Box Score (PDF)

NEW YORK – In its annual showcase at famed Madison Square Garden, the Cornell Men's Hockey team put its essence on display Saturday night. The Big Red withstood early body blows, tied the game on a goal seemingly out of thin air, then produced the winner on a counterattack to help secure a 3-1 victory over Penn State at the second edition of The Frozen Apple.
 
Junior forward John Knisley scored twice, bookending senior forward Joel Lowry's winning goal midway through the third period. Sophomore goaltender Mitch Gillam made 37 saves to earn the victory while also recording his second assist of the season. His helper came on Lowry's winner, which came after the Los Angeles Kings draft pick won a battle along the boards and eventually finished off a give-and-go with senior forward John McCarron. McCarron, the second-year captain, assisted on all three Big Red goals.
 
The game was a microcosm of the season to date for Cornell (4-4-1), which has now won three consecutive games after going winless in its first four. Similarly, Saturday's first period did not go well for the Big Red, which fell behind on David Goodwin's goal off a three-on-two rush in the game's 10th minute. Penn State (7-4-2) outshot Cornell in the opening period by a 12-5 margin.
 
But Gillam kept the Big Red's deficit at just one goal as his squad found its footing — especially after withstanding three minutes of kill time on a major penalty early in the second period. Seemingly all of the momentum then turned in Cornell's favor on Knisley's first goal of the season at the 13:59 mark. After a broken play, the Big Red regained possession in the left corner of the offensive zone. McCarron dished a pass back to sophomore defenseman Holden Anderson on the left point. He sent a shot toward goal that was redirected out of midair by Knisley, who was standing on the hash marks of the left circle, leaving Penn State goalie Matthew Skoff no chance to react.
 
"I asked (our team) a few weeks ago in the locker room, 'How many of you guys were Top-10 scorers on your junior teams?'" said Mike Schafer, who is in his 20th season as the Jay R. Bloom '77 Head Coach of Men's Hockey at Cornell. "I think we only had three or four guys with their hands up. And I said, 'Well, you know just be comfortable with who we are.' We don't have to win games 5-2, but we do have to be comfortable in 0-0 games and 1-1 games, and take the opportunity to score the third goal or the fourth goal when it comes."
 
The Big Red also needed another big save from Gillam to keep the score even. With 11:37 to play in the third period, Penn State's Max Gardiner found himself with time at point-blank range just to the right of the slot. He made a move to his backhand at the near post, but Gillam stayed with the play and made a glove save.
 
A little more than three minutes later, Gillam actually started the play on the winning goal. He got his stick to a puck that was headed wide to his left, knocking the puck through the corner and onto the halfwall. There, Lowry won a battle with a Penn State player and broke out of the zone. Lowry angled a pass off the left wall in the neutral zone, with McCarron getting position on his defender at the Penn State blue line. The defender went down to the ice, and McCarron had some time and space. As he came into the circle, the other Penn State defenseman sprawled to the ice. McCarron calmly waited for him to slide by, then zipped a perfect pass across the low slot to Lowry on the back side for the conversion into the vacated wide side of net.
 
Another pretty passing play led to Knisley's empty-netter to ice the game with 1:06 remaining. McCarron's assist on the goal gave the Big Red its first three-point game of the season, and Lowry's assist made him Cornell's all-time leading scorer at Madison Square Garden. Lowry had two goals and three assists for five points in his four career games at "The World's Most Famous Arena", surpassing the four assists posted by Brendon Nash '10 and McCarron.
 
Cornell is now 2-0 in The Frozen Apple, having defeated Michigan, 5-1, in the inaugural event in 2012. The Big Red is 2-3-1 in its six games at Madison Square Garden over the last eight years. Saturday's attendance was 15,027. Now 1-1-1 in non-league play, the Big Red closes out the fall semester portion of its schedule with a two-game home series Dec. 5-6 against nationally-ranked Denver.