Cornell went into Saturday night's game at RPI knowing that a sweep on the
weekend would give them sole possession of first place in the ECAC, and it
didn't look like the four points would be all that difficult to get (no
offense intended, but RPI and Union were a combined 2-8 going into their
games with the Big Red). But thanks to inspired efforts by the Capital
District teams, combined with some rather uninspired efforts by the Big
Red, Cornell came away with just one point, dropping into a third-place tie
with St. Lawrence. A couple of personnel notes: forward P.C. Drouin was
back from his "unspecified illness" (one of the newspapers here referred to
it as a benching), but linemate Vinnie Auger missed both games on the
weekend. Defenseman Bill Holowatiuk continues to have back problems
(possibly a herniated disk) and was out of the lineup as well.
Both games have already been summarized to INFO-HOCKEY-L, so I'll just add
a few notes...
RPI 5, Cornell 3
The Big Red seemed pretty much in control of this game for the first half,
but suddenly RPI scored three times in a four-minute span in the second
period, and the Engineers never looked back after that.
Brian Morris writes:
>Cornell did break out in front after RPI put on a clinic of missed passes and
>frenzied skating. Brian Tapperfails to take out Cornell's Johnson, who
>skates
>down the slot unmolested. Johnson puts the puck into the net on the short
>side,
>with Greg Lopatka receiving an assist.
Cornell doesn't have a Johnson. Oh God, let me rephrase that -- there is
no Cornell player named Johnson. Team captain Brad Chartrand scored the
Big Red's first goal, and it came off a 2-on-1 after one of the missed
passes that Brian is referring to. The Engineers' Chris Maye had teammate
Jeff O'Connor wide open at the top of the slot, but the pass was bouncing
and O'Connor whiffed on the one-timer. Geoff Lopatka picked up the loose
puck and took off the other way with Chartrand, feeding him in front of the
net for the backhander through goalie Mike Tamburro's legs.
RPI's tying goal, 1:23 before the first intermission, was set up by a
Cornell mistake. Chad Wilson deflected a pass at his own blue line, and as
he was going for the loose puck, Andre Doll ran into him. With both
Cornell players down, Bryan Richardson was free to take the puck and set up
Tim Regan for the tap-in.
Cornell took the lead in the first minute of the second period, but then
the RPI scoring barrage started at the 10:20 mark. Dan Riva caught the Big
Red in the middle of a line change, and when both defensemen chased him
into the corner, there were nothing but RPI sweaters in front of the
Cornell net. Riva backhanded it over to Doug Battaglia in front of the
net, and Battaglia flipped a backhander of his own over a diving Eddy
Skazyk.
>Just 10 second later RPI scores again. Freshman Matt Garver this time goes
>down
>the left side and fights through the collapsing defense.
Garver made a nice move to get around defenseman Dan Dufresne, who had
fanned on a clearing pass. Skazyk got a pad on Garver's hard shot, but the
rebound went out to Eric Healy, who lost little time in firing it home at
the 11:30 mark.
> At 14:26 RPI gets another goal, on
>another great effort by Tim Regan. With Cornell on the power play, a Cornell
>defenseman has the puck bounce off the back of his stick, while still in the
>Cornell zone.
This was on an Engineer power play. Moments before, the puck came flying
out of the Cornell zone, and Kyle Knopp and an RPI defenseman (the announ-
cers said it was Patrick Rochon, I think) raced down the ice after it.
Knopp appeared to have a shot at a short-handed breakaway, but he was
hauled down from behind and then, as he was getting up, his stick was held.
No calls were made. Meanwhile, Rochon (or whoever it was) got the puck and
started a rush the other way.
> Regan, seeing a puck up for grabs, races in and goes in alone
>on
>Skazyk. He goes past teh goaltender and shoots a backhander that eludes the
>goalie on his stick side.
This was really Skazyk's only bad goal of the night. He dove and tried to
poke-check the puck away, but Regan simply drew it away from him and
flipped it into the open net.
Midway through the third period, with the score 5-2 (by the way, I was kind
of surprised that head coach Mike Schafer didn't use his timeout after RPI
scored their fifth goal), P.C. Drouin had a golden opportunity to get the
Big Red back in the game. With RPI starting to get a bit sloppy, the puck
came loose in the slot, and Drouin had an off-balance Tamburro leaning the
wrong way. But it just was not to be Cornell's night -- Drouin's high
slapper hit the butt-end of Tamburro's stick and bounced away from the net.
Some pushing and shoving when this one was all over, with Matt Cooney butt-
ending Tamburro and Tamburro reacting by slugging Cooney a couple times.
Roughing minors were handed out (not DQ's, fortunately), and that was it.
Tamburro had an outstanding night, finishing with 32 saves. As for Skazyk,
his 15 saves on 20 shots look pretty dismal, but three or four of the RPI
goals were bang-bang plays that caught a sluggish Cornell defense napping.
Cornell 5, Union 5 (OT)
P.C. Drouin, who had scored only once the whole season before this game,
notched a power-play hat trick as the Cornell man-up unit scored five times
in nine chances. The Big Red kept Union goalie Leeor Shtrom (making his
first ECAC start) busy in the first two periods, as they fired a total of
40 shots in the first 40 minutes. And yet, despite all that, Union was
able to hang on, and in fact they had the lead three separate times in the
first two periods. Defensive lapses at inopportune times were the main
reason why the Dutchmen, despite being outshot and at times outskated and
outplayed, were able to control the scoreboard.
Just to add to Jim Teresco's summary... Patrick O'Flaherty converted off a
scramble to open the scoring at 8:25 of the first, but Kyle Knopp tied the
score less than four minutes later, finishing off a very nice tic-tac-toe
play with a quick wrister that froze Shtrom. Union went up 2-1 4:28 into
the middle period when Chad Thompson put home Bill Moody's rebound, but
again, some quick puck movement on the part of the Cornell forwards
resulted in the tying goal. This time, Knopp and Steve Wilson played catch
with the puck around the perimeter for a while, until Knopp spotted Drouin
near the net and dished to him for the stuff home at the 11:59 mark. It
took the Dutchmen only 42 seconds to re-establish their lead, as Russell
Monteith threaded a pass through the Cornell defense to a waiting Reid
Simonton, who beat Cornell goaltender Jason Elliott high to the glove side.
But with 4:55 remaining in the second, Knopp pounced on a loose puck at the
edge of the crease and hacked it past Shtrom.
When Drouin notched a pair of power-play markers in the first five minutes
of the third, on a 25-foot blast at the 1:14 mark and then a quick wrister
to the glove side, it looked like Shtrom was finally beginning to crumble.
That may very well have been true, but the Big Red never really went for
the kill after that, putting only three more shots on the Union goal the
rest of the period. It didn't help that they had to kill off a succession
of four penalties, including a major on Andre Doll for boarding. Union,
meanwhile, just exploded, putting 26 shots on the Cornell goal in the third
period after managing just 24 total in the previous two periods. Elliott
was having a terrific period, but the Dutchmen finally broke through on the
power play at the 8:36 mark, when Simonton left the puck for Jamie Antoine,
who fired it home through a screen.
Union kept pressing the rest of the way... and, as you probably know by
now, Cornell did not. The Big Red dumped the puck down the ice one last
time with 7.8 seconds left and then, either because they were expecting an
icing call or because they were beginning to celebrate, slacked off. It
was a costly lapse, as Monteith got the puck from Chris Ford, skated
unmolested through center ice, and sent it ahead to Simonton for the one-
timer. Just like that, the game was tied with two seconds left.
Simonton ended up being the hero for the Dutchmen, but he was very nearly
the goat in overtime, when he cross-checked one Cornell player and slashed
another, earning himself a trip to the penalty box at the 2:27 mark. (I
know Harry Ammian has been getting royally toasted here on HOCKEY-L
recently, and he and Joel Dupree did have a bit of an uneven game, but
there are precious few refs around who have the guts to call a non-coinci-
dental penalty in overtime.) Cornell peppered the Union goal during the
power play, as they did for nearly all of the overtime, but Shtrom was a
wall, and the game ended in a tie. Shtrom wound up with 47 saves, while
Elliott made 46.
There really is no good time of the season to have a weekend like this, but
at least the Big Red gets a break in the schedule and doesn't have to face
ECAC competition for a month. Next up for Cornell is exams, and then the
Big Red will play at Mass Amherst on December 22, taking on either Finland
or Slovakia in an exhibition game the next night.
--
Disclaimer -- Unless otherwise noted, all opinions expressed above are
strictly those of:
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86 and '95
LET'S GO RED!!
Rebuild the Tradition DJF 5/27/94
"And now the postmaster general is saying, 'We're going to weed out all of
our employees that have overly aggressive tendencies.' Yeahhhh... and then
what are you gonna do, FIRE 'EM?!?"
-- Will Durst, on disgruntled postal workers
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