Tough match up tonight as Cornell has been playing extremely well offensively for a while now. Offensively Syracuse has been better since the Rutgers game but we are still having at least one major drought a game, had it against ND and had a a 15+ min against Hobart. Don't think we can survive a prolonged drought against Cornell tonight. Getting Dordevic on track would go a long way to easing some of the offensive concerns, he has really struggled since that breakout performance against Virginia.
The X will be another crucial area to watch, after the 0-24 drubbing by Ierlan, Cornell has lot the faceoff battle only once against Penn State. Evem against yale their last loss they were 17 of 28. Really going to need Varello to put up a better performance then he has the last few games. Rasimowicz is at 55% for the year and has turned things around nicely for Cornell. If Varello struggles I think Desko has to have a quick hook and look for either Martin or Phaup as he has gone away from Delisle the last few weeks. SU's wings will need to bring it today as much like Varello there peformance has mostly been uneven. They were better against ND but struggled against Hobart to pick up Gbs especially the short sticks. Can't afford to let Cornell have a huge advantage here, need to keep it as close to 50/50 as possible.
Defensively its pretty clear; slow down Teat. He has nearly double the amount of pts (65) the next highest Cornell player has - Petterson (36). Cornell has good depth of scoring so slowing down Teat won't be enough. I am unclear who Desko will pole from the midfield as Dowiak and Jake Mcculloch have 27 and 26 pts respectively. Mcculloch is the better feeder so we may put Fusco on him but it could depend on who appears to have the hot hand. SU hardly ever does it but they maybe tempted to double pole the midfield as Cornells third attackmen doesn't do much scoring. Still thats asking a lot of a SSDM unit that hasn't exactly been stellar. I assume SU will let Mellen go to work on an Island and probably wont be to quick to slide. They tried this last year with Bomberry and Teat was beating him up pretty good so SU started to slide earlier which helped. With Mellen I figure they try slow sliding again because Teat is such a good feeder. Bomberry will likely draw Petterson and I believe he knows him from playing box. SU will have to do a really good job with communication and correct slides or Teat will kill us with open passes to or around the crease for easy looks when we slide.
Offensively its about putting up consistent points. It's unclear if Knight will play in goal for Cornell, the Senior has had a good year so far so if he's out thats a blow as the backup while good/decent isn't him. Pulver is a good defender but from what I have seen this year they don't have a ton of D depth and can be suspectible to over agressive play as Upperdeck pointed out. SU will need to value possessions like the first half of the HObart game and not the third where they turned it over 4 or 5 times. Look for Cornell to try and shut Bomberry off and perhaps even double pole the midfield and take there chances with a shorty on Bomberry so they can double Dordevic and Trimbo. Rehfuss and Solomon have been playing well lately and that trend needs to continue today. I also hope Desko firms up the 2nd and 3rd mid lines a bit. I am all for utilizign our depth especially at middie where we have ludicrous depth but in this type of game you need your best players. Second line in my mind should be a combo of Lipka and Carlin with a third guy mixed in from Dearth Simmons and whoever else the staff is high on this week. I don't have an issue rotating in Quinn into that mix but were not getting much from Simmons and Dearth so Id rather see Lipka and Carlin out there more frequently. Third line seems to be Lane, sometimes O'Sullivan, sometimes McKinney, and the other RS Soph whose dad owns Macaroni grill whose name is escaping me right now.
Should be a close game if SU can keep it close to even at the X and defensively we don't allow big scoring runs 4-5 + goals. Offensively we need consistent scoring, can't have a 17 min scoring drought.
