Cornell-Harvard ECAC title post-game thread

[billhoward]

"There's a pony in there, somewhere."

This was about as good as a 6-2 loss in a title game can be. You can pick out three or four glitches that turned the game against Cornell, and a lot of those you can lay at the feet of an individual.

David McKee picked a bad time to have one of his least stellar outings. Assuming his physical health wasn't in some way impaired, he gave up two goals that never should have been. How often do you see a goalie let in a shot while standing, with his back to the net? (The goal off the bad bounce off the back boards.) Not Dryden-esque. And another where he lost sight of the puck inches outside the goal line for a count of one-thousand one, one-thousand two, which was long enough for Harvard to spot the puck and poke it home. (The one just before he was removed for Chabot.) Take away those two and it's a 4-2 game.

We took one penalty behind the play. (Gleed? I've lost track of who did what.) That was a goal. Take that one and it's a 3-2 game.

On power play, we have the puck in front of the net, eight feet out, an easy chip shot with a seven-iron into the net, and we bleeping count one-thousand one, one thousand one-and-a-half before shooting. That gave Harvard enough time to get in the way of the shot. Puck goes in, it's a 3-3 game. OK, I didn't have the viewing angle the shooter had at the time, but it sure looked as if a quick shot might have gone in; the deliberate, tee-it-up shot we took, didn't.

Midway through the third on a Cornell power play, Moulson seems to have the puck in nice position to the left of the net, yet he circles the net and tries a very slow wrap-around. It was like watching an instant replay cam that was running at two-thirds speed. He stuffs it between Daigneau and the post for a goal -- no, wait, Daigneau has his skate and pad firmly against the post. That would have been the goal that gave Cornell a 4-3 lead, presuming all the above fell into place.

It seemed as if we had several puck-in-front, goalie-not-in-position chances where the puck skips over a Cornell stick, or we shoot wide, or take too long to shoot. It's probably home team bias, but it seems as if the bounces didn't go Cornell's way Saturday. They sure went Harvard's way Friday.

Plus there was the small matter of giving up five power play goals. Wasn't that like a season's worth for Cornell two, three years back? What are the odds anyone else this year goes 5x10 against Cornell on PP while we manage to go 0x8? (Those stats would be team not individual efforts, other than the two apprenjt Mckee glitches and the unnecessary penalty.)

I thought we did a better job defending while down 5x3 than 5x4, at least until the shot went in with 0:05 left on the first penalty. When Cornell was on PP, we seemed to either have trouble challenging the Harvard box or we were just too hesitant to try to challenge it. Maybe the players all have mental calculators that tell them odds aren't in favor of putting the puck on goal, so we cycle it again, look for the opening, don't find it, and cycle the puck again. Wash, rinse, repeat -- and it's Cornell that's hung out to dry.

Harvard Saturday was like Harvard Friday: opportunistic. Puck's loose in front of the Cornell/Dartmouth net, Harvard whacks it goal-ward. Puck's loose in front of the Cantabs' net, Cornell's players seem to consult a very thorough playbook and kick it out to the point or off to a winger along the boards to start a set play.

The absence of Chris Abbott hurt, but not four goals worth of hurt. The officiating hurt, but not four goals worth. O'Byrne didn't hit any pipes, which would have hurt.

A couple of people said beofre Saturday's title game that it's unfair that Harvard had a mediocre season then a couple lucky games at the end. If that was us, we'd say "peaked just at the right time." Harvard deserved the playoff title. Maybe it's a good thing we dropped that final weekend game to RPI else we wouuld have been 1-seed and Harvard the 4-seed and Saturday's Cornell-Harvard showdown would have happened Friday. The rink was empty enough (7000 announced attendance, but it looked like half or two thirds that in attendance for the title game).

No question who had the most fans and best band. Cornell fans seemed pretty upbeat and appreciative (the "thank you, seniors" chant).

Does anybody feel sorry for Colgate to have such a good team the last five years and come up with such lousy ECAC tournament results? Maybe in a while.

Now we see who our NCAA opponent is. Maybe with luck we get someone whose style we can effectively play against ... and then if that works out, we just need to be lucky and / or good in the second game to make the Frozen Four. If and if.

[ftyuv]

From what I saw on TV, it looked like Harvard was just playing a much cleaner, more efficient, machine-like game.  When they passed the puck, it always landed on someone's stick, and that person would take it up without a pause.  Whenever we passed it, the catcher almost always looked like he had to reach to even get to the puck, then had to stickhandle for a bit to get control of it.  It cost us a couple split-seconds each time -- not much time, but just enough for them to beat us on the positioning.  True, the game would have been different if we hadn't started out with giving them 3 pp goals, but even then I think we'd have lost.  They just outplayed us, straight-up.

Here's to a better showing next weekend!  LGR!

[trainbow]

Correct me if my early-morning eyes are wrong ...
Cornell has 8 losses on the season.
4 of those (50%) are in the last 10 games, plus a tie thown in -- 5-4-1.
The injuries (and/or other factors) seem to have taken their toll. :`(

[profudge]

Harvard skated hard and a bunch of our penatlies were because we either weren't moving our feet or got caught a bit out of position -  thus  I believe there were 3 hooking calls - etc ....   Reffing was not that significant a factor -  Our ineffective power play last night hurt big time....  
Yes we miss Chris A.   but no more than Harvard missed Jon Pelle (sp?)  
We had a not so good night and looked a bit tired and Harvard deserves this win this night.    
Here's  praying we meet  them again this spring  :-)  
THANK YOU SENIORS  -  GO BIG RED

[MattShaf]

Last night's math is simple. Harvard: 5-10 on the PP; Cornell: 0-8 on the PP.
When you get chances, you need to take advantage of them. They did, we didn't. Time to regroup, rest and maybe try to add a wrinkle or two to our game plan for the NCAAs.
LGR! Time for the second season.

[upperdeck]

the simple math is that over the course of time a team would be lucky to go 3-10 on a power play and be unlucky to go only 1-8... thats a 4 goal swing.. and given how well our kill has been lately 2-10 would have been more than the should have expected.. buy given our PP struggles all season 0-8 is probably the norm.. but still harvard got 5 goals with only 3-4 good chances the rest was all bounces, we scored zero with 5- 6 good chances..

[marty]

Our defensive abilities are a notch less than in '05 and at least that compared to '03.  All that said, I agree with Bill Howard.  Take away a dumb penalty, a rotten set of boards (that also threw out a puck to the left of McKee on Friday) and the game could have been quite different.

I think the possibility that Ted Donato has raised the bar in the league is significant.  He has taken a group of draftees that has perenially underachieved and made them into a focused team.

Coach's refrain from the NCAA outing in '96(?) was "We will be bigger!"  I think I can hear him at the end of this season.  "We will be faster!"  The question for this week is, how fast can we get smarter.  To advance we will need to play an entire game the way we played the first part of the second period last night-and then some.

[Al DeFlorio]

I'm not sure we aren't fast enough, but last night we just didn't have the jump in our legs that we had the night before against Colgate.  Who knows why?  Late game the night before?  Tight game instead of a laugher?  Harvard coming to play early and putting us back on our heels?  Early goal that gave Harvard a leg up?  Five first-period penalties?  Nagging thoughts in the backs of collective minds about playing without Chris A?

Harvard buried their chances and took advantage of every break.  There was a graphic sometime in the late second or early third period showing "scoring chances" as 11 for us and 7 for them, yet we were pretty much already beaten at the time.  They capitalized very well and we didn't, seemingly a recurring theme for us this year.  Happens.  Wish I--or, more importantly, Mike--could figure out why.

[dbilmes]

I agree with all of the comments on this post so far. However, the key play in this game was the power-play goal Harvard scored in the final minute of the second period. We had momentum on our side, having scored two goals to cut Harvard's lead to 3-2. You had the feeling that if we came out for the third period only down by one goal, after such a dreadful start, that we had a good shot at pulling this one out. But first we had to kill a power play at the end of the period. There was a faceoff in our end, and the linesman kicked Pegararo out of the faceoff circle. We lost the faceoff, and the Harvard players pushed it toward the net and slid the shot past McKee. It definitely was a soft goal, and from a psychological standpoint, it was a killer. Now we were down 4-2 heading into the third period, and once Harvard took advantage of the bad carom off the boards for their fifth goal, you knew it wasn't going to be our night.

[nyc94]

[quote billhoward]A couple of people said beofre Saturday's title game that it's unfair that Harvard had a mediocre season then a couple lucky games at the end. If that was us, we'd say "peaked just at the right time." Harvard deserved the playoff title.[/quote]

For me it is more that they have done it five years running now.

[ugarte]

Worst. Road Trip. Ever. And this is coming from someone who drove to Boston to watch back-to-back heartbreakers against RPI and SLU and a trip to Pittsburgh to watch the Pirates' only home loss in the 1992 NLCS.

It took me four hours to get to Albany from Brooklyn because of brutal traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge and West Side Highway. I arrived at the arena three minutes before the game started and then ... Worst. Period. Ever. And this is coming from someone who went to New Haven for the 11-0 game.

Cornell came out looking great for about three minutes. After that the period was all Harvard. Cornell looked out of sync the whole game. Passes were off by more than a little, teammates didn't seem to trust each other and kept trying to pull off solo magic (which resulted in some very pretty moves - McCutcheon and Bitz made it work, Abbott and Moulson did not - but no goals) and the power play was embarrassingly formulaic. It was as if we were 3x4 on our own power plays because two guys hung around the far side of the net without making any effort to get in front for screens, tips or rebounds. Moulson ... to Scott ... to Moulson ... to Scott ... tick tock ... and cleared. And how much time, exactly, should a team spend mucking along the boards on their own damn PP?

This is what I saw from the balcony:

[quote ftyuv]From what I saw on TV, it looked like Harvard was just playing a much cleaner, more efficient, machine-like game.  When they passed the puck, it always landed on someone's stick, and that person would take it up without a pause.  Whenever we passed it, the catcher almost always looked like he had to reach to even get to the puck, then had to stickhandle for a bit to get control of it.  It cost us a couple split-seconds each time -- not much time, but just enough for them to beat us on the positioning.  True, the game would have been different if we hadn't started out with giving them 3 pp goals, but even then I think we'd have lost.  They just outplayed us, straight-up.[/quote]

And yet... when we were even strength, we were at least as good as they were and really - but for some freaky bounces and whiffs at the puck (Byron Bitz and Ray Sawada, I'm talking to you) - we had more good, even strength scoring chances than Harvard. That point blank shot that Daigneau pulled out of the air (read: his ass) was spectacular and crushing. Our penalty kill was strange to watch; we did a good job of clearing the puck most of the time, but if the puck diverted from the expected course just a little - and what looked like bad ice and uneven boards meant that this happened a lot - Harvard pounced on it while Cornell stood around looking confused. Goal, goal, goal. The PK was better than the numbers indicated but the response time to the unexpected was appalling.

Somehow, I leave this game feeling that they can be coached back to normalcy by next weekend and I can still think:

Here's to a better showing next weekend!  LGR!

Oh yeah, the trip home took four hours also because I blew out my front tire on the Palisades.

Worst. Road Trip. Ever.

Quick RichS memorial edit: Harvard outplayed us overall and deserved to win. Daigneau was mostly unspectacular but made two great saves. Given our reluctance to test him, it was more than enough. They outskated us and were far crisper. Best team won. Even though they suck.

[billhoward]

[quote nyc94][quote billhoward]A couple of people said beofre Saturday's title game that it's unfair that Harvard had a mediocre season then a couple lucky games at the end. If that was us, we'd say "peaked just at the right time." Harvard deserved the playoff title.[/quote]

For me it is more that they have done it five years running now.[/quote]

What's the James Bond line: Once is happenstance, twice is circumstance, but three times in enemy action.

And Harvard was the better, quicker, luckier team. Even if the bounces had fallen evenly, I think it would have been, say, a 4-3 Cantab win.

[redredux]

[quote dbilmes]I agree with all of the comments on this post so far. However, the key play in this game was the power-play goal Harvard scored in the final minute of the second period. We had momentum on our side, having scored two goals to cut Harvard's lead to 3-2. You had the feeling that if we came out for the third period only down by one goal, after such a dreadful start, that we had a good shot at pulling this one out. But first we had to kill a power play at the end of the period. There was a faceoff in our end, and the linesman kicked Pegararo out of the faceoff circle. We lost the faceoff, and the Harvard players pushed it toward the net and slid the shot past McKee. It definitely was a soft goal, and from a psychological standpoint, it was a killer. Now we were down 4-2 heading into the third period, and once Harvard took advantage of the bad carom off the boards for their fifth goal, you knew it wasn't going to be our night.[/quote]

I agree completely.

I also thought one of the big turning points (besides being called for 5 penalties in the first period) was giving up the second goal with 5 seconds left on H's 5x3.  If they could have just made it through the 5x3 then maybe they kill the rest of the 5x4 and it's still a 1-0 game.  Bigger than that and probably the biggest turning point was giving up H's 4th goal to make it 4-2 right at the end of the 2nd period.  That was the killer.  The Red were right back in it at 3-2 and had some momentum.  All goals in the last minute of the period hurt and that one was no exception.  I don't think the Red can look to the ref as an excuse for the loss, but I thought the officiating was awful both ways.  Cornell certainly had its share of PPs and couldn't convert like Harvard did.  That being said, I would have liked the Red to have the first 5 PP oppurtunities like H did (including a 5x3).  Harvard is very good and could definitely make noise in the NCAAs.

So the Red travel to Green Bay to play Colorado College.  For once, the ice size won't be an issue but controlling Marty Sertich and Brett Sterling certainly will be.  CC hasn't been playing well but then again neither have the Red.  The Red are higher seeded but I would certainly count a win against CC as an upset.

[Dafatone]

Another big factor were the NHL blue lines they have in Pepsi Arena.  Those favor the offensive game, which isn't us.  Missing Chris Abbott hurt more than I could imagine.  He might actually be our most important player (him or Pegs), given everything he contributes in.  In fact, I'd put him above Pegs, given that he's more physical.

Feola was awful, the boards took horrible bounces... but Harvard did play well.  We looked good on even strength, but our lack of PP ability killed us.  We needed to work the puck underneath Harvard's box, which pressured the point and clogged the net well.  We failed to do this.  I like the idea of Scott on the point, as he can skate the puck in and dish it out.  We need to, at least somewhat, skate through the kill.  Also, our second PP line couldn't do anything, though the loss of Abbott is one reason for this.

[billhoward]

Last year it was the Olympic ice and being on Minnesota's home ice playing against them. This year it was NHL blue lines and the odd bounces off the boards in Albany (same rink where we won it last year). We didn't like the officating. We missed Chris Abbott (even if Harvard lose Jon Pelle). We had three hours less sleep because we played the late game Friday. Since it wasn't played in Colorado, we can't say the altitude got to us.

I posed a lot of if-only's at the top of this thread. I forgot to mention the Yiddish proverb: "The girl who can't dance says the band can't play."

What hurts isn't the slings and arrows of injustice, but the slings and arrows of justice. Saturday, the better team won. Cornell got beaten by the H-Bomb.