Cornell-Union Post Game Thread

[billhoward]

In a best 2-of-3 series in Ithaca, with some defensemen back, Cornell should be able to beat any of the other ECAC teams. The ability to mess up once in a playoff series and still advance plays well to our style.

[Drew]

I love this post.

[Omie]

Its Final...
1. DC
2. 'Gate
3. Big Red
4. Sux
5....

[ninian '72]

Final: Dartmouth 3 SLU 0

[Al DeFlorio]

I don't think Union's ever advanced, so we could easily get RPI or Clarkson in two weeks.

[billhoward]

[quote Omie]Its Final...
1. DC
2. 'Gate
3. Big Red
4. Sux
5....[/quote]
Sets up a possible Cornell-Harvard title game in Albany. Now that involves longer odds than just Cornell making it to Albany for the first game.

If the brackets are reseeded after each round so that high plays low, and if most high seeds survive except, say one of them, then we could wind up seeing Harvard in the semis.

Nice to see three Ivy teams in the RS top four. Now that's really minor.

[billhoward]

We should start a paranoiac's thread as to who we'd most and least like to see in the quarterfinals.

RPI had Cornell's number in the RS, but they weren't that good. I hesitate to say anything about Clarkson being beatable in a 2x3 series because a) we messed that up once and b) I don't want to be responsible for giving Rich S carpal tunnel.

[Omie]

as of right now, with a few games left tonight, we are 8th in PWR...

Rk Team             PWR Record  RPI 
1  Minnesota         28 22-6-5  .5873 
2  Wisconsin         27 21-8-3  .5736 
3  Miami             26 22-7-4  .5685 
4t Boston University 24 19-9-4  .5619 
4t Michigan State    24 20-10-8 .5565 
4t Nebraska-Omaha    24 18-11-6 .5499 
7  Colorado College  21 22-12-1 .5484 
8  Cornell           20 17-7-4  .5414 
9t Michigan          19 18-12-5 .5464 
9t Harvard           19 17-10-2 .5389 
11t North Dakota     17 21-13-1 .5496 
11t Maine            17 23-10-1 .5449 
13 Boston College    16 20-10-2 .5365 
14 New Hampshire     15 17-11-6 .5278 
15 Ohio State        14 15-16-5 .5239 
16 Denver            12 18-13-2 .5321 

[Trotsky]

If all the home seeds held in the first round, the matchups would be:

5-SLU defeats 12-Brown (prohibitive favorite)
6-Union defeats 11-Yale (interesting series, but Mayotte is good)
7-RPI defeats 10-Quinnipiac (reaslly interesting series)
8-Clarkson defeats 9-Princeton (another for the history between these teams)

Setting up:

1-Dartmouth hosting 8-Clarkson (which Clarkson team shows up?)
2-Colgate hosting 7-RPI (Colgate in a rout)
3-Cornell hosting 6-Union (eek)
4-Harvard hosting 5-SLU (which should go 3 straight overtimes games...)

[Chris \'03]

Did you add the RPI bonus? I see Cornell as 7t winning the tie break with Harvard. UND/Denver will have an impact and they are tied at the start of the 3rd.

[JDeafv]

Impressions of tonight's game:

Pegoraro played excellent tonight.  He really stepped up as a senior in his final regular season game, he did well all over the ice, playing center, killing the penalty, and playing back on D.  I counted at least 6-8 full shifts he played back on D, not counting the PP.

Bitz continuous to be a nightmare on the point during the PP.  Tonight was the second short-handed goal as a result of sloppy D play in 2 weeks.  O'Byrne will be a welcome sight back on the first PP unit.

[Scersk '97]

I'd like to say Princeton over Clarkson for the only upset of the first round, leaving Dartmouth the dubious pleasure of having to play Princeton in the quarters, and QU over RPI is tempting as well; however, QU and Princeton have both not played so well on the road, and, though Princeton and Clarkson look well matched at first glance, Clarkson's special teams are clearly superior.  I agree that upsets look very unlikely for this year's first round games.

In my dreams we'd end up with Quinnipiac for the quarters, but that's not going to happen.  I'd say Union's not a bad opponent for us, in the sense that they're not RPI, Clarkson, or Princeton.  Princeton is the nightmare opponent of the bottom four, Clarkson would be a disturbing opponent for obvious historical reasons, and, well, we haven't done all that well vs. RPI this year.

With healthy D back for us, I think Union at Lynah for the quarters will be much like the loss at Lynah early on this year, but with much greater fervor on the part of the team and fans.  I think that we'll manhandle them, like we did at Lynah and like we did for most of tonight's game.  We'll get our shots.  It will be up to Mayotte alone to steal the series.

[jy3]

some observation from 2nite...the sloppy play continued in the first. see my post from the fridays game for the details. it was a repeat. they turned it up the second and 3rd and played much better basic hockey. giving up a shorty with 5 forwards on the ice for a PP is a risk you take whenever you lack a D man on the point.

dave played well, made some excellent saves. his mother was very nice, as well (sat in front of us - at least we think it was her .)

solid win overall. time to rest and heal up.

I find it interesting that the 5-13 teams in the computer rankings are all failing to assert themselves. boston college as a #13 seed just seems scary to me ::twitch::

as of right now without the minnesota game we are tied with SUCKS for 7th with a 33/22/11 bonus

[Dpperk29]

well, after watching the tape I made of the game...

Pegs was awesome. what a night for him.

Dave was solid

Bitz was ok. horrible on the point. but ok otherwise.

Moulson. wow. finally he shows me why everyone should be affraid of him.

-Devin

P.S. And just incase you were wondering, I didn't successfully avoid hearing the score before a watched the game. I was in the grocery store and some asshole came in and shouts out "Cornell WINS- 2-1 over union"... oh well... I guess I deserved it

[Jim Hyla]

[quote jy3]dave played well, made some excellent saves. his mother was very nice, as well (sat in front of us - at least we think it was her .)[/quote]Yes, she was  in front all the way to the right, as we were standing faceing the ice. She is a super nice lady. She always says hello, was high fiveing it tonigt, getting right into the cheers. I'll never forget how she came up to me at Minne last year and said thank you to all the fans, for the support they give CU. She certainly didn't have to do that. Now if TX only had a lot of players, she would be a conduit to CU, much like Ned had from Mike Doran's parents in the Toronto area.

In regards to the game and the next two weeks, I'm very optimistic (but of course I'm always optimistic about Mike Schafer's teams). As opposed to Greg, I think we were short on D's this weekend, but not overall. Eight D's is about all we could ever expect to have. Having three out has to be very unusual. If you look at what happenned since the 'gate weekend, you'll see first a team short because of a couple of key injuries and the flu. Then we get over the flu and suddenly have no defensemen. Still we were in the games, and doesn't everybody think that we'd have won a couple of those if we had our defense solid (mainly OB). If so we'd be looking at first place by 3 points or more. OK by me.

I also have to say as I did last night, by the way coach talked about OB not coming back till the playoffs, he was holding him out to be fully strong and not reinjure himself. If that is true I restate my optimism, coach is playing for the playoffs, and I like our chances.