what it really did in the missing frames.

[Beeeej]

Am I the only one who felt like he was watching a different Cornell team in the third period last night? Yes, Harvard is talented, especially that first line - but it was almost as if Schafer sat the boys down during second intermission and said, "Okay, just slow down a bit, and forget how to pass to each other." It drives me absolutely crazy to watch our team underperform when I know they're capable of better. Losing to a better team when we do our best is a shame - losing to a better team when we don't do our best is aggravating as @#$%.

[Trotsky]

I felt they played wary of Coronato, Farrell, & Leferriere and were always stepping back from the attack when they were on the ice.  Those guys carved us up like St. Louis & Perrin or Oates & Carter or Juneau & Coles once did, so it wasn't an idle worry.  But I'm sure coach is telling them they need to play their game and push, and trust the trailing defender to cut off the pass and Shane to stop the shot.

Playing not to lose never ends well.

I did find myself wishing for a little bit of 2003 hockey.  The firm of CF&L would have been a little less sprightly had they gone through the cement mixer for 60 minutes.  But, for better or worse (mostly better) those days are gone.

[upprdeck]

there were stretches where both teams who ever got the puck in deep the other team could not do much..  Clearly Harvard has the more dynamic skaters.  But given all that we out shot them, and we lost on the PP/PK even with many chances. The score does not really reflect how the play went.

We have 8 games left..  play well and at worst 6-2 to 8-0 and Harvard if they lose to Quin we could have 2 games in hand after next weekend and be tied for 2nd.

Cornell 6-2 gives us 49 pts
Harvard 5-1 gives them 49.

[Scersk '97]

I do think we need to put the body to them as much as possible, though. I'm not sure we're playing as physical as we can. Of course, a missed hip check or two can very well be a puck in the net.

Yet Harvard's rink, at 204 x 87 with lots of room behind the nets, makes that difficult. So you have to tire them out through cycling, which, as you say, the 2003 team would've been able to do.

It was a particular defensive miscue that really let the game get away from us. Rego went for a pinch at the wrong time against the wrong player, and Andreev got sucked down lower than he should've been and then didn't realize who had released early for the break. Really, a pretty boneheaded play by the both of them, and Harvard makes you pay.

Also, I know he was screened on a few of the goals, but Shane was not having a good night. Particularly on that Thrun goal, he was trying to see through the screen by standing and gawking instead of being in a good goaltending position. A goalie who isn't "wide" leaves an awful lot of net to shoot at.

[BearLover]

I do think we need to put the body to them as much as possible, though. I'm not sure we're playing as physical as we can. Of course, a missed hip check or two can very well be a puck in the net.

Yet Harvard's rink, at 204 x 87 with lots of room behind the nets, makes that difficult. So you have to tire them out through cycling, which, as you say, the 2003 team would've been able to do.

It was a particular defensive miscue that really let the game get away from us. Rego went for a pinch at the wrong time against the wrong player, and Andreev got sucked down lower than he should've been and then didn't realize who had released early for the break. Really, a pretty boneheaded play by the both of them, and Harvard makes you pay.

Also, I know he was screened on a few of the goals, but Shane was not having a good night. Particularly on that Thrun goal, he was trying to see through the screen by standing and gawking instead of being in a good goaltending position. A goalie who isn't "wide" leaves an awful lot of net to shoot at.

Yeah, one thing about Shane is that to my eye he looks solid—he lets up very few obviously "soft" goals. And he even stops a high percentage of odd-man rushes from opponents. But his save %, at .912, is well below what we would hope for from a great Cornell goalie (in the ballpark of .930%). Let's see where it ends up once we complete our stretch run against weaker teams. The lower number suggests some goals are going in that shouldn't.

Also, I don't think Cornell forgot how to pass—I think Harvard's speed allows them to defend very aggressively and force Cornell to have to make split-second decisions on offense, which Cornell does not excel at.

[Swampy]

I do think we need to put the body to them as much as possible, though. I'm not sure we're playing as physical as we can. Of course, a missed hip check or two can very well be a puck in the net.

Yet Harvard's rink, at 204 x 87 with lots of room behind the nets, makes that difficult. So you have to tire them out through cycling, which, as you say, the 2003 team would've been able to do.

It was a particular defensive miscue that really let the game get away from us. Rego went for a pinch at the wrong time against the wrong player, and Andreev got sucked down lower than he should've been and then didn't realize who had released early for the break. Really, a pretty boneheaded play by the both of them, and Harvard makes you pay.

Also, I know he was screened on a few of the goals, but Shane was not having a good night. Particularly on that Thrun goal, he was trying to see through the screen by standing and gawking instead of being in a good goaltending position. A goalie who isn't "wide" leaves an awful lot of net to shoot at.

Also, IIRC, during the 3rd period, when we were skating with an extra man, one of our forwards blindly passed back to the point, but instead of being there, the defensemen were somewhere on the other side of center ice. How could this happen?

(I'm one of those who watched the game after it was over. So, I was falling asleep when I watched this. I'll have to rewatch to add names, numbers, and a more intelligent account of what was going on.)

[Iceberg]

I do think we need to put the body to them as much as possible, though. I'm not sure we're playing as physical as we can. Of course, a missed hip check or two can very well be a puck in the net.

Yet Harvard's rink, at 204 x 87 with lots of room behind the nets, makes that difficult. So you have to tire them out through cycling, which, as you say, the 2003 team would've been able to do.

It was a particular defensive miscue that really let the game get away from us. Rego went for a pinch at the wrong time against the wrong player, and Andreev got sucked down lower than he should've been and then didn't realize who had released early for the break. Really, a pretty boneheaded play by the both of them, and Harvard makes you pay.

Also, I know he was screened on a few of the goals, but Shane was not having a good night. Particularly on that Thrun goal, he was trying to see through the screen by standing and gawking instead of being in a good goaltending position. A goalie who isn't "wide" leaves an awful lot of net to shoot at.

Also, IIRC, during the 3rd period, when we were skating with an extra man, one of our forwards blindly passed back to the point, but instead of being there, the defensemen were somewhere on the other side of center ice. How could this happen?

(I'm one of those who watched the game after it was over. So, I was falling asleep when I watched this. I'll have to rewatch to add names, numbers, and a more intelligent account of what was going on.)

That basically happened on the 5th Harvard goal. Seger threw the puck away in the offensive zone to a vacant point and it led to a Harvard rush. The team seemed to panic at points in the game. But as others have said, this isn't the end of the world

[BearLover]

You have to go back to the 2006-07 season to find a Cornell team with a save percentage close to as low as ours this season. Note that the below include empty net goals, so each season's save % should be a few points higher. For example, Cornell's save % in 2018 with a goalie in net was actually .939.

Cornell's save % by season:

2007: .898
2008: .924
2009: .923
2010: .932
2011: .915
2012: .917
2013: .909
2014: .916
2015: .921
2016: .919
2017: .916
2018: .937
2019: .917
2020: .932
2022: .911
2023: .897

[arugula]

there were stretches where both teams who ever got the puck in deep the other team could not do much..  Clearly Harvard has the more dynamic skaters.  But given all that we out shot them, and we lost on the PP/PK even with many chances. The score does not really reflect how the play went.

We have 8 games left..  play well and at worst 6-2 to 8-0 and Harvard if they lose to Quin we could have 2 games in hand after next weekend and be tied for 2nd.

Cornell 6-2 gives us 49 pts
Harvard 5-1 gives them 49.

Second place or third doesn't matter all that much. We end up playing them in a semi faunal either way.

[dbilmes]

Colgate has been playing well and our home and home series against them in two weeks will most likely determine whether we finish third or fourth.

[dbilmes]

Since I was at the game in person, I never got an explanation for the first review, which came after an icing in the first period which never should have been called an icing. First, we thought the icing was being reviewed, but then we realized that's probably not a reviewable play. We then decided it must have been our shot off the crossbar a few minutes earlier which was under review to see if we had scored. But if that's the case, who had asked for the review? If we had, then Cornell would have lost its timeout when the play was ruled no goal. But that didn't happen, since we lost our timeout after a review later in the game.

[Dafatone]

Since I was at the game in person, I never got an explanation for the first review, which came after an icing in the first period which never should have been called an icing. First, we thought the icing was being reviewed, but then we realized that's probably not a reviewable play. We then decided it must have been our shot off the crossbar a few minutes earlier which was under review to see if we had scored. But if that's the case, who had asked for the review? If we had, then Cornell would have lost its timeout when the play was ruled no goal. But that didn't happen, since we lost our timeout after a review later in the game.

I think they reviewed both. Whether a guy touched it on the icing and then whether the shot went in.