Riding high after winning the Syracuse Invitational over break, the Cornell Big
Red was brought back to earth rather suddenly on their annual North Country road
trip. Cornell fell out of first place in the ECAC with a 1-1 tie at St. Law-
rence on Friday, then followed that up with a 5-2 loss to a seemingly resurgent
Clarkson team the next night. John Whelan has already written volumes on both
games, so I'll restrict myself to a few random thoughts:
Cornell 1, St. Lawrence 1 (OT)
A goaltending clinic, as both the Saints' Clint Owen and the Big Red's Jean-Marc
Pelletier stopped 37 of 38 shots. Pelletier is earning a reputation as
Cornell's overtime demon, as he stopped a rather high seven shots in the
five-minute extra session to go along with the 20 he had in Cornell's triple-OT
win in the Syracuse tournament. Cornell is now 1-0-2 in overtime games this
year, and Pelletier has been the Big Red's goaltender in each of those games.
As for Owen, continuing his return from a first-semester suspension, it was
certainly a far better effort than the last time he started against Cornell, in
his freshman year. On that night, he was lit up for four first-period goals en
route to a Big Red blowout. Friday, though, he was terrific.
John writes:
> Cornell put on some offensive pressure early in the first, with Owen
> being run into by his own men a couple of times
On one of those occasions, at 4:13 of the first period, Owen collapsed in a heap
in the crease and came up holding his left knee, in obvious pain. It looked
like that would be the end of Owen's first ECAC action of the season, but he was
able to continue after a few minutes -- thought as John mentioned, he was making
a lot of "equipment adjustments" for the rest of the night, which a goalie will
sometimes do in an effort to buy himself a little rest.
Owen made two huge saves in the second period to keep the game scoreless.
Cornell defenseman Jeff Burgoyne led a 3-on-1 break into the St. Lawrence zone
at about the 2:30 mark, but when the shot eventually came, Owen got a pad on it
and knocked the puck out of harm's way. About five minutes later, Tony Bergin
sent a feed through center ice to Jamie Papp to set up a breakaway, and on this
one, Owen got his right skate on Papp's low forehand blast to deflect the shot
wide.
> The Saints
> finally lit the lamp at 9:32 when a shot from the left point was
> deflected in front, then ricocheted off of Pelletier's right skate and
> in.
Troy Creurer took the original shot from the point, and there wasn't a lot on
it, but Mark McGrath was there for the redirect, handcuffing Pelletier as the
puck rolled past him.
> but the Bergin/Papp line came through again on a
> 3-on-1 at 12:42. Papp, skating down the left side, passed across to
> Bergin, who sent it in to tie the score at 1.
Jason Dailey started this play deep in the Cornell zone, flipping the puck up
left wing to Papp, who spotted Bergin heading toward the Saints' net.
With no penalties called in the first 40 minutes, this one had a chance to
become the first penalty-less game in the ECAC since a Vermont-Army matchup in
February of 1991, but referee Bill Stewart blew his shot at immortality with a
hitting-from-behind call on Tony Bergin at 2:28 of the third... giving St.
Lawrence what would be the only power play of the game. High-sticking coinci-
dentals to Cornell's Jason Kendall and the Saints' Paul DiFrancesco were the
only other penalties handed out in regulation.
An overtime game was just what these teams did NOT need, as they had both played
lengthy tournament games over the break -- Cornell in the SIT a week before and
St. Lawrence in a double-OT game against Northeastern in the Auld Lang Syne four
days before this one. But OT was where the game headed, and the Saints
dominated most of the extra session. Cornell did have a bit of a flurry at the
two-minute mark, ending with a long Jason Dailey shot that Owen blocked even
though he was being screened by Matt Cooney. After making the save, Owen went
down, either on his own or because Cooney ran into him or was pushed into him.
Well, it was obvious what the Saints' Thom Cullen thought, as he proceeded to
cross-check Cooney in the neck and slash him on the arm. No calls, of course,
but you just knew these two would be meeting up again. Which they did, four
seconds before the end of the game, after St. Lawrence iced the puck. Cooney
and Cullen scuffled, and they were both sent off with double-minors. (Yes, if
you're keeping score at home, that does mean there were more penalties called in
the five-minute OT than there were in all of regulation. Weird!)
> Schafer made the bold move of pulling Pelletier (who was visibly
> upset) with four seconds on the clock. He called timeout to set up the
> play off the faceoff in the St. Lawrence zone, running the risk
> of a long shot into the empty
> net. (Four seconds is a long time, especially on the road with the
> other team's timekeeper in charge.)
I was wondering if Coach Schafer was going to do this. The decision probably
would have been automatic with three seconds left, but four was a bit border-
line. Then again, practically the only way St. Lawrence was going to get the
puck the length of the ice within four seconds would have been for the guy
taking the faceoff to try to fire the puck forward when it was dropped. And
even if he did so, the Saints would probably have been running a much greater
risk that the shot would be intercepted by a Cornell player and fired back at
the St. Lawrence net. So yes, it was a risk, but probably a good one to take.
Anyway, despite the fatigue that the two teams undoubtedly felt, this was a
pretty entertaing game. The Big Red may have been a bit shaky, but all in all,
this was not a bad result in a tough arena for visiting teams.
Clarkson 5, Cornell 2
After a successful Christmas tournament and a decent performance against St.
Lawrence, the Big Red finally hit the wall in this one, as constant pressure by
Clarkson paid off in a big way in the second half of the game. After spotting
Cornell a 2-0 lead, the Golden Knights roared back with five unanswered tallies
to gain partial revenge for their semifinal loss to the Big Red in last year's
ECAC tournament.
The first period was all Clarkson, everywhere but on the scoreboard, as the
Knights posted a 20-9 shots-on-goal advantage yet found themselves behind 1-0.
Clarkson held the puck in the Cornell zone seemingly from the opening faceoff,
but the Big Red finally worked the puck out past center ice, and team captain
Matt Cooney got control of it along the right boards. Cooney worked his way
through the Clarkson defense to the slot and let a low shot go through goalie
Dan Murphy's legs at the five-minute mark.
At 6:34 of the first, a historic call was made on Nick Windsor for boarding --
historic because it gave the Big Red their first power play since the second OT
of the Providence game, a span of about 150 minutes. Cornell showed the
disorganization on this PP that would plague them for most of the game, as they
had difficulty maintaining pressure in the Clarkson end. But even though
Cornell's offense was having difficulties, the defense was not doing a bad job.
The Knights did have 20 shots in the first period, but most of them were from
the perimeter.
Clarkson continued to dominate, and they were having the better of the play
physically as well, into the second period. Cornell managed just two shots on
goal during the first eight minutes of the middle stanza. but one of them was a
weak back-hander off the stick of Ryan Moynihan that found its way through
Murphy's pads, putting the Big Red up 2-0 at the 7:59 mark. To the Knights'
credit, they didn't get frustrated (it would be understandable if they had,
since they were rather badly outplaying Cornell yet were down by two), and soon
enough, their on-ice advantage would show up on the scoreboard. A foolish
hitting-after-the-whistle penalty on Steve Wilson gave the Clarkson power play
(0 of 2 to that point) another chance, and this time they converted. After some
good movement and quick passing around the perimeter, Windsor took a shot from
the right point that appeared to be headed wide of the net. However, the puck
hit defenseman Jason Dailey's stick and bounced free in front, and with goal-
tender Jason Elliott unable to track down the loose puck, Todd White skated in
and rammed it home at the 11:14 mark.
Clarkson's next power play would come 40 seconds later, and the Golden Knights
would use it to tie the game. Once again, there was some nice puck movement,
ending at the 12:31 mark with a hard shot from Chris Clark that beat a partially
screened Elliott. With the game tied, Clarkson was looking very energetic and
confident, while Cornell appeared to have little, if any, gas left. Cornell
radio color man Pete Tufford remarked, "the way the teams look now, the next
goal will probably win this thing." I thought he was a bit premature at the
time, but he would turn out to be correct.
The Big Red's fatigue probably contributed to the third Clarkson goal, coming 53
seconds into the third period. A slow Cornell line change allowed the Knights
to skate through center ice virtually unmolested, and they worked the puck
behind the Cornell net. Yan Turgeon then dumped it out in front for an
onrushing Clark, who sent a low shot past Elliott. Clarkson's third straight
power-play goal would make it 4-2 at the 4:28 mark, when Mikko Ollila hacked at
the puck in front of the net a few times, finally getting it past Elliott.
As John mentioned, Cornell had a big opportunity later in the third when they
went on the power play (at 12:36), but they lost it thanks to a too-many-men
penalty. It was one of those things... as a Cornell player (Kyle Knopp, I
think) was heading off, he played the puck; unfortunately for the Big Red, his
replacement had already hopped over the boards. Clarkson would return the favor
moments later when Aaron Gates decked Frank Kovac with an elbow, but the Big Red
could do nothing with this power play either.
By this point, the only suspense left was whether Clark would get his first
career hat trick. Elliott was pulled for the extra attacker with 1:40 left, and
Clark tried twice on the empty net, but both shots floated wide. The third time
was the charm, though, as Clark backhanded the puck out of his own end and it
went the length of the ice, entering the Cornell net with one second left.
Murphy had a solid night, stopping 25 shots; Elliott was no slouch either, with
37 saves.
A disheartening loss, as John wrote, and Cornell's second straight one-point
ECAC weekend leaves them in second place, a point behind Princeton. Cornell
takes a, um, break from league action as they go west to face #1-ranked Michigan
tonight. (A North Country trip followed by a trip to Ann Arbor... schedule
courtesy of the Marquis de Sade, I assume) This is the first meeting between
the two since the 1991 NC$$ first round series, and only the third time the
teams have met during the regular season. Ann Arbor is not exactly where a team
would want to go to put their season back on track, but if the Big Red could put
together a decent performance, it would help take the sting out of the North
Country trip.
--
Disclaimer -- Unless otherwise noted, all opinions expressed above are
strictly those of:
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86 and '95
LET'S GO RED!! DJF 5/27/94
"So what's Cornell's strategy now -- go to the net?"
-- Grady Whittenberg, Cornell (WQNY) play-by-play announcer, following the
clean-up efforts after Providence goalie Dan Dennis got sick on the ice
during the first round of the Syracuse Invitational
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