The Big Red emerged from the opening weekend of league play with a sur-
prising three points, after tying Dartmouth 5-5 Friday night and defeating
a nationally-ranked Vermont team 3-2 on Saturday. Though the Big Green
looks like a better team than they did last year, Cornell could have, and
probably should have, won that game; instead, the Big Red had to rally in
the last ten seconds to get the tie. In contrast, Cornell was given very
little chance against the powerful Catamounts, but freshman goaltender
Jason Elliott was sensational in his first start, backstopping the Big Red
to the victory. More notes from the weekend:
Dartmouth 5, Cornell 5 (OT)
Cornell's Steve Wilson brought the screaming Lynah crowd to their feet as
he notched his second goal of the game at 19:50 of the third period,
lifting the Big Red into a tie in this back-and-forth game. While this was
not a particularly satisfying result for the Big Red, Dartmouth should
probably be even more upset, as depending on how you look at it, the Big
Green missed a win by either ten seconds or a quarter of an inch. Though
there was quite a bit happening on offense for both teams, the story of the
game was the goaltending, which was, uh, a bit ugly at times. Neither
Dartmouth's Ben Heller or Cornell's Eddy Skazyk particularly distinguished
himself.
The Big Red's Brad Chartrand got sent off for hitting from behind just 23
seconds into the game, but Cornell had a solid penalty kill and even gener-
ated a scoring opportunity for themselves at the two-minute mark. as Andre
Doll stole a pass and skated in on a breakaway. However, Heller snuffed
out the threat with a nice glove save. Cornell did get on the board later
in the first period, when Chartrand converted the Big Red's first power
play, getting his stick on a Steve Wilson rebound. Heller got a piece of
the shot, but the puck trickled through his pads and across the goal line
at the 6:03 mark.
Dartmouth answered with a power-play goal of their own at 14:38 of the
first, when Dion Del Monte caught Skazyk out of position, one-timing an
Owen Hughes feed from the left circle. Cornell began to look a little dis-
organized, but even so, the Big Red was able to regain the lead just over
two minutes later. Jason Weber took out a Big Green defender behind the
Dartmouth net, then got control of the puck and found Jamie Papp alone in
front near the left edge of the crease. Papp flipped a shot over Heller
and into the net at the 16:40 mark, making the score 2-1. Cornell had a
golden opportunity to stretch their lead with 2:15 left in the first, as
Ryan Smart was sprung on a breakaway, but he couldn't lift his shot over a
prone Heller.
At 6:20 of the second period, Dartmouth's Darren Wercinski gave Mike Sanci-
mino a nasty cross-check, and Sancimino responded with a couple of shoves
and maybe a shot to Wercinski's head. After the two scuffled, "Sance"
appeared to give serious consideration to going after the rest of the Dart-
mouth team, but fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and the two were sent
off with coincidental double minors. Later in the period, Bob Cancelli
gave the Big Green a power play when he drew an interference penalty on
Bill Holowatiuk with a bit of a dive. (This, by the way, was the LAST
penalty called in the game) Dartmouth proceeded to convert this one at
11:32 of the second period, off a 2-on-1 break by Del Monte and Bill Kelle-
her. Del Monte faked a pass, then flipped a high shot inside the crossbar
from the edge of the crease. The Big Green took the lead just 43 seconds
later. Wercinski broke in on the left side, and as Dan Dufresne tracked
him down, Wercinski fired toward the Cornell net. Skazyk got a pad on it
but kicked the puck out to the right circle, where Dan Bloom was waiting to
wrist it home.
Cornell responded with a pair of goals less than a minute apart to retake
the lead. After a big Skazyk save set the Big Red up on a 3-on-2 break,
Dufresne uncorked a blast from between the circles that went off Heller's
leg into the net at the 16:25 mark. On their next rush up the ice, Steve
Wilson crashed the net during a scramble, picking up Papp's rebound and
depositing it in the back of the net with 2:51 remaining in the second.
The Big Green tied the game again 1:14 into the third period. Mike Stacchi
won a faceoff to the right of the Cornell net, drawing the puck back to
Cancelli, who sent a quick shot past Skazyk on the glove side. Cornell had
a couple of good flurries in the Dartmouth end later in the period, but
Patrick Turcotte gave the visitors their second lead of the night at the
9:07 mark. Dax Burkhart got the puck to him near the crease, and he rolled
a shot through Skazyk's pads. Seconds later, the Big Green had a 2-on-1
break, but Steve Wilson was able to break it up.
The game began to get rather sloppy, as Coach McCutcheon began juggling
lines in an effort to jump-start the offense. With about 45 seconds left,
Skazyk headed to the bench for the extra skater, who took the ice a little
early (along with the rest of a mass line change). Thus, there was a
"premature substitution for the goaltender" situation, and linesman Mike
Emanatian whistled the play dead and called for a center-ice faceoff.
This, of course, was wildly unpopular with the Lynah faithful, but Ema-
natian deserves some kudos for knowing and enforcing a relatively obscure
rule (see the Note under Rule 2-5.a). At any rate, Skazyk went back to the
net for the faceoff, and when Cornell won it and dumped the puck into the
Dartmouth zone, he headed to the bench again. There was a wild scramble in
the Dartmouth end before P.C. Drouin got control of the puck and found a
wide-open Steve Wilson in the slot. Wilson wheeled and fired a high shot
that eluded Heller and tied the game just ten seconds before the end of
regulation.
Turcotte almost ended the game thirty seconds into the extra session, as he
skated between the circles and unleashed a low wrister that hit the inside
of the right post and ricocheted to the left boards. A bit later, Skazyk
came up with a nice stop of a point-blank shot for what would be the only
save of the overtime. After that, there was not a whole lot of action.
Skazyk stopped 28 of 33 shots, while counterpart Heller made 25 saves.
Cornell 3, Vermont 2
Cornell's goaltender of the future, Jason Elliott, made his first start
Saturday night and proceeded to make a strong (almost everybody who was
there would say "irrefutable") case that he should be Cornell's goaltender
of the present as well. Elliott all but shut down the nationally-ranked
Catamounts, stopping 37 of 39 shots, including at least half a dozen break-
aways. Of course, he had some help from his teammates, as a solid Cornell
forecheck kept Vermont's high-flying transition game pretty well under
control.
The Big Red had their first power-play of the game two minutes in, but
almost immediately, Vermont had a 2-on-1 breakaway. However, it was broken
up when Steve Wilson hooked one of the Catamounts down to the ice in front
of the Cornell net (Wilson received a minor for his efforts, but hey, it's
better than giving up a goal). Vermont was given a bit of a gift at the
6:32 mark, when referee Harry Ammian bit on a dive and called Chad Wilson
for tripping. Elliott came up with a nice pad save on a shot through a
screen about a minute later, but the Cats lit the lamp at 7:47 of the first
period on a fluke goal. Dale Patterson won a faceoff, drawing the puck
back to Mike Larkin, who fired toward the net from high in the right
circle. Elliott got his glove on the shot and seemed to have control of
it, but the puck flipped in the air, hit him in the head, dropped to the
ice behind him, and rolled into the net.
Cornell fought back to tie the game at the 14:30 mark, when freshman Ryan
Smart, who had gotten his first assist the night before against Dartmouth,
recorded his first goal. He skated into the Vermont zone, got past a
defender, and suddenly found himself on a breakaway. Vermont goalie Tim
Thomas came out to challenge him, but Smart uncorked a rising shot that
beat Thomas to the stick side.
A skirmish broke out during the skate-around that preceded the second
period, when Andre Doll ran into Thomas in the Vermont crease. Thomas
responded by tripping Doll up, and all of a sudden, the two teams were
pushing and shoving each other. It looked like it was going to escalate
into something ugly, but the officials quickly skated over and got things
under control. However, they then handed a misconduct to the wrong guy, as
Mike Sancimino (#18) was sent to the penalty box instead of Doll (#8).
Unless something went on that nobody else saw, this was a mistake. Anyway,
Vermont had another short-handed breakaway at the 3:15 mark after a turn-
over at the Cornell blue line, but Eric Perrin skated in too far, and
Elliott had an easy pad save.
At 11:35 of the second period, a 2-on-1 break developed when one of the
Catamount forwards skated around a Cornell defenseman, but Elliott came up
with yet another great save to preserve the tie. It was only a momentary
reprieve, however, because Vermont took the lead 50 seconds later. Domi-
nique Ducharme unleashed a rocket from the right point, beating Elliott
high to the stick side.
Elliott made a rare miscue at the 13:48 mark, when he raced out past the
left faceoff dot and gloved a loose puck before a streaking Rob Pattison
could get to it. Since he held onto it outside the crease, he was called
for delay of game. Interestingly enough, according to the _Cornell Daily
Sun_, this play was legal in the junior league (in British Columbia) where
Elliott played before joining the Big Red. Well, as it turned out, there
was no harm done, because Pattison was called for slashing at the same
time.
Going into the locker room with a 2-1 lead, it seemed certain that the
Catamounts would come out and blow Cornell off the ice in the third period,
but it didn't happen. Jamie Papp tied the game just 1:04 into the third,
when he got his stick on Dan Dufresne's blast from the right point and
deflected it through Thomas' pads as the goalie was dropping to the ice.
Vermont nearly regained the lead a minute and a half later on yet *another*
short-handed breakaway, but Elliott once again was equal to the task.
Moments later, after Cornell won a faceoff in the Vermont end, P.C. Drouin
got the puck near the right boards and, with Thomas trying to get back into
position, slapped one into the open net at the 3:09 mark.
From there, it was pretty much the Elliott show, as he wound up making 15
saves in the third period. The Cats called timeout midway through the
third period and followed that up with two point-blank chances, but they
couldn't dent the Big Red goaltender. Vermont was generating a lot of
pressure in the Cornell end (which was where most of the last ten minutes
was played), and the Cats tried to catch the Big Red off-guard by having
Thomas come out almost to the blue line to send Cornell clearing attempts
back down the ice. This almost worked a few times, though he also earned
himself a pair of icing calls.
With 1:16 left, Cornell used their timeout, which made me a little nervous;
I would have rather not given the tired Big Red a chance to think about how
close they were coming to knocking off a nationally-ranked team. When play
resumed, Thomas was between the circles, and he left for the extra skater
when Vermont got control of the puck. The entire last 1:10 of the game was
played in the Cornell end, but Vermont, despite a few good chances, could
not put the puck past Elliott. Thomas wound up with 25 saves on the night.
An impressive win by the Big Red, thanks to a solid team effort and of
course the play of Elliott. For those of you who remember the "Duffus -
Doofus" cheer of a few years ago (when Parris was manning the net), Elliott
also received the honor Saturday night of having his own custom-designed
cheer, when some creative genius in Section D -- who should be duly
recognized -- came up with this one in the third period:
(pointing to the Cornell goal) "Elliott!"
(pointing to the Vermont goal) "Idiot!"
This was probably helped in no small part by a desire to "get back at"
Thomas, who became a Lynah favorite (NOT!) last year with his antics near
the end of a Vermont win. Granted, the crowd had been asking for it that
night, but still, he needed to be taken down a peg or two :-)
Injury notes: Vinnie Auger did not see action last weekend, having
suffered both a broken toe and a concussion during the week. No word yet
on when he is expected to return. Also, Mark Scollan is recovering from a
back injury, while Jiri Kloboucek is out with a bad wrist.
Cornell hits the road next weekend to take on Harvard and Brown.
--
Disclaimer -- Unless otherwise noted, all opinions expressed above are
strictly those of:
Bill Fenwick | Send your HOCKEY-L poll responses to:
Cornell '86 and '94.5 | [log in to unmask]
LET'S GO RED!! DJF 5/27/94
"I had a terrible time in college, until I finally figured out what my
problem was. I had been highlighting with a black magic marker."
-- Jeff Altman
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