NCAA Round 1 - Maine

[dbilmes]

Kudos to eLynah listserv member and Sun sports editor Jane McNally for the special NCAA tournament preview section they published earlier this week. The section included a nice feature on Seeger, who talks about why he came to the States and about being an Engineering student, and another article about the play of Cornell's defensemen.
Many of us have been critical of the Sun's lackluster sports coverage in recent years, so it's only fair that we give the staff credit when it deserves it.

[upprdeck]

If you watched Maine games, you saw the same thing.  They relied on some speed to get passes into open ice areas.

They didn't get the odd man rushes and the few times we had coverage breakdowns they created some chances.

We played a very physical game and we need to recover from that.

the first goal you could see the ice tilting as we hit them over and over the question was would it lead to a goal and it did and the game changed in our favor for the rest of the night.

Denver is a step up on offense.

[djk26]

I don't know whether to be happy about seeing Denver struggle to score or worried about their ability to shut down UMass.  Both UMass and Denver goalies looked very good yesterday; glad we only have to face one of them.

I know that Denver is a stronger team than Maine, but I ame excited to see Cornell try to beat them. Let's go Red!

[scoop85]

Kudos to eLynah listserv member and Sun sports editor Jane McNally for the special NCAA tournament preview section they published earlier this week. The section included a nice feature on Seeger, who talks about why he came to the States and about being an Engineering student, and another article about the play of Cornell's defensemen.
Many of us have been critical of the Sun's lackluster sports coverage in recent years, so it's only fair that we give the staff credit when it deserves it.

When McNally posted here asking for suggestions about the Sun's coverage, I recommended more feature articles. The excellent Seger piece is exactly what I had in mind. I hope they continue doing more of those down the road.

[Al DeFlorio]

Denver is a step up on offense.

Maybe so.  But didn't look that way in the rink yesterday.

[BearLover]

Maine had two Nadeau brothers. Denver, for all intents and purposes, has eight. (However, one of their best forwards, Massimo Rizzo, missed the first round with an injury.)

[scoop85]

Jack Devine looks like Denver's most dangerous guy. And the Buium brothers are almost certainly future NHL defensemen.

[adamw]

Man we've got a real winnable game up next too. Denver didn't look good against UMass, will be gassed from double OT, and we beat them last year. Let's get Schafer his frozen four that he deserves.

Remember that Denver is playing essentially at sea level instead of 5000"+, they have a day off, and they all are in great shape (as is Cornell)!  Agree that Denver didn't look all that good against UMass.  

This is absolutely a game that CU can win!!!

LGR!

I'm confused by the "Denver will be tired" talking point. Is playing 4.5 periods plus a day off really more exhausting than playing 3 periods and not getting a day off (which is every Saturday game over the course of the season)?

I'm more concerned that much of that team saw us in last year's tournament. The Denver upperclassmen and coaches thought a lot about "what went wrong and how do we fix it". No real element of mystery, except for when my wish comes true that Castagna goes complete Vesuvius mode and supernovas NBAJam style.

Anyway, Maine had absolutely no idea how to play us.

FWIW - UMass did to Denver what I've seen other teams do to Denver, including Cornell last year - and Denver still hasn't figured it out. It's very possible Cornell will play like crap Saturday and/or Denver will suddenly figure it out and/or Cornell won't be able to score and Denver will get a bounce and win anyway - but all I'm saying is, they haven't figured it out yet despite seeing it many times.

[adamw]

If the game against Denver were on Friday night, I think the double over time for Denver would be important.  However, with a full day of rest tomorrow, I bet most of them will be okay.  One possible exception is Denver's goalie, Matt Davis, who looked like he may have gotten hurt during the second overtime.  To be honest, I wish him well and hope he fully recovers.  I want Cornell to beat Denver at their A game.  I think the Big Red can definitely do that if they play like they did today.

Davis got a cramp - read College Hockey News

[arugula]

Umass controlled the latter part of the game clearly. Denver can be slowed and ground down.  I was at the old DU Arena in 1986 where we lost the two game total goal quarter final 8-7. Had we not given up the lead, we would have had a national semifinal against Harvard-Nieuwendyk v. Fusco. Imagine that.  As a result of this trauma, I will forever hate Denver(the University, not the city, have several old friends there).

The only team remaining which scares me, like everyone else, is Boston College. Not to say we will win, but I'm not daunted.

[upprdeck]

BC is the best team not even close.

Some teams have real good offense so our bad mistakes can kill us.

but MTech down 2-1 live vs BC shows you anything can happen.

[Al DeFlorio]

Maine had two Nadeau brothers. Denver, for all intents and purposes, has eight. (However, one of their best forwards, Massimo Rizzo, missed the first round with an injury.)

Maybe Denver has twelve.  All I'm saying is they didn't show it yesterday.  Tomorrow could be different.

[VIEWfromK]

That was the first time Cornell looked this way the entire season.

I don't see the game quite the same on tv as I do from my perch at Lynah but I saw a lot of pleasant things in their approach.  Someone earlier mentioned how they didn't overpass and that was true on all three goals.  Penney did a great job of buying time to get into an even better scoring position.  Mack showed us earlier in the season that he has the scoring touch and proved it by making a b-line for the net on both of his goals.  I can see in my mind's eye an unnecessary pass being made in each of these situations, especially on the third goal with Stanley streaking for the net but the guys did a great job of keeping it simple and taking matters into their own hands.  Even on tv I still noticed how passive the Maine defenders were.  I saw multiple times where their guys just seemed to cower and allow a Big Red player the space to make a play.  At the other end of the rink I thought Cornell used their speed to get into the right positions to make the defensive play the rest of the night after the Maine goal.  It looked to me like most of those plays were stick on puck instead of having to lay out to block a shot.  They played the way they needed to play to win that game.  Pretty neat to see they have some variety to their game.  Hopefully that makes it tough for any opponent to get a book on them.

[cth95]

Even on tv I still noticed how passive the Maine defenders were.  I saw multiple times where their guys just seemed to cower and allow a Big Red player the space to make a play.

In one of the articles I read on CHN or USCHO, Mack or Penny said they were surprised how much room they had.  They just took advantage of it and let the shot fly.

[VIEWfromK]

BC is the best team not even close.

Don't forget that BC has one of our guys.... Jack Malone.  He was sitting in the first row during the selection show