Cornell 4 @ Harvard 3 postgame thread (11/11/05)

[billhoward]

An instant classic in the Cornell-Harvard series.

Despite an early lead, Cornell is down 3-2 with 5 minutes to play in the third ...  gets two quick goals to go ahead 4-3 ... only to have to fight off a penalty with just over 2 minutes to play. Moulson continues his point-producing ways but the light shines on Topher Scott and the winning goal.

In any game decided by one goal, it's a tossup who wins. Over time, the better team wins them. And it's now three one-goal wins in a row over Yale (plus an ENG), Brown (OT), Harvard. Plus the win over MSU was by one hard-fought goal (plus the ENG).

Okay, so McKee is not going to have a 0.99 GAA this year and make SI's Faces in the Crowd this year for attaining the magical figure. But, admit it, 4-3 is a lot more fun to watch than 2-1 or 1-0. And conversely Cornell has shown, unlike most of the rest of this decade, that a one-goal deficit in the third can be overcome.

Moulson is a pistol - 8 points on the year so far? And Scott is close behind. [edit: Moulson 5-3-8 after 5 games, Scott 2-5-7 after 5 games.]

Tying goal comes from the blue line. Good.

Winning goal comes on a 2-1 breakway, not after 30 seconds of digging in the corner (a test of a superior hockey team, but not real exciting). Excellent for the fans.

Harvard go-ahead third goal comes from too many men on the ice. Not good. Terrible that Cornell would ever get called for that. But better to suffer it now and remember it, than with 10 minutes to go in a one-goal playoff game.

 

[Tub(a)]

Sounded like a fun game.

Dartmouth got 45 shots on Colgate tonight. The Big Red may need McKee to recapture last year's form for at least one night.

[Mike Hedrick 01]

Three straight road wins is impressive.  Lets hope the D can clamp down against Dartmouth tomorrow.  

Wins like tonight are the mark of a strong team.  

[billhoward]

McKee may have his form and it may just be it's a more offensive mindset for both sides this year, or so far this year.

Discount the 4-goal MSU outburst second period of game 2 and McKee's / Cornell's GAA is 1.9. Not that bad.

But it's been close so far. Discount empty net goals and the scores have been all one goal margins:

3-2 W MSU (final 4-2)
4-3 L
3-2 W Yale (final 4-2)
3-2 W Brown OT
4-3 W Harvard

The law of averages, which over time is not wrong, says if you play all one goal games, you should right now be 3-2, 2-3, or 2-2-1. Instead we're 4-1 and wishing we were 5-0.

Now let's see how Cornell fares against Dartmouth. Cornell is better on paper than Colgate and Colgate was better on the ice Friday night than Dartmouth by 3-2. So on paper Saturday at Dartmouth ...

We need to await the injury reports and see if anyone such as Sawada is hors de combat Saturday.

[Trotsky]

Dartmouth outshot Gate 45-23; I'm not sure that qualifies as better on the ice.  On the scoreboard, though.

[jkahn]

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

The law of averages, which over time is not wrong, says if you play all one goal games, you should right now be 3-2, 2-3, or 2-2-1. Instead we're 4-1 and wishing we were 5-0.

[/q]

No, it would say that for an average team, i.e. GF=GA, then you would tend to be around .500.  But for an above average team (e.g. GF/g=GA/g+1, then you would expect a better than .500 record in one goal games.

[Trotsky]

GF-GA stands at 17-12, if you leave off empty netters.  Say those 29 goals are randomly distributed among the 5 games.  What are the odds of Cornell getting x points?

If I ever knew the math, I've forgotten it.

[billhoward]

[Q]Trotsky Wrote: GF-GA stands at 17-12, if you leave off empty netters.  Say those 29 goals are randomly distributed among the 5 games.  What are the odds of Cornell getting x points? If I ever knew the math, I've forgotten it.[/q]And the answer is:

d) All the information needed to solve the problem is not available. Enter missing information needed to solve problem here: It is necessary to know the referees for the game played in New Haven and how many Cornell players they plan to eject for the Brown game.

[Al DeFlorio]

Teeter was at the bench tonight, Bill.

[billhoward]

Al, Did you get from Boston to Cape Cod that fast, or was this written on a Blackberry? Please, we'd love more morsels about the game we missed. Was it everything the Cornell and Harvard announcers (when All Access didn't crap out) declared it to be?

FYI re Al's reference to Mike Teeter: We had noticed Mike, friend of Cornell hockey extraordinaire and with a Big Red hockey pedigree dating to the Ned Harkness era (before?), was not with the team at Yale. Good to see he's back on the road.

[Killer]

After watching the 2nd period in the standing room behind the section with the Cornell Band,  Little Killer and I decided to stay there for the 3rd period as well.  But my wife went back to our ticketed seats on the glass in Section 2, right on the goal line.  We told her to be sure to hold up our "Sieve" sign when Cornell scored.  So what happens when we score goals 3 and 4?  Lots of cheering from that section, but no sign.  "What could be wrong?", we wondered.  Has the woman totally forgotten her instructions in the heat of the moment?

Come to find out after the game that the sign disappeared.  I asked if someone had taken it (FYI, the rink Nazis confiscated my "Harvard Sucks" sign at the door), but no, that wasn't the case.  She had the sign propped against the boards in front of her, ready to spring into action.  All of a sudden, it slid down between the plywood of the stands and the boards, totally unretrievable.  So, she wasn't shirking her duty after all.  The rink just sucked it into its own black hole.

Well, one day when they're doing maintenance, someone will find that sign.  Too bad we won't be there to fondly remember the outcome of the game.  Still, we can take heart in knowing that for every game in the foreseeable future, mere yards from the Harvard goalie resides his true identity - Sieve!

Hmmm, makes one wonder what other little ditties we can leave in that time capsule for future suckies to find.  ;-)

[billhoward]

Signs confiscated at the door? If Little Killer is a kid, he/she should be the one carrying the signs inside his sweatshirt. If rink security tries to search the kid, he's just got learn to to yell, "Dad! Dad! That man touched me in a private place," and then start sobbing hysterically. And the rink Pinkerton will be attending conscioiusness-raising seminars from now until Little Dov gets into the class of 2028.

At Dartmouth, they'd just say, "Don't be such a wuss, kid" and continue probing.

[DeltaOne81]

I've been home for a while. The game ended what, not much after 9:00?

It was a hell of a game. If Harvard has won, that big shorthanded breakaway save would be the play of the game. It was a great effort and some luck, but that's the way with a lot of saves. It was of those saves that you figure there's a 75, 80% chance of a goal going back the other way - that kind of a momentum changer.

McKee was alright, but he's definitely not what he was last year. The first goal was kinda soft, he missed scooping up the rebound and then a little tip ended up just inside the post. The second was on the other end so I couldn't see it much, but someone on the game thread made a comment about McKee after the 3rd goal, which as completely not his fault. It was a beautiful sharp pass across the goal mouth that he had no chance on - would have been a spectacular save.

Topher just flies around the ice, it's great to see him get a big goal. The team is good and plays hard, but they just haven't been dominant this year, at least not on the scoreboard. We'll see how they gel, but our competition has sure as heck showed up. It's hard to think that we're not pretty damn good, especially after our performance against MSU (sorry for the typo, I'm tired and I was probably trying go to USCHO at the time and got confused ). Hell, maybe the ECAC is a lot better this year, as the interconference records seem to imply.

[Robb]

USHO?

[Jordan 04]

Amazing!  With 8 minutes to go I was lamenting, "Damn...I've been at so many tough 1 goal losses the last few years @ Lynah East."

And then the magic happened.

Way to go Red!  Awesome, awesome game.