Cornell at Princeton postgame thread 1/14/06

[billhoward]

[see the game thread for other postgame notes] Shock and awe. Well, shock, very little awe ... that nobody wanted to start a separate postgame thread on this bizarre game. What happened to Cornell?

- After the 6-0 blowout of Quinnipiac Friday, this seemed like a good opportunity for a double-shutout weekend. Be careful what you wish for.
- Nobody goes unbeaten anymore in any sport. Just about. So a loss now and then isn't unthinkable.
- Princeton played well and forced the play early in first period.
- Cornell didn't play badly except for one big mistake, the breakway for goal No. 2.
- Cornell dominated Princeton for much of the game. (Shots were 35-24.). We sat with some Princeton fans and with the game winding down to the final five minutes, they were still scared to death that Cornell was going to net the equalizer plus one in overtime. They were just as nervous, up 2-0 with 3:30 left when McKee came out for the extra attacker. The Cornell attack really swarmed all over Princeton. We must have had 10 wraparounds (all game) and Princeton defenders only stopped or poked away one or two.

There are three ongoing issues this season, not unique to this game:
- Lots of quality chances translating to not enough scores. Like none Saturday.
- Reduced power play effectiveness and only one effective PP unit.
- Brief defensive lapses.

Friday night we were crowing about how it's good, maybe necessary, for a good team to open it up once in a while. Maybe it's good for the soul to lose a winnable game so the coach can do some soul searching on behalf of the team and deliver an inspirational message. If they bussed back Saturday in the snowstorm, it must've been a looooong ride in every way.

Not as bad as the score indicates. Still, pretty bad.

The greatest damage done to the Princeton team and psyche probably came when the Cornell contingent cried out Where Are Your Fans? Where Are Your Fans? Usually orange on black clothing stands out, and you didn't see a lot.

Hey, we beat Princeton 57-49 over at Jadwyn Gym.

[edit] One other neat thing you're only going to see once or twice in a lifetime: Princeton on power play the last minute and a half (Moulson of all people whistled off) and McKee off ... Cornell 5x5 dominating [the part you're not so likely to see a lot] ... Cornell able to dump the puck into the Princeton zone from anywhere on the rink and not being concerned about icing ... Princeton needing to ice the puck ... and the puck coming back into Princeton's end again and again.

[MattShaf]

Tough game to watch. :-(

A few notes...

Can't be disappointed by the effort, only the final score. Sometimes you run into goalies with a double thick pane of glass in front of the net....

Can we please park a forward on the off post during the wrap-arond attempts. We'll give credit to Princeton's defense from keeping us from getting there to bang in one of the first 10 rebounds but after that....

Hey ref, how many times are you going to let their defense just fall on the puck in the corner before calling the delay of game. Five, six....BTW you could see  Moulson just come off the ice in disgust and frustration with this tactic....

Speaking of Moulson. That was a really bad penalty to take at the end of the game. He just dumped the Princeton forward into the net to create the odd man rush out of the zone. Good play if you don't get caught, otherwise....

[ithacat]

I'm still a bit dumb-founded (no jokes, please). Coming off a 6-0 win against Quinny, and given Cornell's road domination of Princeton the past 2 seasons...I'm baffled. It seemed they were beginning to put it together. Hopefully, this is merely an off-night. To be fair, Princeton has been playing pretty well the past few weeks and they had a great weekend.

This program really needs to find some finishers -- of course, what program doesn't. Seem to have a solid core of feeders, but someone needs to break out. This team is making decent goalies look great. Too few goals for the number of shots. Ah, it's so easy sitting here.  :-P

Lynah's going to be ::rock:: this coming weekend...

[Beeeej]

Only two things to say, really:

1) As soon as Gleed "scored" Princeton's first goal, I knew that a comeback would be difficult and unlikely.  Cornell is usually quite good at shaking off the emotional effect of a goal by the other team.  Very few teams are ever good at shaking off the emotional effect of an own-goal - and between their recent wins over very good teams, and their realization that Cornell, too, is merely human, I'm sure that goal also gave Princeton a lot of extra fire in their bellies.

2) The second goal breakaway:  I was sitting directly behind McKee when it happened, and I had an extremely good view of the entire affair.  Someone may already have said this on the game thread, but I don't feel like sifting through 100+ messages to find out:  Why didn't he come out of the net?  Goeckner-Zeller was chasing the puck from far enough behind that McKee had time to come out and knock the puck away, or at least come out and cut down the angles that G-Z had available to him.  Yes, it's a risk, but sitting there and waiting is obviously also a risk.  I sat there for what felt like eons seeing the opportunity to be proactive about it by leaving the crease just melt away, and it killed me.  Isn't this something goalies practice on a fairly regular basis?

Beeeej

[billhoward]

From center ice, the breakway looked like this: A Cornell defender was close behind and seemed to have his stick wrapped around G-Z's midsection. It's possible Goeckner-Zeller was about to be ridden off the play and if so, then McKee's role was to stay in the crease in case a second Princeton attacker appeared on the scene to grab the loose puck, although I don't recall anyone else being close. And to your point: In hindsight, had McKee come halfway to the blue line, GZ might not have been ready to shoot. Of course the way the game went, that would have meant we'd have only suffered a 1-0 loss. Saturday was Princeton's magical night. Love to see the Tigers as an ECAC playoff opponent so we could make it a best of 3 series for the season.

[DeltaOne81]

[quote billhoward]Love to see the Tigers as an ECAC playoff opponent so we could make it a best of 3 series for the season.[/quote]

That'd be best of 5, probably. Although if Princeton keeps this up, maybe they will make Albany....


Reposting from Scott's thread:

The fact is, Cornell played the better game last night, controlled the flow, and had the distinct majority of chances. Shots were 35-24, and that's probably a biased Princeton home town scorekeeper.

The only thing they couldn't do was finish. Whether that was their fault, luck, a hot goalie, or a combination of the 3, I don't know. But whatever it was, it sucked.

But had there been a few different bounces on scrambles in front of the net and/or the post they hit in the second (?) period, we easily could have been looking at a nice 3-1, 4-1 lead near the end of the game. Alas it was not to be.


This team is definitely weird though, this team has a variety of different problems that spring up. Lately the D seems to be getting solid and we're back to the nights when we can't put one home for our lives.

Scott is right, this team is a drop off from the last few years. But if there's a night that they can get all the cylinders clicking, they're pretty damn good. Unfortunately that has not consistently been the case.

[Will]

[quote DeltaOne81][quote billhoward]Love to see the Tigers as an ECAC playoff opponent so we could make it a best of 3 series for the season.[/quote]

That'd be best of 5.[/quote]

Unless we see them in Albany.  (Assuming we're lucky enough to make it to Albany.)

[Beeeej]

In case a second Princeton attacker appeared on the scene from where?!  There wasn't another one for at least twenty feet behind G-Z.  By coming out of the crease and poking away the puck, McKee not only manages not to depend on his defender choosing to commit a blatant infraction that would've led to a penalty shot, he also removes the chance of a rebound once the rest of the Tigers do catch up.

You're also assuming that the remainder of the game would have gone exactly the same way had it remained 1-0 instead of 2-0, which is a pretty absurd assumption in a game where momentum often counts for as much as skill and determination.

Beeeej

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

This was the first time I've seen us lose at Princeton.  Very disappointing.

What I saw last night was a team that in the first and third periods seemed very stationary.  No hustle, no drive, no energy.  We did well in the second, especially on the power play, but as noted elsewhere, couldn't finish.  I don't sense we ever really challenged Leroux.  By the third, we stopped hitting and let Princeton just sit on the puck (four guys on one in the corner?  Please).

I didn't see any creativity offensively at all.  We cycled well but had nobody in a position to score off the cycle.  Everyone I spoke to noted that it looked like they were looking for the perfect shot rather than putting it on net and going after the rebound.  Our passing was weak and very innacurate, though I'll blame some of that on the ice, which was in terrible shape.  The reason the shots were so lopsided, IMO, was because by the third period Princeton decided they'd ice the puck and sit on the lead rather than try for another goal.

I don't see this team making it to the NCAAs, and I'm not holding my breath about Albany.

[oceanst41]

I was listening online, and it seems to me that once Princeton had the goal they went into a prevent almost immediately. It really felt like they were doing everything possible to take time of the clock while keeping Cornell away from any dangerous shooting areas, which I guess is the point. However, it sounded like Princeton stopped trying to put any offensive pressure on, and focused instead on holding that lead. Am I getting the picture correct from the radio?

My take, is it possible this team coming off a big win over QU was looking ahead to a huge game this friday at home against SLU?

[redhair34]

[quote Beeeej]Why didn't he come out of the net?  Goeckner-Zeller was chasing the puck from far enough behind that McKee had time to come out and knock the puck away, or at least come out and cut down the angles that G-Z had available to him.  Yes, it's a risk, but sitting there and waiting is obviously also a risk.  I sat there for what felt like eons seeing the opportunity to be proactive about it by leaving the crease just melt away, and it killed me.  Isn't this something goalies practice on a fairly regular basis?
Beeeej[/quote]

Good question Beeeej.  It's one I've asked myself everytime McKee's faced a breakaway.  I don't think I've ever seen McKee make a breakaway save--not once.  I've also never seen him come out of the net at all to stop a breakaway.  He's a great goalie, but he seems to me to be pretty awful at breakaways.

[Jacob '06]

I agree with you guys that McKee should have come out in some fashion on that breakaway. I don't think he should have come way out before G-Z got there, but it was obvious as they were skating down that the d-man was not going to take the penalty. Once G-Z was about 5 feet out from the crease I think the best thing would have been McKee just diving out at the puck b/c the d-man behind the play would've prevented the player making a move to the backhand so this would have taken away any shot.

As I said in the other thread, I think the issue with the offense was too much playing with the puck in the corners and not enough shots from the center and the points. It was also really annoying how much Princeton just iced the puck for the third period.

[dbilmes]

Good question Beeeej.  It's one I've asked myself everytime McKee's faced a breakaway.  I don't think I've ever seen McKee make a breakaway save--not once.  I've also never seen him come out of the net at all to stop a breakaway.  He's a great goalie, but he seems to me to be pretty awful at breakaways.

I didn't see last night's game, but in defense of McKee he saved at least two breakaways (and possibly three) during the shootout against Minnesota-Duluth to determine the championship of the Florida tournament last month.

[redhair34]

[quote dbilmes]

Good question Beeeej.  It's one I've asked myself everytime McKee's faced a breakaway.  I don't think I've ever seen McKee make a breakaway save--not once.  I've also never seen him come out of the net at all to stop a breakaway.  He's a great goalie, but he seems to me to be pretty awful at breakaways.

I didn't see last night's game, but in defense of McKee he saved at least two breakaways (and possibly three) during the shootout against Minnesota-Duluth to determine the championship of the Florida tournament last month.[/quote]

I've seen him make a couple in the Red-White games as well (the last few years).  I was talking more about in-game situations.  I remember hearing reports from Lansing last year that he made a couple in the Michigan State weekend.  Maybe its a confirmation bias...I don't know, its just something I've noticed.

[Liz '05]

[quote dbilmes][quote (someone else)]Good question Beeeej.  It's one I've asked myself everytime McKee's faced a breakaway.  I don't think I've ever seen McKee make a breakaway save--not once.  I've also never seen him come out of the net at all to stop a breakaway.  He's a great goalie, but he seems to me to be pretty awful at breakaways.[/quote]


I didn't see last night's game, but in defense of McKee he saved at least two breakaways (and possibly three) during the shootout against Minnesota-Duluth to determine the championship of the Florida tournament last month.[/quote]

Not only that, but he also made an in-game breakaway save in one of the Florida games.  I remember mostly my surprise at the save, because breakaways are definitely not his strong suit.