Cornell-Harvard ECAC title post-game thread

[Facetimer]

[quote marty]
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.

[/quote]

I think it is obvious that we were outcoached.  Donato made his team overperform (always in position, well designed trap, very disciplined, etc.), Schafer just relied on size and speed, which fell signficantly short.  It's about time Schafer adjusts his coaching style.  The power play is ineffective (everyone waiting around for something to happen), the penalty kill was non-existent, there is no offensive production, poor decision making, etc.  Schafer's response to all this was yelling at the refs (using words that would get him kicked out of Lynah, mind you) for legitimate calls.

It's as if Schafer's style is wear them down and then, when they are tired, go for the win.  This may work against the weaker ECAC teams, but not against the cream of the crop, and certainly not against the other teams in the NCAA tournament.

I know you guys all love Schafer, but what has he done this year other than make excuses (injuries and refs).  I have an idea for Schafer: TRY COACHING THE TEAM AND GET THEM TO THEIR POTENTIAL.

[cmoberg]

As has been said, we did not have the same jump as the night before, but perhaps more telling was the lack of crispness and speed of the passes.  

Harvard had our PP defense scouted well, and was able get an uncovered man in front of the crease.  I expect we will look a video and fix this. Our Power Play struggled. Too much thinking (not unexpected when you get down by a few goals).  Looked more like a choreographed cycle with too much predictablity.  The team was playing their hearts out and the kill late in the third looked more like we had the power play.

At the 3-2 point, momentum had swung and one or two lucky bounces would have turned the game for us.

WE MUST CONVERT ON OUR OPEN LOOKS.

But let us not forget this is a team that fought its way in to the championship.  They and we should be proud of them.

Chris

[canuck89]

I'll probably be lynched, but I must say that I agree with what you said.  We have a very good team and a great coach, however, he wasn't great enough last night.

[Rob NH]

[quote billhoward]Saturday, the better team won. Cornell got beaten by the H-Bomb.[/quote]
[insert joke about beating TO H-Bomb here]

[abmarks]

I actually agree a bit with facetimer.  Although you have to coach the talent you have to it's abilities, we are clearly doing some thing wrong IMO.

1) Either Harvard was more disciplined, or we were over-amped.  A number of penalties we took were just plain stupid or a result of trying to go out and hit no matter what the cost.  (See Pegararo's hitting from behind/interference penalty right in front of the assistant ref.  Brutally obvious, and not thinking.)

2) Comare our PP to Harvard's.  Harvard moved the puck around with clinical precision, especially on the 5x3.  The puck moved, the players moved, and they had  shots were from much closer in then we did.  Even their score from a D-man was a wrister through a screen - a shot taken with patience after working the puck around and gradually creeping in so that it was a much higher percentage shot than our point blasts.

I don't understand our blast away slapshot one-timer mentality.  It tells me that Schafer is unwilling to change his style, or he doesn't think we have the troops to try some skill on the PP.  Half the time no one moved around at all on the power play- it looked like a four corner offense.  No puck/player movement means the D won't get out of position.

I'm hoping some of the guys coming in next year can provide the skill upgrade necessary to get to 10 total guys that can play a smart skill-based PP.

[ebilmes]

I'm pretty much in agreement with what everyone else has been saying. We were not clean in our passing, especially in transition, and Harvard played a solid defensive game. From the second period on, our guys looked very tired. I thought the killers for us were the Harvard 5x3 with 5 seconds left and then the very, very soft goal off a faceoff at the end of the 2nd. If we had gone into the second intermission down only 3-2, we would have had an excellent chance to go ahead in the 3rd or at least force overtime.

Something needs to be shaken up on the PP. We have so little creativity; it seems like everyone's just trying to get it to Moulson or OB on the point.

In every game I've seen, Topher has played his heart out. If only everyone played with the same intensity...

[Josh '99]

[quote billhoward]"There's a pony in there, somewhere."[/quote]
[quote billhoward]What's the James Bond line: Once is happenstance, twice is circumstance, but three times in enemy action. [/quote]
[quote billhoward]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."[/quote]Do you really need to find a pithy quote for every situation?

[MB]

I'd like to add that it looked like McCutcheon played his heart out last night as well.  He wasn't affraid to skate the puck into the Harvard zone during the penalty kil, and at one point he tied up three or so Harvard players in the other zone.

[DeltaOne81]

[quote MB]I'd like to add that it looked like McCutcheon played his heart out last night as well.  He wasn't affraid to skate the puck into the Harvard zone during the penalty kil, and at one point he tied up three or so Harvard players in the other zone.[/quote]

Mugford had a heck of a weekend too. Great play near the end of the Colgate game where he almost single handedly gave us a goal, and then a great effort during the Harvard game to create that point blank shot that Daigneau made the insane save on. Looking forward to watching him over the next 3 years.

[jy3]

[quote DeltaOne81]
Mugford had a heck of a weekend too. Great play near the end of the Colgate game where he almost single handedly gave us a goal, and then a great effort during the Harvard game to create that point blank shot that Daigneau made the insane save on. Looking forward to watching him over the next 3 years.[/quote]

my wife and i were saying the exact same thing after seeing him saturday and during the clarkson series.

should be fun!

[schoaff]

[quote ebilmes]
Something needs to be shaken up on the PP. We have so little creativity; it seems like everyone's just trying to get it to Moulson or OB on the point.[/quote]

Let's not forget, however, that the exact same power play strategy led the nation last year and played a big part in beating Harvard for the last championship.

The difference between a great PP team and an awful one is about 1 goal every 10 opportunities.

[Al DeFlorio]

[quote schoaff]
The difference between a great PP team and an awful one is about 1 goal every 10 opportunities.[/quote]
Putting your shots on the net helps.

[RatushnyFan]

[quote abmarks]1) Either Harvard was more disciplined, or we were over-amped.  A number of penalties we took were just plain stupid or a result of trying to go out and hit no matter what the cost.  (See Pegararo's hitting from behind/interference penalty right in front of the assistant ref.  Brutally obvious, and not thinking.)[/quote]
Bingo.  We had zero poise in the first period.  Constantly on the penalty kill, outshot 18-3.  In addition to Peg's silly penalty, I thought that Bitz's penalty (charging) near the end of the first that led to the 3rd goal was awful.  Bitz was the hero the night before but I thought he was somewhat the goat on Saturday.  If that guy ever pulls it all together, look out.  With his size I'm hopeful that he becomes a dominant player.  Seems to me that he can skate and handle the puck pretty well for a big guy but I haven't seen him play that much.

McKee was off.  Bad time to have a bad game but his rebound control was terrible.  He is a good goaltender but he didn't look like it on Saturday.  Lots of pucks sitting in the crease after initial shots.  Harvard seemingly had several seconds to put the puck in the net on a couple of occasions and beat us to the puck.

Harvard looked pretty good.  I don't think they're a frozen four team but they might do more damage than people think.

Watching Sasha and Ryan playing together is a lot of fun.  Those guys are trees out there!!

Props to Topher Scott.  He came up to my 3 young boys and gave them all high fives before the game started.  We were sitting near a bunch of Cornell players during the Dartmouth/Colgate game - they were sitting far away from the Cornell section and get mentally prepared for the game so I didn't want to bug them.  Topher came up to them on his own and made their day (and mine).  Thank you Topher and good luck to all the players in the NCAA's.

P.S.  I think it's a decent draw and despite the venue I think it's possible to beat CC.  CC isn't that good and many of their offensive stars are pretty small.  The trees need to set the tone with some big hits early on to give them something to think about.

[Lauren '06]

[quote RatushnyFan]P.S.  I think it's a decent draw and despite the venue I think it's possible to beat CC.  CC isn't that good and many of their offensive stars are pretty small.  The trees need to set the tone with some big hits early on to give them something to think about.[/quote]
As long as they don't then get penalized for it by the CCHA refs...

[Josh '99]

[quote schoaff][quote ebilmes]
Something needs to be shaken up on the PP. We have so little creativity; it seems like everyone's just trying to get it to Moulson or OB on the point.[/quote]

Let's not forget, however, that the exact same power play strategy led the nation last year and played a big part in beating Harvard for the last championship. [/quote]Whether or not a strategy works depends in large part on the players who are trying to execute that strategy.  (To take this to an extreme, if Wayne Gretzky was on the team, you'd be stupid to run your power play from up high rather than behind the net.)  A comparison of last year's results (best percentage in the country, as you point out) to this year's (42nd nationally/9th in the ECAC) seems to suggest that Charlie Cook, Mike Knoepfli and Shane Hynes played a big part in the prior success of that strategy.