Fish N Fowl 11/11/23

[BearLover]

By the way, do people use the new Slack channel? Seems like at least half the posters continue to post here during the game, so the outcome of the Slack channel may have been to divide the community in half.

[BearLover]

First two Harvard goals were on terrible mistakes by Cornell which led to two of Harvard's best players skating in on Shane all alone. I don't really fault Shane, neither was close to a gimme save, though Harvard's goalie made some saves in similar spots.

The offensive talent of Cornell is apparent, but the team lacks cohesion. I don't know if the freshmen need to bulk up or something but we aren't winning battles for pucks, even against the scrawny Harvard kids. I think the defensive position is a weak link; I don't see anyone creating offense other than Robertson. I don't see us taking good shots or making good passes from the point like Malinski or Mitchell did.

Cornell had almost two full minutes of 5x3 both Friday and Saturday and didn't score. That's the biggest reason for the very bad weekend.

I'd also like to see Donaldson and Mack in the lineup and getting ice time. We need more poise and experience and maybe they'll do a better job maintaining possession than some of our other forwards.

[chimpfood]

Just not good enough this weekend, especially Shane.

[Trotsky]

I don't see anyone creating offense other than Robertson.

Kraft and Castagna were setting up plays all night, we just couldn't pot them.

My god though Robertson is another species.  It's too bad the Cornell single season assist record is Deity because I could see him getting into the 40s with the right offense and a deep run.

[Trotsky]

Just not good enough this weekend, especially Shane.

But OTOH Shane also made spectacular saves on sure goal chances on both nights.  

[chimpfood]

Just not good enough this weekend, especially Shane.

But OTOH Shane also made spectacular saves on sure goal chances on both nights.  

I'm just never gonna be happy with 5 goals on 38 shots across a weekend. His big stops tonight seemed more like poorly placed shots on good chances than good saves.

[Trotsky]

Just not good enough this weekend, especially Shane.

But OTOH Shane also made spectacular saves on sure goal chances on both nights.  

I'm just never gonna be happy with 5 goals on 38 shots across a weekend. His big stops tonight seemed more like poorly placed shots on good chances than good saves.

Opinions vary.

[BearLover]

I don't see anyone creating offense other than Robertson.

Kraft and Castagna were setting up plays all night, we just couldn't pot them.

Yeah, I was just talking about the defensemen though.

[sah67]

Why does it seem like every time an opponent is trailing us late and pulls their goalie for the extra attacker, we end up facing a barrage of shots and "close calls", but when we pull our goalie we can barely keep it in their zone, let alone get high-quality SOGs? Do they need to practice 6x5 more often?

[Scersk '97]

Certainly need to practice 5x3 more often...

[ugarte]

Certainly need to practice 5x3 more often...

i was going nuts that there were no efforts to set screens or pass to someone positioned back door. we got shots off but nothing challenging.

[arugula]

Certainly need to practice 5x3 more often...

i was going nuts that there were no efforts to set screens or pass to someone positioned back door. we got shots off but nothing challenging.

Last night was my third in person game of the season. I also watch a ton of NHL and too often forget the yawning gap in skill level between the NHL and the NCAA.  So the idea of back door passes, screens, and basketball style cutting is likely too much to ask.  My complaint was that the players, at least a lot of them, seem to think they can do those things. As a result, while we outshoot everyone, we should have even more shots.  Seeing Ondrej try to nutmeg five feet from the net was insane.  Castagna is on his way to driving me nuts with his dithering and over passing and stick handling.  Some of the young D too. We should play a very direct game like Bancroft does. Shoot the damn thing, create a rebound and go to the net. 2-3 of the goals last night were scored that way.

[sah67]

I was also surprised (at least in the first period) how easily the Harvard forecheckers (even the smaller guys) were winning puck battles and muscling us around, seemingly out-"Cornell-ing" us. Here's Schafer's take on the power play efforts, from the Sun recap:

"I thought the power play for the first time this year got selfish," Schafer said. "[They] didn't really move the puck around and open up seams and lanes ... all they wanted to do is just solely shoot pucks."

Castagna is on his way to driving me nuts with his dithering and over passing and stick handling.

I mentioned to someone last night that Castagna is reminding me a bit of the Tony Romano experiment, although he can usually at least get the puck into the zone and not automatically turn it over/fall down in the neutral zone like I recall Romano doing frequently.

[VIEWfromK]

Despite the disappointing weekend I still feel like the team is ahead of my expectations.  For a team with so many first year players playing key roles I have seen plenty of instances where it feels like these guys have been in the system for years.  The lost weekend was definitely a team effort.  I generally believe that the hallmark of successful Cornell teams is their straight ahead mentality.  I saw way too many soft backwards plays in all three zones this weekend that are a departure from that process.  The one that sticks out to me the most was in the second period last night where Wallace entered the zone with some room during a change and instead of at least skating it to the corner to wait for reinforcements he sent a blind backhand drop pass to the center of the ice to a waiting Harvard player.  Most of the evening our D men lost foot races to spots or to the puck.  That happened to Stanley on the first goal and unfortunately to Suda all night.  On the second Harvard goal three Big Red players went to the puck carrier and the goal scorer had a free lane to the net.  Shane stood tall later in the game but I think he'd like at least one of those first two back.  I like Bancroft's game but he too had his try-to-do-too-much moment when on a power play he tried to enter the zone one on four during a line change and the turnover from the impossible play went back the other way for an easy clear.  My last point goes back to Friday.  They had a two on oh and a two on one where they didn't register a shot on goal.  Plenty to work on but I see a lot of potential up and down the lineup.  Can't wait to see what they learn from this.

[sah67]

Oops: delete.