Cornell-Michigan State game 1 postmortem

[billhoward]

Thoughts on the first MSU-Cornell game and the 1-1 tie. Seems as if a 1-1 tie in game 1 of the series, seeing how strong Michigan State turned out to be, is a passable outcome. Other thoughts, like from people who saw it with their own two eyes?

GOOD

David McKee is for real. 1 goal allowed in 37 shots (.973 save percentage) is sensational. Got to feel better about 1GA here than the average of 1 apiece allowed to Harvard, Brown, or the opening weekend special olympics teams. (Note the USCHO game story making it look like McKee’s just a kid in his second season as opposed to already being a seasoned veteran: “McKee, only a sophomore, played with the composure of a seasoned veteran on the way to career highs in shots faced at 37 and saves with 36.”)

Penalty kill defense. Okay, it would have been better if Cornell allowed 0x8 power plays to MSU instead of 1x8. And almost another man-short goal late in the third. Cornell goes from scoring a man short goal every lunar eclipse to almost one every weekend.

Didn’t lose on the road.

Got stronger as the game wore on. Outshot MSU in the third period.


BAD

No offense. Sorry, 1 goal worth of offense. It will have people wondering: Is this 2002-2003 all over again?

Cornell looked like goons. Cornell took 8 penalties including Pokoluk’s major in OT to 3 for MSU. And the second hitting from behind ejection in two games for Cornell. Ouch.

Carefoot's injury.


WISHFUL THINKING

Cam Abbott misses chance to be part of Cornell (regular season) legend. If he’d made something out of the man-short opportunities late in the third period, Cornell would look like wizards, the streak would be intact (well, 5 wins in a row), and Cornell wouldn’t go to OT where Pokoluk would make Cornell look bad drawing that major.

[redredux]

Does anyone have a sense of the severity of Carefoot's injury?

[KenP]

[Q]redredux Wrote:

 Does anyone have a sense of the severity of Carefoot's injury?[/q]

If they do let's hope the don't discuss it on the Forum.  Let any possible injury reports come from the team.

[KeithK]

As everyone has noted, McKee really stood on his head last night and kept us from losing.  From the Lansing paper:[q](McKee played a great game. We peppered him and had a lot of great chances." (MSU player Ash) Goldie said. "I don't know how he made that save on Booth. It hit the post, then (his) back and came around and I don't know how it ended up in his glove.
"I started laughing out there. I couldn't believe it."[/q]Simply put, he was amazing.
MSU outhustled, outskated and outplayed us completely in the first period.  It was a little less tilted in the second and then we did get a lot of good pressure in the third.  Every time we tried to clear the puck out from behind the net it seemed there were two white shirts surrounding the red one.  MSU was reading the play quickly and we weren't reacting or passing quickly.  There was very little hitting, probably because we were afriad of their spedd and getting out of posiiton.  Not a good performance, but I'll take the point.  If the team comes out with better intensity on Sunday I think we can certainly win.

[billhoward]

Carefoot's injury is what it is. I think if MSU saw him get hurt, they're thinking maybe he's not going to play Sunday, and if he is playing hurt, they're going to try to skate around him, check him harder, whatever. If they try to re-injure his injury, that goes beyond the bounds of fair play, at least when it's our player who's hurt. Would we have the same decent feelings toward an injuried Noah Welch?

In the pros there's an injury reporting requirement so that gamblers with inside information don't have an advantage. I think that makes sense for college hoops and football because there's gambling, too, although you've got a balancing test between a (highly publicized) student's right to privacy and the public good. For hockey, I don't recall seeing a morning line on Cornell-Princeton last time I was in Vegas.

[adamw]

There are no injury reporting requirements in the pros - except for football.

[Pace]

God damn, I love McKee!

[Steve M]

[Q]billhoward Wrote:




BAD

No offense. Sorry, 1 goal worth of offense. It will have people wondering: Is this 2002-2003 all over again?




Edited 1 times. Last edit at 11/13/04 07:05AM by billhoward.[/q]

While scoring only 1 goal and the team's overall play (except McKee) was disappointing, I wouldn't associate 02-03 with much of anything bad.  If Cornell goes to the Frozen Four again this year I will be extremely happy.  Barring any big name players going pro, I'll be surprised if next season isn't better than this one.

[billhoward]

Perhaps the reference to the 2002-03 season was cryptic, even in light of the "no offense" lead-in. In that almost-championship season, Cornell was scary good on defense and you could pretty much count on holding any team in the nation to 2, maybe 3 goals, and odds were Cornell could net N+1 goals at the other end. Except you knew somewhere along the way there'd be a couple times you'd give up 4 and it would be a crucial game, say the national semifinals, and it was uncertain if you could get 4 as well and force the game to OT, or maybe even put in 5.

Making the Final Four is awesome when you haven't done it for a while - a long while. But making the title game and winning is a different plateau altogether. There was one of those USCHO quickie polls last year which asked what you'd rather have your team do, and I believe the winner was "Win it all one year, not even make the playoffs next year," over a bunch of other choices including "be great every year but never win it all." The former being the RPI / Adam Oates metaphor. There was no "return to the era of Ken Dryden / Brian Cropper" choice to vote on.

[atb9]

MSU is killing Wisconsin, undefeated and the 5th ranked team in college football.  A let down tomorrow?

[Jim Hyla]

[Q]atb9 Wrote:

 MSU is killing Wisconsin, undefeated and the 5th ranked team in college football.  A let down tomorrow?[/q]Yeah, all we have to do is get their football team on skates. ::nut::

[atb9]

Game is at 2pm...students will be going crazy tonight...do you expect all of them to make it?  A State fan posted on USCHO that the crowd was terrible for the friday game.  I can't imagine it will get any better.

[billhoward]

[Q]atb9 Wrote:

 MSU is killing Wisconsin, undefeated and the 5th ranked team in college football.  A let down tomorrow?[/q]

And Cornell made an amazing come from behind aginst the seventh or eighth-rated (in the Ivies) Columbia Lions football squad.

An omen also?

[Steve M]

I see where you're coming from.  I hope I'm wrong, but I would say after last year's disappointing season, winning it all this year is well beyond realistic expectations.  I'm hoping that this year's team can do as well as the 01-02 squad.  Get to the NCAAs and win a game, giving the freshmen and sophomores some solid NCAA experience.  If Cornell can pull that off, with such a small graduating class, we'll have a good shot at winning a title next year.

[ninian '72]

Patience, folks.  Let's get this game in perspective.  Cornell played in their house, and MSU had how many more games under their belts against quality opponents, losing a few along the way?  In the long run, it's good strategy to schedule a game or two at this point of the season against a quality opponent to help expose shortcomings on the team.  If the team showed less than their best last night, but still ended up with a point, this is not a bad outcome, if it helps them fine-tune their game and come back later in the season sharper for the experience.  Let's see how Sunday's game goes before we start looking at this season as another rebuilding year.