Turning Point of the Series

[calgARI '07]

The fight Friday night.  Totally charged Clarkson up.  They were totally dominated Friday night and were mentally beaten up, totally lacking confidence.  Then the fight happened it completely changed the complexion of the series and Clarkson's play.  

[yougoon]

Unfortunately, I completely agree.  We stooped, were embarrassed by the way the call singled us out and lost our (moral) edge.  (No matter how much Nickerson deserved to be smacked.)  Clarkson feeds on getting under an opponent's skin.  They succeeded.

[Pete Godenschwager]

I think Nickerson and them fed off of us taunting them too.  Kudos to them if they were able to do that.  I know it's poor sportsmanship to be happy for another's injury, but I have to make an exception, as I was pretty happy to see Hynes knock Nickerson out of the game on a clean hard hit.  

[kaelistus]

I would venture to guess that the turning point of the series was Vesce getting hurt. Tho' I say this not as an excuse for losing.

[ugarte]

[Q]kaelistus Wrote:

 I would venture to guess that the turning point of the series was Vesce getting hurt. Tho' I say this not as an excuse for losing.
 [/Q]I agree - except that I think it is a perfectly adequate excuse for losing (or, at the very least, for why we fell off so much between games 1 and 2.)

[atb9]

I gotta disagree.  Vesce going down was the killer.  Clarkson won two out of every three faceoffs between games 2 and 3 and you just can't win with that stat.  A lot of our goals come off of plays from the faceoff, especially on powerplays when we can run the "pick."  Look at our lacrosse team two years ago--we lost our specialty faceoff guy to graduation and we couldn't win faceoffs.  I hope someone can figure out the faceoff before the start of next season.  And don't even get me started on the break out.  Games 2 and 3 we just looked confused bring the puck out from behind the net and then when Clarkson started chasing us behind the net it caused even more havoc.  The fight might explain why Clarkson improved their game but something severe also happened to us--Vesce went down.

[kaelistus]

ugarte, even with Vesce, we aren't going to win letting in 5 goals a night. This team is all about defense, and Clarkson managed to get through it. Kudos to them.

So I still hold that Vesce was a turning point, but not an excuse.

[Jim Hyla]

Losing Vesce was the point. Sure he is great on faceoffs, sure he is great on the PP, sure he is great on the PK, sure he is great anytime he is on the ice; but the most important thing is that he was our senior leadership. Yes Wallace was steady on defense (except when he was the second defenseman to go in deep and gave CLK a scoring breakaway), Hornby can light a small fire (like when he did that hit coming out of the penalty box), and Marr was always there when he was needed. But again none of them, except Vesce, were the force of our seniors last year.

Think of the heroics during the playoffs last year, and who did them. That was a remarkable class considering how each one could step up and take charge. This year Vesce was our only take charge senior, and you can't rely upon underclassmen to always be there.

I think losing Vesce removed the cohesion of the team. They always knew that if it was a difficult situation, they could ice the puck and he had an excellent chance of getting it back on the faceoff. Name any other situation and you would always want him on the ice. Much like I said about Baby last year he was the most important player, and the one that will be hardest to replace. And remember he was almost as good last year. Oh, that was the year.

Who will replace him is difficult to know. PP, PK, faceoff, maybe best defensive forward, can any one player do it. So, I'm certain that missing him put the team out of sync, and went a long way to sealing our fate. There wasn't anyone who could step up and take charge settling the team down.

As I also said before, this was our worst draw for the tourney. I would have rather played any of the other teams, but that's the way it was  :`(   .

[Will]

[Q]Jim Hyla Wrote:

As I also said before, this was our worst draw for the tourney. I would have rather played any of the other teams, but that's the way it was  :`(   .
 [/Q]

I think Union would have been a worse draw for Cornell, but Clarkson was certainly right behind them.

[Al DeFlorio]

[Q]Will Wrote:

 Jim Hyla Wrote:

As I also said before, this was our worst draw for the tourney. I would have rather played any of the other teams, but that's the way it was  :`(   .
 

I think Union would have been a worse draw for Cornell, but Clarkson was certainly right behind them.
 [/Q]
Not even close.  Clarkson was a much tougher team...as they demonstrated convincingly the week before on Union's ice.

Come tournament time, some schools just expect to advance, others to fail.  Harvard is an example of the former, and many of us called their win over Brown because of that.  Union and Yale are among the best examples of the latter.  Union has never won an ECAC tournament game.  Yale's playoff record is only marginally better, in many more opportunities.  St. Lawrence's knocking off of Yale--predicted by many of us--was the worst thing that could have happened for Cornell.

[yougoon]

Ok.  So you are saying the reason that Cornell couldn't complete passes, gave up all kinds of pucks in the neutral zone, missed shots at the open net, was because Vesce was missing?  If so, that makes me very nervous about next year.  I agree that Vesce was a cohesive force and leader of this team and certainly his face-off ability was very important, but there was a lot of other talent and lines on this team that did not play up to their abilities.  There was something “mental” about our breakdown.

I continue to believe that our attitude was affected by the fight (and the outcome) and perhaps more importantly, that fight fed Clarkson’s will to win.

[Jim Hyla]

[Q]yougoon Wrote:

 Ok.  So you are saying the reason that Cornell couldn't complete passes, gave up all kinds of pucks in the neutral zone, missed shots at the open net, was because Vesce was missing?  If so, that makes me very nervous about next year.  I agree that Vesce was a cohesive force and leader of this team and certainly his face-off ability was very important, but there was a lot of other talent and lines on this team that did not play up to their abilities.  There was something “mental” about our breakdown.

I continue to believe that our attitude was affected by the fight (and the outcome) and perhaps more importantly, that fight fed Clarkson’s will to win.
 [/Q]Yeah, that is almost what I'm saying. While he didn't cause us to do all those things, without him on the ice, we didn't have a real leader to turn to when things started to go badly. As I said, last year we had multiple leaders who all came through at multiple times. This year when we started to slide, there was no one to pick us up.

I agree the fight might have fired CLK up, but it also fired us up, and if Vesce was on the ice, I think we would have seen a different team. Also remember that no one it seems, coach included, thought that he wasn't going to play on Sat. (that is unless having him skate in warmups was a ploy, which I doubt). I think having him around on Sat would have made a whole lot of difference, and a much better chance for a win.

[Al DeFlorio]

[Q]yougoon Wrote:

There was something “mental” about our breakdown.

I continue to believe that our attitude was affected by the fight (and the outcome) and perhaps more importantly, that fight fed Clarkson’s will to win.
 [/Q]

Didn't Yogi once say something like:  "90% of the game is half-mental."  I think he was right (usually was), and this past weekend may have been as good an illustration of it as we're gonna see.

Count me in with Ari and yougoon on this one.

[Ack]

He also had the rest of his team line up in a circle, in order of height, alphabetically....

[Pete Godenschwager]

[Q]I agree the fight might have fired CLK up, but it also fired us up[/Q]

Did we need to be fired up?  Seems to me the fans/players were pretty fired up from the opening faceoff and the five goals.  Clarkson was sleepwalking.  "Turning Point" doesn't mean "the reason we lost" it's just a point where you could see momentum shift.  Clarkson woke up, they got pissed, they scored a goal, and carried that through the weekend.  Yes we would have played better with a healthy Vesce in the lineup, but I'd argue that you could see Clarkson change their game after the fight, that's where the momentum shifted.