HANOVER, N.H. — The Cornell men's hockey team will look to clinch its 22nd Ivy League title when it takes on Dartmouth at 7 p.m. tonight at Thompson Arena. The Big Red would win the crown outright with a victory, or it would claim at least a share of its first Ancient Eight title since 2013-14 with a tie. The game will be broadcast by subscription-based Ivy League Network, and Jason Weinstein will provide play-by-play with color commentary from Tim Varini '91 for WHCU (870 AM, 95.9 FM) in the Ithaca area and worldwide via the station's website here.

Game 21: #2/4 CORNELL at DARTMOUTH
TIME: 7 p.m.
DATE: Saturday, Jan. 27, 2018
PLACE: Thompson Arena  •  Hanover, N.H.
RECORDS: Cornell 17-2-1, 11-1-1 ECAC Hockey, 6-0-1 Ivy League;
                    Dartmouth 9-10-2, 7-6-1 ECAC Hockey, 2-4 Ivy League
VIDEO: Ivy League Network
RADIO : WHCU (870 AM, 95.9 FM)
LIVE STATS: DartmouthSports.com

Cornell game notes (PDF)
Dartmouth game notes (PDF)

Big Red Rewind:
•  Matthew Galajda tied a career high with 35 saves, and Anthony Angello recorded his first collegiate hat trick to power the Big Red to a 3-0 victory over rival Harvard last night at Bright-Landry Hockey Center.
•  Cornell pushed its unbeaten streak to nine games (8-0-1), which is the longest active streak in the nation.
•  The shutout was Cornell's third in a row, a feat last accomplished in March 2010. The Big Red continues to lead the nation in team defense, yielding just 1.45 goals per game.
•  Galajda's shutout streak enters tonight's game at 220 minutes, 30 seconds, which is second-longest in program history only to Ben Scrivens' 267:11 set in March 2010. Galajda, who was named the NCAA First Star of the Week and ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Week on Tuesday, is now tied for the national lead in shutouts with six.
•  With the three goals last night, Angello has six goals in his last four games and nine in his last nine games. It was Cornell's third hat trick this season.
•  Mitch Vanderlaan had an assist on Angello's second goal, pushing his point-scoring streak to a team-best five games.
•  Cornell's penalty kill was a perfect 3-for-3 last night to push its string of consecutive kills to 15, dating back to a Princeton goal on a two-man advantage on Jan. 5.

Need-To-Know Numbers:
•  Cornell possesses the highest winning percentage in the nation (.875), its highest through 20 games since a 1969-70 season that ended with a national title.
•  Long known as a defensive powerhouse under head coach Mike Schafer, Cornell is also showcasing its offensive wares this year. The Big Red now ranks eighth in the nation in team offense at 3.40 goals per game.
•  One of the keys to Cornell's success this season has been an increase in offensive production from its defensemen. After receiving 13 goals from blueliners in each of the last two seasons, the Big Red already has 15 goals from defensemen through just 20 games this year.
•  Cornell leads the nation in team defense (1.45 goals against per game), having already posted six shutouts.
•  The Big Red surrenders the second-fewest shots on goal per game in the nation (24.05), trailing just Minnesota State (22.35).
•  Cornell has four players in the top 10 nationally in rating, led by junior Brendan Smith and his nation's best plus-20. The others are junior defensemen Alec McCrea (plus-17; tied for third) and Matt Nuttle (plus-15; tied for seventh) and Angello (plus-15; tied for seventh).

Goaltending, Inc.:
•  Despite entering the season with just eight career collegiate starts among its three goaltenders, the Big Red has not only found one solid starter in net this season — it has two.
•  Freshman Matthew Galajda (13-2-1, 1.56, .936, 6 SO) owns the national lead in goals against average, is tied for national lead in shutouts, and he ranks fourth in the country in save percentage.
•  Galajda has also set a program record for shutouts by a freshman goaltender, topping the previous mark of five set by future All-American David McKee during his freshman season in 2003-04.
•  After making just one start over the last two seasons, senior Hayden Stewart (4-0, 1.01, .956, SO) started three straight from Dec. 2 to Jan. 5 and performed well. In his first start, Stewart made 26 saves at Miami for his third career shutout in just his ninth collegiate start.

Forward Thinking:
•  Cornell continues to get the job done offensively with unparalleled depth, though junior forward Anthony Angello (11-8–19) has gone an offensive tear to take over the team scoring lead. 
•  The team's top six scorers are current spread evenly across the team's three most recent forward lines. Entering the weeknd, the team's leading scorer, senior forward Trevor Yates (11-6–17; 4 PPG), ranked 80th in the nation in points per game — lower than 36 of the nation's 59 other team leaders in scoring.
•  Junior forward Mitch Vanderlaan (4-12–16) is on a team-best scoring streak of five games, and he has nine points over his last seven games to take the team lead in assists.

More Than Just Defense:
•  The Big Red has five defensemen with at least eight points, but none with more than nine. It's the first time since the 2009-10 campaign that Cornell has five defensemen with eight points in a season.
•  Junior defensemen Matt Nuttle (2-7–9), Alec McCrea (4-5–9; 4 PPGs) and Brendan Smith (4-5–9) are among the four-way tie for the team lead in scoring from blueliners.
•  Sophomore Yanni Kaldis (3-6–9), an All-Ivy League first team selection last year, had an assist last night. He leads the team with seven power-play points. 

Polls Prose:
•  Cornell has vaulted up the national rankings this week to second in the USCHO.com poll while remaining fourth in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine poll.
•  Cornell's standing at No. 2 is its highest in the USCHO.com poll since Oct. 24, 2005. The 15 first-place votes it got in the poll is also the highest the program has garnered since March 7, 2005.
•  With the Big Red winning and Notre Dame losing last night, Cornell has moved into first in the Pairwise Rankings, which are used to determine the at-large berths for the NCAA tournament.

Fresh Faces:
•  The Big Red is the youngest team in ECAC Hockey and boasts one of the largest freshman classes in the country, with seven of the team's 10 newcomers appearing in the season opener — a first at Cornell since 1997.
•  Freshman forward Morgan Barron (4-9–13) became the first freshman in program history to record a point in each of his first seven collegiate games.
•  Defenseman Alex Green (2-6–8) had a goal and an assist in Jan. 12-13 games at Yale and Brown, but has not played in Cornell's last three games.
•  Forward Brenden Locke (1-8–9) has five points over the last seven games, finding a home centering a line with Anthony Angello and Mitch Vanderlaan.
•  Forward Kyle Betts (5-4–9) has taken over the team's goal-scoring lead among freshmen, netting the final goal last Saturday at Colgate. He made the most of his four shots on goal during consecutive games Dec. 2 and Dec. 30, scoring on each of them.

Feel The Draft?:
•  Cornell has six players on the roster who have been selected in the NHL Entry Draft, including four from 2014. Junior forward Beau Starrett (Chicago Blackhawks) was selected earliest in that group, having been taken in the third round with the 88th overall pick. 
•  Classmate Anthony Angello, also a forward, was selected in the fifth round by the Pittsburgh Penguins. Junior forwards Jared Fiegl (Arizona Coyotes) and Dwyer Tschantz (St. Louis Blues) were then picked in the seventh round. 
•  Two newcomers are also NHL draft picks — forward Morgan Barron (N.Y. Rangers in 2017) and defenseman Matt Cairns (Edmonton Oilers in 2016).

What, Me Worry?:
•  Cornell has trailed in just six of its 20 games so far, including deficits of at least two goals in five of those contests. Remarkably, the Big Red has a 3-1-1 record in those games featuring a multiple-goal deficit.
•  The most recent occurrence of a two-goal hole came Jan. 12 at Yale, but the Big Red rallied for three straight strikes in a span of 11:12 before eventually settling for a deadlock in its first overtime game of the season.
•  Cornell's resilience from an early deficit has become somewhat of a trend, with the team sporting a very respectable 14-15-5 record when yielding the game's first strike over the last two-plus years. That's a stark turnaround from the team's 14-34-5 record when yielding the game's first goal from the previous three seasons (2012-15).

First Ivy League Coach To 400:
•  Already the winningest coach in program history and in Ivy League history, Mike Schafer eclipsed another milestone in his career with his 400th victory in January 2017. 
•  Schafer ranks 10th in victories among active Division I coaches and is Cornell's fifth-winningest coach across all sports — second among current coaches, behind just Dave Eldredge (men's and women's polo).

Turning The Trick:
•  Last night, junior forward Anthony Angello gave Cornell its third hat trick of the season — a first for the program since the 2003-04 season. 
•  The other hat tricks this season were Kyle Betts on Dec. 30 vs. Canisius and sophomore forward Noah Bauld on Nov. 17 vs. St. Lawrence. 

Scouting Dartmouth:
•  The Big Green (9-10-2, 7-6-1 ECAC Hockey, 2-4 Ivy League) has emerged as a giant-killer this season, having defeated on Dec. 16 then-No. 1 Denver, 1-0, and then-No. 2/2 Clarkson, 3-2, last Saturday. Include last night's 2-1 win over Colgate and Dartmouth is 7-2-1 in its last 10 games.
•  Dartmouth peppered Colgate with 44 shots on goal last night, though the game was tied most of the way until Tim Shoup's winner with 7:49 left.
•  Freshman forward Matt Baker (8-5–13) expanded his team-leading goal total with a pair of strikes last Saturday against the Golden Knights, including the eventual winner on a power-play tip-in with 13:13 left. Dartmouth was assessed a five-minute major 30 seconds later, but killed it off.
•  Senior right wing Corey Kalk (5-10–15) leads the team in scoring, but is also owns a team-worst minus-11 rating. He typically plays on a line with Baker on and junior Alex Jasiek (3-10–13; 3 PPGs).
•  Senior Devin Buffalo (8-6-1, 2.96, .906) is the primary goaltender, though sophomore Adrian Clark (1-4-1, 2.99, .913, SO) has started five games and earned the victory against Clarkson last Saturday.
•  Dartmouth is 9-4-2 in games decided by two or fewer goals
•  Bob Gaudet is in his 30th season as a head coach and 20th at Dartmouth.

The Series Against Dartmouth:
•  Cornell and Dartmouth have met on 135 occasions since 1909, with the Big Red holding a wide margin in the series with a 81-48-6 advantage. 
•  Cornell halted a five-game winless streak against Dartmouth at Lynah Rink with a 3-0 shutout on Nov. 10. Anthony Angello and Mitch Vanderlaan each had a goal and an assist, and Matthew Galajda needed to make just 16 saves for his first collegiate shutout.
•  The Big Red's last visit to Hanover ended in a 1-1 tie on Nov. 4, 2016. Cornell's lone goal came from Mitch Vanderlaan, and it still stands as the last time the Big Red has scored while short-handed.

Up Next:
•  Cornell plays half of its remaining eight games against ECAC Hockey's Capital District teams, starting with a Friday, Feb. 2 visit from Union in a rematch of one of last year's league semifinal game in Lake Placid. The Big Red hosts Rensselaer the following night.