The Cornell men's ice hockey team held its annual Red-White scrimmage Friday
night, with the Red team defeating the White, 8-4. The game was a little
difficult to follow at times, what with so many new faces on the ice (15
freshmen plus a sophomore seeing his first action), but here are a few notes
on the goings-on:
Offense:
Some good news here for Cornell fans -- it seems the rumors about the
incoming freshman class having a good amount of speed are based on
fact. By and large, the new forwards were pretty impressive, and a few
of them deserve special mention. Sophomore Jiri ("George") Kloboucek,
a Czechoslovakian player who was ineligible last year, was all over the
ice, and he showed why the coaches tried so hard to get him into the
lineup last year by recording a natural hat trick. Also scoring three
goals was freshman Geoff Lopatka, a speedy center out of Edmonton.
Newcomer P.C. Drouin had a good night as well, with a pair of goals
less than a minute apart, and winger Marty Kandrac, who is also from
Czechoslovakia, displayed a number of nifty moves.
On the downside, there wasn't much to say about the play of the Big Red
veteran forwards in this game, except for junior Geoff Bumstead, who
assisted on all three of Lopatka's goals and added one of his own.
(Actually, sophomore Jake Karam looked OK too) One of the most
important missions for the Cornell recruiters was to shore up the Big
Red's pathetic offense from last season, and it looks like they've gone
a long way toward doing that with this year's class. It'll take a
while for all the pieces to fall into place (there was plenty of shaky
puck-handling Friday night), but Cornell's goal production should be
much improved this season.
Defense:
Turns out I frightened a few Cornell fans when I mentioned the "Vogel
situation" in the THN ECAC preview. What I meant was that it looked
like forward Jason Vogel, the top returning goal- and point-scorer for
the Big Red, was going to be moved to the defense -- which is where he
played Friday night, and which is where he will probably start the
season. As you might expect from a converted forward, Vogel was quite
good at the end-to-end rush, a talent that was sorely lacking on the
defense last year (except for the departed Todd Chambers). He also did
fairly well behind the blue line.
By and large, though, the play in the defensive zone left a lot to be
desired. Several breakdowns led to 2-on-1's or 2-on-0's, some of the
guys were slow getting back on defense, and the players had some diffi-
culty clearing rebounds as well. This is probably a case of having so
few veteran defensemen, coupled with a fair amount of line juggling
during the game. In contrast to the forwards, the freshmen defenders
didn't look particularly impressive. Hopefully, they will be able to
tighten up the defense in a hurry, or it could be a long, rough season
for the goaltenders.
Goaltending:
On the one hand, it was good to see some offensive punch for the Big
Red in the form of Kloboucek's and Lopatka's hat tricks, but on the
other, it was very disconcerting that the goaltender who gave up those
six goals was none other than heir-apparent Andy Bandurski. In fair-
ness, he did come up with some great saves, and he did face a number of
breakaways (see Defense) -- but he also missed on a few easy shots. If
you were watching Cornell hockey for the first time, you'd have assumed
that the Big Red's next Great Goaltending Hope was Geoff Raynak, who
had a solid night between the pipes and has apparently improved a great
deal. Don't expect the situation to change, though -- the only way
Raynak is going to bump Bandurski out of the starting job is if he runs
over Andy with a truck.
Bandurski has played far better than he did Friday night (against Ver-
mont, for example), and I think a big part of the problem was that he
was trying to do too much. He kept coming way out of the net and
attempting to poke the puck away from on-rushing forwards (this cost
him a goal twice). He was understandably downcast after this game, but
I suspect that if he calms down and lets his defense take care of a few
things (and if they're actually capable of doing so), he'll be fine.
And it's not as though the Red-White scrimmage is a particularly accu-
rate barometer of how a goalie will do in the regular season. Parris
Duffus, over his career, appeared in two Red-White games and played
hideously in both of them -- yet he was the team's MVP and an all-
American last year. As for the two goaltenders who played the third
period, you're not likely to hear any more about them -- although if
head coach Brian McCutcheon is sentimental, he might decide to name
senior and career JVer Stewart Whitman to the varsity squad as the
third-stringer.
Box score from the game:
Red 3 3 2 - 8
White 1 2 1 - 4
First period:
1. Red, Geoff Lopatka (Geoff Bumstead, Mike
Sancimino), 0:44 1-0
2. White, Marty Kandrac (Jake Karam), 1:50 1-1
3. Red, Lopatka (Bumstead), 9:42 2-1
4. Red, Jiri Kloboucek (Shaun Hannah), 16:16 3-1
Second period:
5. Red, Kloboucek (Alex Vershinin), 3:25 4-1
6. Red, Kloboucek, 5:29 5-1
7. White, P.C. Drouin (Jason Vogel, Blair
Ettles), 8:28 (pp) 5-2
8. White, Drouin (Ryan Hughes, Ettles), 9:01 5-3
9. Red, Lopatka (Bumstead), 13:07 6-3
Third period:
10. White, Joel McArter (Dan Dufresne, Karam),
3:53 (pp) 6-4
11. Red, Bumstead (Lopatka), 4:42 7-4
12. Red, Andre Doll (Brad Chartrand, Jeff
Klinge), 17:22 (pp) 8-4
Shots on goal: Red 11-15-6-32, White 11-8-11-30
Power play: Red 1 of 5, White 2 of 5
Goaltending:
Red, Geoff Raynak (19 shots, 16 saves), Stewart Whitman (in at
beginning of third period, 11 shots, 10 saves)
White, Andrew Bandurski (26 shots, 20 saves), Jasen Adams (in at
beginning of third period, 6 shots, 4 saves)
--
Bill Fenwick | Send your HOCKEY-L poll responses to:
Cornell '86 and probably '94 | [log in to unmask]
LET'S GO RED!!
"Oh, Perot's got real business sense, all right -- he's spending sixty million
dollars on a job that pays two hundred thousand."
-- "Roc"
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