11/13/2026 Cornell at Brown

[BearLover]

-Had a very good Cornell crowd for the shit show at Meehan.
-How many periods have we actually "won" (played better than opponent) this season. Not many.
-we don't seem to be finding the right
Combinations of lines....or we just aren't gelling.  I think this team has a lot of individual talent. Probably very skilled. But not so much playing the actual game. Guys are passing to nobody. Not able to settle the puck. Miscommunication all the time.
-the team doesnt even seem frustrated. That concerns me. We need to "ass blast" Yale like mentioned. But i dont know if they can.
-Casey wants Lynah to be packed and loud.

if the first four bullets are the recipe for the last one i'm ordering takeout

as i said before - if the team fundamentally doesn't care whether they win or lose, how does casey expect the fans to?

There are many reasons Cornell has sucked this season and "they don't care" isn't even in the top 50

[scoop85]

Caught the replay, and boy do we look disjointed. Guys continue to fall down, we're losing puck battles with seemingly little fight, we can't sustain anything offensively, the power play is abysmal. You have to thing (hope?) that with something like 85% of our scoring back we'll see some better results soon. Our top guys have been pretty much invisible. Casey will need to figure things out on the fly.

[BearLover]

Caught the replay, and boy do we look disjointed. Guys continue to fall down, we're losing puck battles with seemingly little fight, we can't sustain anything offensively, the power play is abysmal. You have to thing (hope?) that with something like 85% of our scoring back we'll see some better results soon. Our top guys have been pretty much invisible. Casey will need to figure things out on the fly.

I think that even if the scoring does come around, we don't have the goaltending to make a run

It's only been a few games but the sample for Rousseau between last year and this year is getting kind of large and we have no backup option. Last year we had a good starter and serviceable backup, this season it seems we have neither.

[chimpfood]

Seems like Rousseau kinda sucks, really limits our potential. We've put ourselves in a situation where we pretty much have to win our next three games on the road to have a prayer of an at large bid. Let's see how we respond

[dbilmes]

Casey not pulling any punches in his post-game remarks:
"If we think we're going to play 20 minutes of hockey and be able to win in this league, it's not going to happen," said Casey Jones '90, the Jay R. Bloom '77 Head Coach of Cornell Men's Ice Hockey. "We were unprepared to play for 40 minutes tonight, and it caught up with us."
"Credit Brown. They've been competing hard, and they've been in every game this year," Jones said. "I don't think our guys respected the game tonight. I don't think we played Cornell hockey. I've got to give them credit — they had high energy, it was their home opener, and they took advantage of what we presented."
"We talked about it all week," Jones said. "We were begging to play games at the start of the year, and now we're rolling, and then we're unprepared to play. Obviously, that falls on me as a head coach. We'll have to dig in here and make sure that's the last time we see that."

[Bluelightning]

Glad he's pissed and seems to care. A few times I looked down and he looked just like a pissed off Michael Scott (from The Office). I hope I can unsee it for tonight.
Someone pointed out that we are falling down a lot. This has been really weird to me. We fell a lot again last night...I think even Walsh went down 1-2 times. I did see equipment guy looking over some blades.

[BearLover]

Seems like Rousseau kinda sucks, really limits our potential.

Our goaltending position is just recruiting misses all around, and arguably the coaching staff not being cutthroat enough. We seem to have completely missed on Katz and Roest in terms of hockey ability. Cournoyer is a phenomenal college goalie but we completely missed on his character. By the time he ditched Cornell it was too late to find anyone good with sufficient Ivy eligibility. And while plenty of schools like North Dakota, Wisconsin, and most recently Quinnipiac kick goalies off the team to open up roster spots, the Cornell coaches retain everybody, every year. Maybe we have no choice, given Ivy restrictions (can't really take transfers, can't pick up recruits last-second). Either way, it's a huge cost to carry two "backup" goalies if you're unwilling to play them. (I'm not advocating for kicking kids off the team, just noting that's what our competitors do.)

We've had good shorter goalies before so this argument maybe doesn't pass muster, but I wonder if a smaller, athletic goalie like Rousseau is better on a team that is less defensively sound and gives up a lot of odd-man chances. On a team like ours that isn't giving up much, we really just need a big wall in front of the net to consistently stop the low percentage shots. (Though, it's not like Rousseau has been stopping the odd-man rushes either.)

Maybe Rousseau turns it around and/or Roest gets the start tonight and plays great. But it's very clear thus far that Rousseau has cost us multiple games and the coaching staff has zero faith in either of the other options.

Looking ahead, recruits Cirka and Bach are 6'3 and 6'4 and battling for starting positions in the CHL. Both have save percentages around 89%. Bach (17) is younger with a seemingly higher ceiling. I believe Cirka (18) will come to campus first (likely next year, with us carrying four goalies again). Which is to say, I don't see this problem likely getting resolved next year either.

[Iceberg]

GWG was a bad one to let in but Brown had quite a few grade A chances that Rousseau stopped. The skaters lost that game more than anything, especially the offense not doing much for long stretches. I do think goaltending is a very real issue but I haven't been encouraged by a lot of the play overall in the past five games.

[BearLover]

GWG was a bad one to let in but Brown had quite a few grade A chances that Rousseau stopped.

IDK, did they? Their expected goals per CHN was just 1.6. They also hit a crossbar on another shot that beat Rousseau.

The entire team was dreadful but I have more confidence the non-goaltending problems can be corrected.

[BearLover]

man i wish quinnipiac went to hockey east

Umm, no thank you. This would nuke the national profile of the ECAC.

[The Rancor]

Again, a lot of lazy play- reaching instead of skating and trying to use the force to call a loose puck to the stick. Badly dropped passes. Soft passes. Barely any physicality. While Rousseau hasn't shown much to get excited about, the defense isn't doing him any favors- and the offense needs to do their job- shoot, shoot, score. I think he's good enough- for now. This team needs a kick in the ass. I had very high expectations coming into the season- I can't tell what happened, but they are basically getting in their own way.

[Pghas]

GWG was a bad one to let in but Brown had quite a few grade A chances that Rousseau stopped.

IDK, did they? Their expected goals per CHN was just 1.6. They also hit a crossbar on another shot that beat Rousseau.

The entire team was dreadful but I have more confidence the non-goaltending problems can be corrected.

As the game has evolved shooters are better.  Kids grow up going bar down from the time they can pick up a stick.  Shorter goalies  are going to get beat up high all day. It's not Rousseau's fault. Unfortunately at this level the teams are all good.  Everyone is going to give up high level chances.  You can't expect a team to completely shut off any good scoring chances against while still generating anything offensively. I understand nobody ever wants to blame the goalie but the teams that go anywhere have guys who make saves - lots of saves- against high danger chances, bail their teams out. And Cornell is not really scoring which leads to our next point...

Cornell has historically lacked the elite scorers that they need especially in a year like this.  They need guys who can create high danger chances and they need guys who will finish on a lot of those chances.  I don't think Cornell doesn't target guys who have that kind of talent, but for whatever reason they don't usually get them.  You need guys who are elite, the Morgan Barrons and the Sam Malinskis and the Jonathan Castagnas.  I always put Walsh in that category too so maybe he gets it going more.  But discussions about recruiting - that's a whole different discussion and having seen a lot of it up close in the prep school world I can tell you that the ivies are a tough sell in today's landscape.  College hockey and the NHL used to have separate distinct paths.  Now they are one and the same and it will take years for it to shake out and make sense again.  But that's a much longer discussion for another part of the board.

[The Rancor]

GWG was a bad one to let in but Brown had quite a few grade A chances that Rousseau stopped.

IDK, did they? Their expected goals per CHN was just 1.6. They also hit a crossbar on another shot that beat Rousseau.

The entire team was dreadful but I have more confidence the non-goaltending problems can be corrected.

As the game has evolved shooters are better.  Kids grow up going bar down from the time they can pick up a stick.  Shorter goalies  are going to get beat up high all day. It's not Rousseau's fault. Unfortunately at this level the teams are all good.  Everyone is going to give up high level chances.  You can't expect a team to completely shut off any good scoring chances against while still generating anything offensively. I understand nobody ever wants to blame the goalie but the teams that go anywhere have guys who make saves - lots of saves- against high danger chances, bail their teams out. And Cornell is not really scoring which leads to our next point...

Cornell has historically lacked the elite scorers that they need especially in a year like this.  They need guys who can create high danger chances and they need guys who will finish on a lot of those chances.  I don't think Cornell doesn't target guys who have that kind of talent, but for whatever reason they don't usually get them.  You need guys who are elite, the Morgan Barrons and the Sam Malinskis and the Jonathan Castagnas.  I always put Walsh in that category too so maybe he gets it going more.  But discussions about recruiting - that's a whole different discussion and having seen a lot of it up close in the prep school world I can tell you that the ivies are a tough sell in today's landscape.  College hockey and the NHL used to have separate distinct paths.  Now they are one and the same and it will take years for it to shake out and make sense again.  But that's a much longer discussion for another part of the board.

It is the finishing touch that seems most absent this year, so far. (and in other years) We are getting fast breaks, fist shots. You have to bury the rebounds and loose pucks up front. I feel like some of the freshman have the nose for that, but we haven't seen it.

[Bluelightning]

Im not giving up on Rousseau yet. Nobody played great yesterday...why should he be any different?
If he's not elite, then we need to play accordingly. Several goals we've given up this year have been awful defensive breakdowns, turnovers, or someone falling down.
We can't get the puck out of the defensive zone this year. We can't enter the offensive zone very well either.
Maybe we don't have a "rah rah" leader jn the locker room. Seemed Castagna was possibly that guy last year? We just need a wake up call and solid kick in the arse

[ugarte]

Rousseau had an unimpressive profile. I don't think he's really disappointing anyone - we were relying on him being good enough to keep us in games as long as we scored. In that sense, I don't blame him. He is who we thought he was. A good backup who transferred to be a starter at a school in dire straits.

The problem is everything else. The top line isn't cashing in their chances, we're giving up odd-man rushes and quality shots to weak teams and the rest of the team keeps falling down with our without the puck. Plus we apparently hate shooting.

Nothing irreparable, and it would be nice to see Tuminaro, but I'm getting on a train in a couple of hours to watch the team in person. I'd really like to be smiling on the way back.