Union 2 @ Cornell 1 (postgame thread 11/18/05)

[ben03]

observations from watching the web cast this year (2 msu, dc and union) so take these however you like. it appeared we have a few major issues to address:

(1) leadership; is there any? don't get me wrong, there are a few guys who seemingly fly all over
    the ice but that doesn't necessarily translate into motivation for the other guys. but this team 
    plays a lot like the ry-ry team of 03-04. no killer instinct. 

(2) goaltending; weak at best. not cornell-like in the slightest. mckee has been soft all season and 
    continued that streak tonight. in addition, our d-men are still failing to clear rebounds in the 
    low slot. get it together boys!

(3) our breakout; it sucks and reminds me of past big red teams who could not get out of their own zone.

(4) power play: this teams PP is reminiscent of the 01-02 team that just couldn't get off a shot. 
    i'm not sure passing is going to put the puck on goal. or if they count so many passes as a goal. 
    And sit O’B … can you say liability. 

(5) finishing; for a team with as much talent as this one has, there is little to no reason we have scored 
    so few goals. We cannot continue to hope #24 carries us on his shoulders. 

if this team continues this type of play we're in for a long 00-01/01-02-type season (minus the stifling defense). ::uhoh:: i did like some of the line combinations Coach put out late in the third. i think carefoot on the top line with bitz and moulson looked solid. we need to get glover back in the line up and O'B needs to sit his ass out for a few games. brutal, absolutely brutal. although davenport was worse, get salmela some pt, we can’t do much worse than davenport did. they did seemingly skate well tonight but this program it’s in it for moral victories they’re not out there to say “we gave it our best shot, better luck next time.” i’m starting to believe this might just be a case where a team cannot live up to the lofty expectations placed upon them. dare i actually say it ... but this team might just be a 3-4 place ECAC(HL) #14-15 nationally ranked team. maybe that's where they belong. apparently they'll have do better and prove me wrong b/c that's the way they've begun to play.

just some thoughts.

[Scersk '97]

It seems to me as if the second goal wasn't O'Bryne.  From how I see it:

1)  O'Byrne has trouble behind his own net, which happens.
2)  Tries to pass it to Davenport.
3)  Davenport, inexplicably, tries to bring it out in front of the net and bobbles.
4)  The Union player scores before McKee can even react.

Oh, and O'Byrne was back there without support because Davenport over-committed on chasing the faceoff.

[dbilmes]

It seems to me an immediate key is to win tomorrow night. If we can get that game and then (hopefully) sweep Niagara over Thanksgiving, then we'll have a three-game winning streak under our belts. Hopefully the team can use this stretch to really gel and figure out what the hell is going on.

[RatushnyFan]

We've lost to Union at home more than I would have thought, but not recently........'92, '94 and '98.  I saw the '92 game and it was a big deal because we hadn't lost to them yet as a D1 team - that may have even been their first year in the conference but we were awful that year despite Paris Duffus' best efforts.  I'm amazed that we lost at Lynah to them, their record is inflated.  Who cares about the rankings at this point but say goodbye to a top 10 ranking with a loss at home to Union.

[Tub(a)]

[Q]Chris '03 Wrote:

 [Q2]Jacob '06 Wrote:

 All you people that say there was no way he was screened on that first goal weren't watching the same game I was watching. Pegoraro went down for a block on that shot and either missed it or barely hit the puck, and I think thats why McKee didn't quite get to the right spot to stop it. After he deflected it you saw a look of desperation on his face trying to dive back and get it before it dropped in.[/Q]
If you have all-access, the video archive is already up. The goals comes about 37 minutes into the video so you can see for yourself. I'm not smart enough to make a screen capture and post it here. Perhaps someone else can. The angle gives you a good idea of the traffic (one white jersey on one knee) between McKee and the shooter. [/q]

Yep, I got a screen capture but I'm not smart enough to figure out how to get it into anything but MS Word.

If you want to look at that, it's attached. We can wait for someone more savvy to post a real pic.

It is exactly as you described.

[Will]

[Q]ben03 Wrote:

(2) goaltending; weak at best. not cornell-like in the slightest. mckee has been soft all season and  continued that streak tonight. in addition, our d-men are still failing to clear rebounds in the low slot. get it together boys![/q]

On the bright side, though, it's given Chabot a chance to show that he doesn't suck quite as much as most of us used to think, and is probably actually a worthy backup in a crunch.

[Dafatone]

For the most part, I thought we looked a lot better tonight.  Especially our defense, we cleared rebounds much better than in the past.

I thought Krantz looked pretty good for once.  The only defenseman who struck me as truly off was Davenport.  O'Byrne was streaky, but played well at times.  I don't know why we sat Glover, he was playing well.

Same with Barlow, would rather have him out there than Kindret.

[redhair34]

[Q]Dafatone Wrote:
 The only defenseman who struck me as truly off was Davenport.
[/q]

I thought he got a lot better after he gave up the goal...but then again I might have just been trying to stay optimistic

[Q]Same with Barlow, would rather have him out there than Kindret.[/q]

Why bench a guy who was seeing regular minutes for a guy who Schafer didn't feel comfortable puting out there for a regular shift?

[Bryan '06]

[Q] And what was up with the Tuba tonight? I think that summed up the game, though I did laugh a lot....[/Q]

He's a freshman player...none of the other tubas were around tonight due to a marching band road trip to Penn.  He did an amazing job though...I'd never want to solo in front of the entire Lynah crowd!

[BCrespi]

[Q]
I posted this on the USCHO game thread this afternoon, but I don't think we have enough goal scorers.  We have a ton of setup guys just not enough scorers.  And tonight it caught up with us.

[/q]

Perhaps this is the reason for the current small-ish, possibly high-scoring recruiting class.  Coach may have made a decision that we'll never get all the way without at least a couple of serious finishers.  That said, I like our dominant physical style, so we'll just have to wait and see if they can keep both.  I think the most important thing is that they just need to work harder right now.  Yes, they were the better team tonight, but they definitely didn't seem to want it more.

[Cactus12]

I agree, I think Barlow was probably playing the best out of any of the freshmen and was just starting to get comfortable...  the other freshmen just look lost...  

[Trotsky]

The last season during which we didn't, at some point, have a long, learned, and entirely plausible analysis of not having enough finishers was 1991.  We do this every year -- they lose one game, and we scramble for reasons within that game.  Now that it's two games, we look for reasons in the team composition.  Not sure what happens at three games.  The stars, maybe, or divine retribution.  Maybe we'll find out tonight.

Re.

Lax.

[CTUCK1]

McKee looked like a turtle that had flipped over and couldn't get off his backside.  Disturbing.

[Al DeFlorio]

Interesting article on David in today's Journal:

http://theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051119/NEWS01/511190310/1002

[profudge]

Some quick thoughts  -  on the game:
-  was watching our dominance in possession and face-offs  and  thinking long run that should lead to goals ...  not last night.
-  despite being forced to play alot of desparate D.  Union moved their feet.   Many of our penalties were when we were beat in that sense.  eg. Chris Abbott taking the hooking interference after winning a faceoff in our end;  no D-man got to the puck but one of their forwards did . . .
-   Our pp points were being fronted well by the Union pk and when we hit the guy in th mid slot boards in that case they were not agressively moving in to the slot or to the net  thus setting up a shot or drawing the defensive box in.  
-  I had face-off stats of 38 wins, 14 loses, and 9 neutral/ties for the game.  
-  Union Captain Scott Seney was their only strong face-off presence and he started the game playing  on the wing...  
-  We need to find our feel on the power play for quick teamwork, shouldn't take a 5-3 for us to score and we had some good chances but we were a tad off last night.
-   officiating was fair and even - missed a few things -like the pushing puck out of zone w/ broken stick but overall  no - complaints as it was both ways.
- in last 4 mins or so we seemed to have an aversion to passing back to the point - which allowed Union D to collapse into red zone and force us to corners.

Looking forward to the team improving tonight on last night!  
And was disappointed by numbers of folks leaving also - We are long term section N hockey fanatic and always stay to salute the team  --  win or lose.