MSU 4, Cornell 3 post-game (game 2) thread

[billhoward]

First home loss since the Clarkson ECAC fiasco in 2004. Ah, well. Still (marginally) better than last year's 1-1 tie and 2-0 loss at MSU.

A team built around defense shouldn't give up a man-short goal. Though it's going to happen sooner or later. And Cornell (Pegoraro) missed his breakaway.

Cornell is taking too many penalties. Let's hope that improves as the season goes along. Maybe the referees have to make a point early in the season.

Nice job coming back from down 4-1.

Incredible pressure in the last minute on MSU once McKee went to the bench.

[Cornell95]

If the refs want to make a point they need to eject players who throw punches, even if the gloves dont come off.   That fiasco in the 1st that only resulted in a handful of offsetting minors set the rest of the game up... add that to the 2 interference calls on Sasha and it is hard for Cornell to play their game.

[aznxjz]

Incredible comeback, but the red broke our hearts in the 2nd.  Some of those calls by Feola were questionable though.  

There was a lot of blood on the ice when Pegoraro got hit.

We have a bunch of chances the last 2 minutes or so, but just couldn't capitalize.  1-1 is not bad.  I'll take it...

There was one annoying "fan" in B that started shouting "you're not playing like the big red, you playing like the big sucks, get your act together"  What an idiot.  There will always be one of those guys.

B was as loud if not louder than last night.   Amazing spirit.  

[calgARI '07]

WAKE UP CALL!  Second period was one of the most pathetic performances I have ever seen by a Cornell team.  That fourth goal was completely unacceptable with nobody even trying and McKee letting in maybe the softest goal of his career.  Third period was maybe the best period I have seen a Cornell team play in a long.  Michigan State only got one shot in the third period.   Lerg made a couple amazing saves in the closing minutes and it could easily have been tied.
I have never felt so good after a loss.  Every team needs a wakeup call at some point during the season and Cornell got theirs early, which is very good.  This is one tough team that will battle hard and they showed that in the third period.  Bottom line to me is that they won five of the six periods this weekend.  
The students, particularly in A and B, were better this weekend than any weekend I have ever seen them.  They stayed for several minutes after the players left the ice and kept cheering for the team.  Really really impressive.  Obviously there were a few idiots that threw stuff on the ice and embarrassed but in general, the crowd was consistently loud and supportive.  Everyone stayed for the third period.  Really, an amazing crowd tonight.  Best I have ever seen the students.  
MSU was clearly a bush league team and you knew they would taunt the fans on the way out.  It is really not classy to go over to your fans and salute them, drawing out their gloating and Schafer let them know.  He was even pushing and shoving some of the players, really couldn't believe it as I saw it.  Again, the crowd mostly stayed and cheered and supported the team.  
Krantz and Seminoff were absolutely brutal all weekend.  O'Byrne and Pokuluk played extremely well.  Glover was fine.  Gleed needs to raise his game and lead the defense.  I love Mugford.  Plays his heart out.  Speaking of which, Pegoraro battled all weekend and blocked a ton of shots.  Carefoot also had a great weekend but got kicked in the third period and looked to be badly hurt.
3 Stars of the Game for Cornell:
3. Pokuluk
2. Chris Abbott
1. Pegoraro

[Drew042]

A few notes from the game:  

*I think that tonight showed the weakness of the Big Red; we have a young defense that is prone to mistakes as well as some older defensemen who should know better.  O'Byrne and Pokuluk both were terrible tonight.  O'Bryne should know better than to make that pass while on the pp.  Seminoff unfortunately is having a tough transition from Juniors.  I think that the penalties that he is taking are things that would not necessarily be called in Juniors.
*The refereeing continued to be brutal as several of the calls in the 2nd were phantom calls.  The fiasco in the first should have been dealt with properly.  I felt like we stopped hitting like we can in the 2nd because we were unsure of how Feola was going to call it.  However MSU apears to have been taught how to have penalties called as they continuely milked it when they were hit.  
*I think the best players for the red were Moulson, Scott, Abbott x 2, (my wife thinks that Mugford and Barlow also played well (and the best of the Freshman lot); which I agree with).  Kindret unfortunately looked lost and often found himself colliding with other players.  
*I wish we had shot more, their gaolie was nothing special, if not fat and short.  I hope that we get the chance to play them again because I am convinced we would kick their ass.  
*Lastly, anybody see who Schafer was going after on the MSU team?  He shoved one player out of the way to get to a second, but I couldn't see the number.  I figured it was the goon Nightingale, but I could not see his number in the scrum.  

Drew

[jy3]

schafer was upset b/c the michigan state team soluted their fans our goaded ours? i am confused
u know what is crazy and for some reason I thought we had *won* 4-3 and then saw the score on uscho and was confused.
what happened with Pegs that caused some bleeding?

[ben03]

Kindret did not dress. Pegs had to wear his sweater b/c his was covered in blood.

[calgARI '07]

[Q]Drew042 Wrote:

 A few notes from the game:  

*I think that tonight showed the weakness of the Big Red; we have a young defense that is prone to mistakes as well as some older defensemen who should know better.  O'Byrne and Pokuluk both were terrible tonight.  O'Bryne should know better than to make that pass while on the pp.  Seminoff unfortunately is having a tough transition from Juniors.  I think that the penalties that he is taking are things that would not necessarily be called in Juniors.
*The refereeing continued to be brutal as several of the calls in the 2nd were phantom calls.  The fiasco in the first should have been dealt with properly.  I felt like we stopped hitting like we can in the 2nd because we were unsure of how Feola was going to call it.  However MSU apears to have been taught how to have penalties called as they continuely milked it when they were hit.  
*I think the best players for the red were Moulson, Scott, Abbott x 2, (my wife thinks that Mugford and Barlow also played well (and the best of the Freshman lot); which I agree with).  Kindret unfortunately looked lost and often found himself colliding with other players.  
*I wish we had shot more, their gaolie was nothing special, if not fat and short.  I hope that we get the chance to play them again because I am convinced we would kick their ass.  
*Lastly, anybody see who Schafer was going after on the MSU team?  He shoved one player out of the way to get to a second, but I couldn't see the number.  I figured it was the goon Nightingale, but I could not see his number in the scrum.  

Drew[/q]


The problem with the pass from O'Byrne is that the top unit stayed on the ice way too long.  Pokuluk and O'Byrne both played extremely well, IMO.   The problems were Seminoff, Gleed, and Krantz.  Officiating was an absolute joke and it was the ultimate turning point in the game with the brutal calls of the second period.  It always takes defensemen longer to adjust than it does forwards and it was even tougher for Seminoff playing against such a tough team to start out.  I think he'll be fine.  Their goalie made some spectacular saves late in the third period.  

[Will]

[Q]ben03 Wrote:

 Kindret did not dress. Pegs had to wear his sweater b/c his was covered in blood.[/q]

I'm kind of curious to see how that will affect the sale of this particular gameworn jersey. :-D

[Drew042]

Well, I was very confused on the Kindret/Pegs thing.  Thanks for clearing that up!!!  I will agree that Krantz was terrible, consistently boggled and fumbled with the puck.  I guess I just expect Pokuluk and O'Byrne to show more maturity and handle the puck better than they did.  They both still have incredible shots from the point and I think they need to utilize them more.  I agree that Gleed needs to step up and show the younger ones how it is done; time will only tell if he does (I have my doubts).  

[Will]

The second period tonight is perhaps the sloppiest play by Cornell that I have seen since the middle of the 2003-04 season.  True, our guys were impeded by the refs calling everything (some legit, some not) against the Red but nothing against the Spartans, but they didn't do themselves any favors at some points as well.

MSU won this game due to Cornell's sloppy play in the second, the refs screwing up horribly, some actual skill and speed (I'll give credit where it's due; these guys did take down NoDak after all), some dirty play (I'll assign blame too), and Jeff Lerg standing on his head at the end of the game despite increasing pressure from the Red.  The Spartans will go deep into the postseason if they can keep this up for the rest of the year.

I'll agree with Ari's assessment of the third being one of the best-played periods in a long time as well.  My three Cornell stars of the game: 1. Moulson, 2. Chris Abbott, 3. Bitz.

Kudos to the student sections for their energy through most of the game tonight.  Some more during the second period might have helped our guys to get back in the game, though the first and third periods were just stupendous.

All in all this weekend, Cornell played five great periods and one horribly lousy period.  I hope to never see play that lousy again from players wearing Cornell jerseys.

For those of you on the student side, how did my sign look?  We got a few "Bald, bald, bald..." chants going throughout the game, some started by me, some started by the student side.  I think it worked well, but I want to make sure my sign was actually clear, in case I want to do more signs in the future.

[calgARI '07]

We loved it in the middle of B.  We really railed on him last night and that sign just kept getting us going.  Sign was perfect and every time me and my buddy's saw it, we started yelling.  I went to the game with 7 or 8 friends and most of us are so tired from the game that we're staying in tonight!

[cajunman]

Hell Feola is an idiot just call the game the same both ways that it no more no less it is hard when you have strong, agile players who can take a hit and not look like they are getting killed but when we hit it is a penalty. Hell if they call it like that we are out of game.  If the NBA called all of the fouls on Shaq because of his dominance and size he wouldn't last the first quarter Pathaic officating Feola is a (*&^% you fill it in.

[Oat]

The last time officiating was this bad was two years ago in a game against dirty Colgate. Referee Hansen really got to me and I just wanted to kick his ass (Does anybody else remember this game?). I don't even want to go into details about it. But tonight, from 2nd period on, Feola definitely won the game for Michigan State.

I am even more disappointed that our crowd threw bottles onto the rink. What did that accomplish? Please remind our friends not to act like we're a low class state school.

((Haha! And I couldn't believe that one of their players tried to launch the bottle back into section B with a slap shot. We really got into their heads. Good job guys.))

[MB]

I must say that the sign was friggin awesome, and whenever we saw it, we started chanting.  Keep it up!  You're at a perfect spot for the students to see you.