Game Gab - Nightly Post-Game Analysis
Come here after the games for analysis and insights from CHN Staff members.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Yale 4, Princeton 3 - Saturday, February 23, 2013
Both teams got their goalies back. Jeff Malcolm hadn't played since he was injured against Princeton on Feb. 1, and Yale, which was rolling that point, has played poorly since. Princeton missed Mike Condon last weekend after he got sick, and lost both games. Yale was the bigger beneficiary of Malcolm's return, getting two late goals to pull it out and right the ship. As of now, this gets Yale back into the NCAA picture. Carson Cooper scored the game winner, the first goal of the season. “I saw the puck go around the point to Tommy Fallen,” said Cooper. “Coaches have been preaching to us to get to the front of the net to get a rebound. I did that and just got lucky enough. It popped out and I got a backhander on it. I shot it and then got knocked over, but I did see it go in. It was unbelievable.” ... Said Malcolm: “It was great to be back. I hate not being in the lineup, and I’m sick of watching hockey. The guys did a great job in front of me. Lots of guys are banged up, I’m not the only one. I was shaking off some of the rust, but it felt great.”
Saturday, February 16, 2013
St. Lawrence 3, Princeton 2 - Saturday, February 16, 2013
St. Lawrence has been playing well lately, and the culmination of that was Friday's win at Quinnipiac. It snapped the Bobcats' 21-game unbeaten streak. But Saturday's win is impressive too, because the team didn't have a letdown, jumping out to a 3-0 lead and then holding on, on the road. Greg Carey -- the nation's leading goal scorer -- had two on Friday and another on Saturday, and now has 23 on the season.
Princeton was hurt by missing top goaltender Mike Condon for both games. Condon got sick Friday and was unable to play. It contributed to Friday's loss, when Clarkson scored a couple of soft ones en route to a comeback win.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Princeton 1, Cornell 0 - Saturday, February 9, 2013
Princeton is coming together in the second half, now 6-3 in the last nine. It did a good job brushing off last week's two road losses, by getting two wins in two tough places to play -- Cornell and Colgate.
But, frankly, the story here continues to be the freefall of Cornell. The losing streak is now at seven in a row, and everyone is at a loss to figure it out, clearly including Cornell itself. What more can be said? I've never seen a Cornell team like this in Mike Schafer's 17-year tenure. Especially not one with seemingly every reason to have high expectations coming into it.
Some games have including some tough-luck bounces, and in this game, Princeton goalie Mike Condon stood on his head and made 39 saves for the shutout. But seven losses in a row can't all be ringed up to bad luck.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Princeton 2, Dartmouth 1 - Saturday, January 5, 2013
Oh Dartmouth. We want to believe this is the year Dartmouth will finally make the NCAAs, something it hasn't done since 1980, when current coach Bob Gaudet was a player. Gaudet and his staff have done tremendous things since taking over the program in 1997, a lot of wins and churning out numerous good NHL players -- but they have been agonizingly close to the NCAAs a few times only to fall just short. The team hit a lull the last few years, but was building back up to this season. The Big Green had a tremendous win over New Hampshire last week, and was sitting at 8-2-2, and in the top 4 of the Pairwise. But Dartmouth couldn't close the deal in its hosted tournament, and in a penalty-riddled game, lost to UMass.
That was a chance to really put a stamp on things, but still Dartmouth could say it was in good shape. Then it lost a OT heartbreaker at Quinnipiac on Friday. OK, it's Quinnipiac. Now -- this is officially a rough patch, and Dartmouth has dropped to No. 11 in the Pairwise. Still OK if it can right the ship, but far from a done deal.
Dartmouth has been impressive this season, and really, it was good this weekend. Quinnipiac is good, obviously, and Princeton played a tough, smart game. Dartmouth actually played pretty well, but Princeton was tough around its own net, Princeton goalie Mike Condon played great, and Dartmouth was victimized by a really bad goal that turned a 1-0 lead into a 1-1 game and gave Princeton life. Princeton dumped it in from the blue line towards the net on a line change. No one was within 100 feet of the Dartmouth net -- except defenseman Geoff Ferguson, who inexplicably tried to knock the puck down with his skate as it was going about 2 feet wide. It went off his skate and in.
Oh Dartmouth, hang in there. This is a good team.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Quinnipiac 3, Princeton 0 - Saturday, December 8, 2012
Quinnipiac was the CHN Team of the Week last week, and shows no signs slowing down. A home-and-home sweep with travel partner Princeton makes the Bobcats a perfect 8-0 in the ECAC, and has moved into the upper echelon of the early Pairwise. The team right now is playing with a perfect combination of steady goaltending, a near-impenetrable defense, and timely scoring. The latter is led by Jeremy Langlois, who now has 10 goals. Mike Dalhuisen scored twice on Saturday. And this is without the Bobcats really getting much scoring yet from Matthew Peca or Connor and Kellen Jones.
Meanwhile, the defense allowed just 30 shots the entire weekend, including 12 in Friday's game. Goalie Eric Hartzell's numbers are a 1.29 goals against average and .937 save percentage, aided, certainly, by a senior-laden defensive corps.
The test gets a little bigger for Quinnipiac, with two home games against Nebraska-Omaha on Dec. 29-30. Those games loom large for NCAA Tournament purposes, and just for showing where Quinnipiac stands against top-flight national competition. January has often been a time in the past when Quinnipiac has turned great starts into mediocre seasons. This looks like a team that has staying power this time, but some will still be non-believers until it can sustain it through the season.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Mass.-Lowell 3, Princeton 1 - Saturday, November 24, 2012
Princeton seemed to run out of gas, one night after it had to rally from down 3-1 to defeat Sacred Heart. The game was scoreless until late in the second, when Lowell scored three times in a span of 1:22.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Clarkson 7, Princeton 2 - Saturday, November 17, 2012
Clarkson hearkened back to the olden days with the offensive explosion in this one, as it rebounded off Friday's home loss to Quinnipiac. Jarrett Burton, who never had more than two goals his first two seasons in Potsdam, scored his sixth of the year, on the power play, as Clarkson built an early lead and never looked back.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Princeton 4, Colgate 0 - Saturday, November 10, 2012
After starting the season with a couple of losses, Princeton opened league play Friday by doing a tremendous job against Cornell. Princeton came out relentless, taking a 2-0 lead, before Cornell rallied in the third for three straight goals as the Tigers began to wilt. But somehow Princeton got off the deck and rallied for the next two goals to win the game -- a big win for the team's hopes this season. So, the fact that Princeton followed it up as it did was a very good sign.
Meanwhile, Colgate managed just 22 shots, one night after getting only 10 against Quinnipiac. Colgate was finding offense from all sorts of places until this weekend, when it came up empty with an overtime loss and then getting shut out.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Yale 3, Princeton 2 - Saturday, October 27, 2012
Antoine Lagainere finished a three-goal opening weekend by notching the game winner in the Ivy Showcase at Brown's Meehan Auditorium. Laganiere, who had both Yale goals in the 2-2 Friday game against Dartmouth, used a Clinton Bourbonais clean faceoff win to get the puck past Princeton goalie Mike Condon on a low laser shot from the slot at 17:42 of the second. “We’ve worked on that faceoff for a while,” said Laganiere, the 215-pound senior forward. “Trent Ruffolo did a great job of blocking out their D. It was a wrist shot that went low far side.” ... “We played well as a team and seemed to get better every period throughout the weekend,” said Yale captain Andrew Miller.
Cornell 4, Princeton 2 - Saturday, March 9, 2013
Cornell rolled through Princeton to sweep the series. Despite being on the road, most people were picking Cornell because these teams headed into the postseason going in opposite directions. That proved to be true. It didn't come easy, necessarily, but Cornell was seemingly in control throughout the weekend. Cornell did it without center Dustin Mowry, who has a concussion, though is expected back for next week's quarterfinals. Cornell has already been playing without center Cole Bardreau to a neck injury, leaving it very thin up the middle. But the Big Red has stuck it out and is now 6-1-1 in the last eight.
"We're really starting to come (along) as a team," Cornell coach Mike Schafer said. "It was a good weekend with not having Dustin Mowry up the middle. He's such a good offensive player for us. Everybody's dinged up this time of year, but losing skill up the middle with Bardreau and Mowry ... guys stepped up and played great. ... There's obviously areas where I wasn't getting through, and you go through that, and you have to figure it out. But they (the players) are the ones that deserve the credit. They stuck together. They didn't turn on each other, we didn't turn on them, and they didn't turn on us."
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