Cornell @ Clarkson 12-5-25

[RichH]

Shit happens, but that kind of shit would hardly ever happen under Schafer. Obviously we were pressing to
get back in the game and got punked.

It did happen some. This game from January of 2020:

#1 Men's Hockey Dealt 5-0 Loss By #18 Quinnipiac

"It's a disappointing night all around"

HAMDEN, Conn. — Quinnipiac scored three goals in a span of 2 minutes, 36 seconds in the first period Friday, and the Cornell men's hockey team never recovered in a 5-0 loss at People's United Center.


A hockey parent told me that immediately  after the loss Schaf had the team lift weights.

And what year did we blow a 2-goal third period lead to Brown at Meehan in about 90 seconds? That was a bad night.

Edit: Nope, we blew a 3-0 third period lead in under a minute.
http://www.tbrw.info/seasons/2019/box20190215.pdf

[VIEWfromK]

THAT was a stinker.

Cornell came out and totally controlled the first five minutes (without a whistle) and Fisher scored off of someone in front.  Then after the review takes the goal away Clarkson played them better than even the rest of the first and it felt like the standard first period of this 25-26 season.

On the Clarkson goal Ashton had Major right in front of him but instead of handing it off he passed it around Major and right to the Clarkson forward.  I wasn't sure if Ashton screened Cournoyer or if it went in off of Ashton but it definitely fooled Cournoyer.

Cornell didn't come out for the second and start to take over the game like they have all year. Two offensive zone penalties and some questionable decisions with the puck lead to a mostly flat period.

Kraft had a puck below the goal line, came out in front and had nobody within ten feet of him but instead of turning and putting the puck on net he sent it to the point.  Cornell's best chances all came from plays below the dots but most often they wanted to play low to high.

The other head scratcher that period was a DeSantis rush that was a four on two across the red line but instead of pushing the play he softly dumped it in and made a change.  I would think that someone on the bench would have been yelling for him to go but instead it was just a turnover.

The Charlie Major post was a brilliant individual play.  If I remember correctly it came after some sustained cycle down below the goal line. 

The third was just more inconsistency and frustration.  There were so many bodies in front of Cournoyer on the go ahead goal that I couldn't even see it go in.  Cornell was running around on that one and everyone got bunched up.  The final two goals happened so fast.  I may be mistaken but I think it was on the third goal that Walsh had a chance to defend but instead he took himself out of position when he went to finish a check in the neutral zone.  The final goal was an incredible pick of the top corner over the shoulder of Cournoyer.

After that goal Casey went over to Keopple to chat, Keopple looked up at the clock and then Casey kind of shrugged and went back to his spot.  I'm curious what the discussion was?

Someone talked about them dominating faceoffs.  I'm not sure what the numbers say but Clarkson tied them up at the dot all night.  Even if Cornell won a draw it was rarely clean.  I remember one in the third where neither centerman touched the puck and it just sat in the dot while they stood standing locked together.

Clarkson also did a terrific job getting under Cornell's skin.  All of the after the whistle stuff and the blocked shots and the being in the way all night finally led to the dam breaking.

The Cornell band did not travel.  There were a ton of empty seats.  I was expecting more Red in the stands.

There were a lot of possible reasons for a game like this.  I was thinking about how six days ago they were playing at Madison Square Garden and now tonight they were in Amish Country.  Definitely grounds for a let down.  One of mankind's greatest unanswered questions continues to be how Cornell comes to the North Country and struggles year after year regardless of the quality of the competition.  Tonight they played against a team they are bigger than, faster than and probably more skilled than.  In the end though if they take care of business down the road in St Lawrence then a road split puts them at 6-2.  I'll take that every eight games in this league.

[sah67]

Shit happens, but that kind of shit would hardly ever happen under Schafer. Obviously we were pressing to
get back in the game and got punked.

It did happen some. This game from January of 2020:

#1 Men's Hockey Dealt 5-0 Loss By #18 Quinnipiac

"It's a disappointing night all around"

HAMDEN, Conn. — Quinnipiac scored three goals in a span of 2 minutes, 36 seconds in the first period Friday, and the Cornell men's hockey team never recovered in a 5-0 loss at People's United Center.


A hockey parent told me that immediately  after the loss Schaf had the team lift weights.

And what year did we blow a 2-goal third period lead to Brown at Meehan in about 90 seconds? That was a bad night.

Edit: Nope, we blew a 3-0 third period lead in under a minute.
http://www.tbrw.info/seasons/2019/box20190215.pdf

The 4-0 lead we blew in the final minutes of the third period at Cheel in 2021 (against Casey) is still the worst "meltdown" of the Schafer era for me, especially since we were on a 9-1-1 start to the season at that point, and there was still some optimism that we could reproduce our dominance from the lost, Covid-ruined season.

That collapse against Clarkson kicked off a much more mediocre/topsy-turvy stretch, culminating in our ECAC QF series loss against Colgate at Lynah, which, if memory serves, was our first playoff series loss at home in many years.

[Snowball]

THAT was a stinker.

Cornell came out and totally controlled the first five minutes (without a whistle) and Fisher scored off of someone in front.  Then after the review takes the goal away Clarkson played them better than even the rest of the first and it felt like the standard first period of this 25-26 season.

On the Clarkson goal Ashton had Major right in front of him but instead of handing it off he passed it around Major and right to the Clarkson forward.  I wasn't sure if Ashton screened Cournoyer or if it went in off of Ashton but it definitely fooled Cournoyer.

Cornell didn't come out for the second and start to take over the game like they have all year. Two offensive zone penalties and some questionable decisions with the puck lead to a mostly flat period.

Kraft had a puck below the goal line, came out in front and had nobody within ten feet of him but instead of turning and putting the puck on net he sent it to the point.  Cornell's best chances all came from plays below the dots but most often they wanted to play low to high.

The other head scratcher that period was a DeSantis rush that was a four on two across the red line but instead of pushing the play he softly dumped it in and made a change.  I would think that someone on the bench would have been yelling for him to go but instead it was just a turnover.

The Charlie Major post was a brilliant individual play.  If I remember correctly it came after some sustained cycle down below the goal line. 

The third was just more inconsistency and frustration.  There were so many bodies in front of Cournoyer on the go ahead goal that I couldn't even see it go in.  Cornell was running around on that one and everyone got bunched up.  The final two goals happened so fast.  I may be mistaken but I think it was on the third goal that Walsh had a chance to defend but instead he took himself out of position when he went to finish a check in the neutral zone.  The final goal was an incredible pick of the top corner over the shoulder of Cournoyer.

After that goal Casey went over to Keopple to chat, Keopple looked up at the clock and then Casey kind of shrugged and went back to his spot.  I'm curious what the discussion was?

Someone talked about them dominating faceoffs.  I'm not sure what the numbers say but Clarkson tied them up at the dot all night.  Even if Cornell won a draw it was rarely clean.  I remember one in the third where neither centerman touched the puck and it just sat in the dot while they stood standing locked together.

Clarkson also did a terrific job getting under Cornell's skin.  All of the after the whistle stuff and the blocked shots and the being in the way all night finally led to the dam breaking.

The Cornell band did not travel.  There were a ton of empty seats.  I was expecting more Red in the stands.

There were a lot of possible reasons for a game like this.  I was thinking about how six days ago they were playing at Madison Square Garden and now tonight they were in Amish Country.  Definitely grounds for a let down.  One of mankind's greatest unanswered questions continues to be how Cornell comes to the North Country and struggles year after year regardless of the quality of the competition.  Tonight they played against a team they are bigger than, faster than and probably more skilled than.  In the end though if they take care of business down the road in St Lawrence then a road split puts them at 6-2.  I'll take that every eight games in this league.

Shout out to "K" for forgoing hazard pay while trekking to North Country to watch our beloved Big Red and provide this nice long post about the game. Especially valuable to those of us watching on TV as the hapless ESPN cameraman apparently thought he was filming chess and we couldn't see the majority of the goals.

[Trotsky]

The 4-0 lead we blew in the final minutes of the third period at Cheel in 2021 (against Casey) is still the worst "meltdown" of the Schafer era for me, especially since we were on a 9-1-1 start to the season at that point, and there was still some optimism that we could reproduce our dominance from the lost, Covid-ruined season.

That collapse against Clarkson kicked off a much more mediocre/topsy-turvy stretch, culminating in our ECAC QF series loss against Colgate at Lynah, which, if memory serves, was our first playoff series loss at home in many years.

That was not a trip down Memory Lane I needed with morning coffee.

[VIEWfromK]

Shout out to "K" for forgoing hazard pay while trekking to North Country

It was nuthin'

[VIEWfromK]

I'm curious to see what sort of reception Casey receives.

There was no audible booing.  The band also did not do anything. The only negative action I saw against him was when he came out for the third (they walk out the Zamboni entrance around to the bench). As the mascot skated by it held out its hand for a fist bump but pulled it away at the last second and did the psych gesture. 

[billhoward]

Clarkson uses pro arena attendance counts: Anybody who has season or advance-sale tickets and didn't show, gets counted, although these ticket holders aren't buying burgers, pizza or beer at Cheel.

Cheel capaciy        3000
Reported attendance  2285
Percent full          76%

[billhoward]

Four days in the North Country and we were lucky to get away with only this much road salt attaching to the car.

[Jim Hyla]

Per CHN box score, Cornell's xG was 3.1 and Clarkson's was 2.3. Which indicates that (as usual) we were unlucky. But (1) I've read that CHN's xG model is flawed because it looks only at shot location and not at shot type, (2) xG doesn't account for goalie difference, and tonight Cournoyer let in a soft goal, and (3) honestly, Clarkson seems like a pretty bad team so it feels really bad to lose to them. The total lack of discipline and inability to spread out the Clarkson defense were the most glaring things. It was a horrible los that nuked our chances even though the underlying metrics were fine.

It did not nuke our chances.

As I said earlier in this thread, I would guess it decreased our chances of a at-large bid from ~35% to ~20%. These numbers are arbitrary, obviously. But there are extremely thin margins when you're on the bubble. We've been in or out of the NCAA by one game the last several years (looking also at the last two years, where we won the ECAC but if we needed an at-large bid we would have missed by one game). Moreover, this is a game we were supposed to win. It's not the same as losing to Quinnipiac. So when you factor in the fact we lost, which is bad, against a team the rankings would expect us to beat, which is bad, the end result is very bad.

The problem with your post is that you proved that you were wrong when you said it nuked our chances.

Nuke is total annihilation. I have no idea if it's correct, but now you give us a 20% chance.

I'll tell you, I'd take a 20% chance of survival in a nuclear war.

But on the other hand, at my age I might take a 20% chance on survival for anything.

[Trotsky]

In a nuclear war I want to be at ground zero below the very first explosion.

Y'all are difficult enough to live with when things are relatively good.

[billhoward]

If you ever wondered, "Does Clarkson have fraternities?" — here is your likely answer. Who else would go out in shorts and a well, not-quite-Hawaiian shirt? Although he appears to have a date.

This is the Clarkson women's game Saturday afternoon versus SLU, same as our Colgate kind of home-and-home weekend. The temperature had recovered, slightly, from the minus-5-degrees overnight temperature.

In Canton/Potsdam, I had to buy some windshield washer fluid (thank goodness for Tractor Supply), my choice was 32 degrees-rated fluid at 99 cents a gallon (I think left over from summer), 0 degrees, and minus-30 degrees. I went to minus thirty. We had to drive home via Syracuse and the Lake (Ontario) Snow Effect is not fake news.

That is all.