Penalties, Bad Bounces Hurt Red in Wild Overtime Loss

HANOVER, N.H. — Looking to shake up an offense that seemed stagnant without leading scorer senior forward Michael Kennedy, the Red (15-6-4, 10-5-4 ECAC Hockey) came out on Friday with new lines against Dartmouth. The offense seemed to click better than it had in recent weeks, but penalties and a few costly mistakes let the team down in the end as Dartmouth (13-9-3, 10-6-2 ECAC Hockey) won, 5-4, in overtime.
In a game filled with strange happenings, the final goal was perhaps the most confusing. With time expiring on a penalty called on freshman defenseman Keir Ross, Dartmouth’s Joe Gaudet tipped a shot past junior goalie Ben Scrivens. The shot was initially declared a no-goal by the referee standing behind the goal, but he was overruled following a consultation with the other referees. Captains from both teams and both coaches had words with the referees, but ultimately the goal was upheld to end the game 1:05 into overtime.
“The guy standing behind the net blows it down, waves no goal,” said head coach Mike Schafer ’86. “But he says the three guys outside the blue line had a better view of it. How three guys outside the blue line have a better view than the guy right there who waved it off …”[img_assist|nid=35147|title=Red light, Green light|desc=Sophomore forward Riley Nash fights for the puck in Cornell’s 5-4 overtime loss to Dartmouth on Friday night.|link=node|align=left|width=|height=0]
“It’s a tough one to swallow,” said Scrivens, who was also seemingly snakebitten during the game.
In the third period, the goalie was moving to corral a clear by Dartmouth but the puck took a strange bounce off the boards and Scrivens had to make a diving stop with his stick to just poke the puck away from the net.
But the real freak event of the night came on a shot from Green rookie defenseman Jim Gaudet. The shot was sailing high over the goal and Scrivens stuck his stick in the air to make a play, but the puck took a strange bounce off of his stick and directly into the goal, delighting the Dartmouth crowd and tying the score at 2.
“We obviously made some mistakes up there,” Scrivens said. “There were some bad bounces but pretty much just lack of focus on our part by letting them get back into the game when we’re up 2-0.”
“The goal that kills us is [when] Scrivens tries to knock the puck out of the air for no reason,” Schafer said.
Looking to re-energize the offense, Schafer broke up the Evan Barlow-Riley Nash-Colin Greening line by replacing Greening in the starting lineup with freshman forward Locke Jillson. The team played well and controlled the neutral zone and was rewarded with its first goal 2:26 into the first period, when junior defenseman Brendon Nash’s shot was deflected into the air, then slapped into the goal by sophomore forward Joe Devin.
The Red took its largest lead of the night on a goal by Greening, who played hard and gave defenders fits all weekend. Less than 3:00 after the Red’s first goal, junior forward Blake Gallagher intercepted a Dartmouth pass and found sophomore forward Joe Devin down the ice. Devin made a nice pass between his legs to Greening, skating in from the side, who took a shot from between the circles to put the Red up, 2-0.
Sophomore defenseman Mike Devin scored the Red’s last goal of the night on a hard-hit shot from the blue line during a power play in the third period with the Red down, 4-3.
“Whenever you’re down by a goal you want to bring everything to the net as often as you can,” he said. “I just threw it on the net and the screen worked and we got lucky.”
Cornell was called on eight penalties for the night, but the costliest was the stick-holding call on freshman defenseman Keir Ross with less than a minute remaining in regulation.
“The penalty kill is obviously pretty decent but it’s tough to win when you’re in the box all night,” Mike Devin said. “At the end, that was a huge penalty — you can’t be going into overtime with a penalty.”