Bowling Green 1 @ Cornell 1

[Will]

DeltaOne81 '03 wrote:

I'd still like to see a rotation. Was there anyone who thought we'd have a one goalie system coming into this season?!?

After the Red-White game, I predicted that McKee and Marr would alternate each weekend, and that perhaps if one proved himself to be drastically better than the other (i.e., like Underhill winning out over Burt in the 2000-2001 season), that one would take over as starting goalie for the rest of the season, barring any serious injuries.  However, that didn't take into account that Marr would get hurt.  Any news on how Todd is doing?  In any case, I think McKee continues to get better with each passing game, and while I have nothing against Marr, I think I'd rather have McKee continue in goal for the rest of the season.  Let's just hope the Red can start pulling off wins instead of ties.

[atb9]

Last I heard Marrs groin was still weak but I thought he'd at least dress this weekend.  Chabot was still on the bench and I'm not sure if he even brought his helmet to the bench.  ;-)

I thought McKee looked great tonight.  He was especially solid in the third when BGSU got a bunch of shots off in a row.  He was holding on to the puck and handing it to the ref.  He was skating around the ice during stoppages and not just hiding in the net.  He really has calmed down since I last saw him!

Was it just me or did it seem like BGSU took out our knees a bunch?  I can think of three instances off of the top of my head where it looked like the stuck out a knee or dove into our knees.  Yikes!  Of course we did break their ankles a few times but still...

A very exciting game.  I wish we could have finished more than just one on 40 shots but their goalie was incredible tonight.

Let's beat OSU!  Go Red!

[KenP]

Still waiting to see Cornell get a lead (especially early) and have to work to keep it.  In games where Cornell has the lead at any point in the game, they are 3-0-0.  In tie or come-from-behind games, they are 0-1-3.  I know this is a weak statistic but I think the jist of it is right on.

By the way, does David have his new helmet yet?

[Will]

Ken Pavelle wrote:

By the way, does David have his new helmet yet?

As of last night, nope.  Or, at least, if he did have it, he didn't wear it, though why he would do that is beyond me.

[rsafploc 03]

[Q] Was it just me or did it seem like BGSU took out our knees a bunch? I can think of three instances off of the top of my head where it looked like the stuck out a knee or dove into our knees. Yikes! [/Q]
Wasn't just you adam.. I was cringing alot whenever it looked like a knee on knee clash.. I haven't seen those for a while already... and they were always "initiated" by the bg players. Still remember that york exhibition game last year when Moulson was taken out... :-(

[Ben Rocky \'04]

they really were acting really bad
Dupree must have told their coach to cut it out because a vast majority of those really dirty plays were in the first period.

[Section A]

My thoughts:

I forget who mentioned it already, but Sigalet (BGSU's goalie) made a RIDICULOUS save in third period. He was down on his knees, and he reached up behind him and caught a puck that was headed for the open net. I really could not believe it. That guy really kept them in the game; he had a quick glove, and was easily the first star. As for the rest of their team, they were bigger than I thought they'd be. But perhaps it was their ugly orange jerseys that made them look bigger somehow...

For those of you who weren't there or didn't watch on i2sports, this tie was different than the other two ties, in which we really had to struggle to not lose. Last night, with the exception of the first 7 or 8 minutes of the game (a trend which HAS to change, by the way), we were absolutely on fire. Cam Abbott, Hynes, Vesce, and Moulson in particular were all over the place....and it was just one of those night's when the puck somehow doesn't go in. I'm not too worried because we're so much better than we were against WMU. The defense is better too; those 16 shots given up in the third period were mostly from the outside, while a lot of ours were taken from closer to the net. The defense does a better job backchecking like last year's squad did......that is, one person takes the body as he comes up ice, and the other goes back to take the puck (whereas on the first weekend, it looked like no one knew their roles).

McKee's gonna be good, guys. Other than the time he fell down behind the net in the second period  ::twitch:: , he really did everything right. I loved how the crowd got behind him too. Oh, and the Bowling Green goal was a 2 on 1 that he never really had a chance at.

[DeltaOne81]

Avash '05 wrote:
I forget who mentioned it already, but Sigalet (BGSU's goalie) made a RIDICULOUS save in third period. He was down on his knees, and he reached up behind him and caught a puck that was headed for the open net. I really could not believe it. That guy really kept them in the game; he had a quick glove, and was easily the first star.

I did :-).

McKee's gonna be good, guys. Other than the time he fell down behind the net in the second period  ::twitch:: , he really did everything right. I loved how the crowd got behind him too. Oh, and the Bowling Green goal was a 2 on 1 that he never really had a chance at.

I don't mean to disagree with the gist of your comments, cause I agree :-) - it seems very likely that McKee will be very good - but I do want to point out a couple things here. If you count the fall down, then I count 3 significant mistakes.

I think in the second, the puck bounced hard out of our zone, traveling with good speed down the ice, and a BG player was clearly gonna be the first to it. McKee stayed in his net, and the BG player ended up picking up the puck probably equal with the top of the faceoff circles. Given that, McKee could have easily come out of the net and knocked it away... instead, he let them have the breakaway. It wasn't an obvious move - a bit hard to judge - but a goalie should have better judgement than that.

The other one was a non-chalant play that just seemed stupid to me. The puck was floating down the ice, not quite quick enough for icing, and it was floating on net. This was the first period so it was hard for me (from B) to judge distances, but McKee stopped it, standing up, with only his stick, positioned definitely in the crease - probably not a foot or two in front of the goal line. Sure, 49 times out of 50 he'll stop that... but is it really worth it for that one time it takes a tricky bounce. Use your whole body, get in front of the puck, and push it away before it gets in the crease. There were a few times that McKee seemed to take something for granted, that was the worst offense. NEVER take anything for granted. Had that puck hit a rough patch of ice and bounced over his stick, that coulda been that game. Just stupid really.

Both freshman mistakes, and McKee is looking quite solid, but it's why I wouldn' t mind seeing Marr rotating in. That musta been some groin pull :-).

[jtwcornell91]

Now that you mention it, Δ1, the other chatters and I did notice both of those mistakes (and could see them thanks to the cam) at the time, and Adam commented on them.  In fact, the not coming out to play the puck was weird because people had been (probably wrongly) chiding him for not staying in the net in prior games.

[MT\'97]

Just a few comments about the game:

This was my first game I got to see this year.  I agree that McKee did an excellent job fighting through the screens and picking the puck out of the air.  He definitely made some tough saves on the BG limited shots.  I also agree with DeltaOne81 '03 that McKee should have came out to play that puck.  He actually hesitated and almost came out but decided not to.  He needs to be more agressive and go for it.  Great job last night!

The defense overall did a good job.  However, a few times they left the weak side uncovered leaving an easy shot for the BG player.  Luckily, they only converted once - that is how they scored their only goal which McKee had no way of saving.  However, McKee was forced to make a few big saves and other times they were not able to get a shot on net.  A better team would have converted those chances for at least 2 more goals.  

I was impressed the way Cook stepped up to lead the offensive rush.  Several times, either by choice or necessity, Cook kicked it into another gear and lead the rush and had some good stick handling.  It reminded of the good "old" days of Chad Wilson.

Vesce played great with his quickness and stick handling.  However, I am afraid of what the Cornell game is going to become with Vesce on the ice - pass it to Vesce and let him work his magic.  More than one occasion there was an open forward but instead the defender passed it to Vesce.  This is not a good habit to get into.  Some team will shadow Vesce and Cornell with get some good breaks off of it.

Finally, what was with kicking out players out of the faceoff circle?!?!?!  It seemed like every other faceoff this happened.  At one point, I jokingly asked the guy next to me, "Ten bucks says Vesce gets kicked out."

[jy3]

i noticed the plethora of kneeing by bgsu and yelled at dupree every time that i saw it.

as for the save at the end of the 3rd by the bgsu goalie on the pp - it was a nice grab BUT it was going over the goal. i stand almost right on the goal line so it was going over but it was still going over. i was more impressed by two kick saves he made on shots going thru traffic. impressive.

[HOTELCALIFORNIA]

Personally,

I don't really like McKee.. although he played pretty good last night, I think Marr would have done just as well.. even saving the one goal. I agree he's getting better, but there's too much hype on him. What about Chabot? The couple of time I've seen him, he wasn't horrible. I'd like to see him in net. And of course I miss Todd, my favorite :-P

About the game,

The reffs were a lot different then most reffs. There was a lot of things that they didn't call. For example, a lot of the time, players would slide into the net or into the goalie.. and the reffs weren't too quick at blowing the wistle.. they just let the boys play. I thought these reffs actually did an okay job today... except when they made butthole calls:-(

Also our players need to realize that in order to SCORE, you need to freakin' shoot! We hold on the puck thinking of who to pass too, and there comes a big BGSU player, steals the puck and oh look it's in the other end and the score is still 1-1. We need to shoot, and get the puck in front of the net. That was really irritating me last night.

I don't think we played GREAT last night. I mean at the end, we realized that, gee, wouldn't it be nice to win this game? But we weren't playing to hard in period 1 & 2. We need more energy and we need to be more agressive.

Okay that's all I have to say. :-D

[DeltaOne81]

One last comment on McKee - he's very agressive when it comes to going after pucks that float beside or behind the net - almost too much so, but I've thought that about every goalie, so hey :-)... but this situation was different. You're right, he almost came out, then didn't. It's a different situation where he didn't want to be responsible for coming out when she shouldn't have, and giving BG an empty net to shoot at... but, on the flip side, he handed them a breakaway... freshman mistake, and understandable, but he's just not all the way there yet (as I wouldn't expect him to be).

I also thought the refs were relatively good last night... maybe we'll keep the same ones for today?

Finally, while the complaint of "just shoot the puck" can get old, it's often said because it's often true, and our boys do need to learn to shoot a bit more. You often have to make a move or two to get an open lane, but, if you don't shoot, you can't score. Best example I can think of was the faceoff with 7 seconds left (I forget if it was OT or regulation, I think OT), where Vesce won the faceoff back to the point, he stepped around a guy (good move), but instead of shooting he continued to go down low, and, if I'm not mistaken, with 2, 3 seconds left under up below the goal line. There's no reason for that.

[rsafploc 03]

I really wouldn't agree that he had made a bad call regarding that breakaway. Given that the BG forward got to the puck near the blueline.. if McKee were to race for it.. He'd prolly have won it. But there would've been no doubt that he'd have been taken out by that forward faraway from his net where he should be. The puck would've been poked into the neutral zone. And BG was in the midst of a line change. Like you guys mentioned.. wide open net..

I think it's prolly one of those "worst-possible" nightmare situations for goalies. And if he had gotten scored on after pursuing either decision.. people would either blame him for being too aggressive.. or making a bad judgement to stay behind...

All I can say is that I felt it really wasn't a freshman mistake. It was a real gutsy move on his part.

[DeltaOne81]

Well, I remember it differently, I remember the BG forward getting to it a good several feet past the blue line - closer to the top of the faceoff circles. If someone with i2sports archive wants to take a peak, feel free. But you're right, it was a tough spot. I'm not saying I'd do any better, just that I'd like him to.

Also, the article with coach's comments in finally up - http://uscho.com/recaps/20032004/m/11/21/bgsu-cor.php - many thanks to Adam :-).