NEW YORK — The Cornell men's hockey team's biggest rivalry hits the nation's biggest stage at 8 p.m. Saturday when the Big Red takes on Harvard in The Frozen Apple at Madison Square Garden. The game can be seen on ESPN+ in the U.S. The same production can be viewed by international viewers through a different platform via Stretch Internet. The broadcast will feature play-by-play from Jason Weinstein and color commentary by Tony Eisenhut '88. Their call can also be heard on WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM) and its online channel. Tickets are available at CornellBigRedTickets.com.
 

THE FROZEN APPLE

#15/15 Cornell vs. Harvard
TIME: 8 p.m.
DATE: Saturday, Nov. 24, 2018
PLACE: Madison Square Garden  •  New York, N.Y.
RECORDS: Cornell 5-3, 3-1 ECAC Hockey, 3-0 Ivy League
                    Harvard 2-3-2, 1-2-1 ECAC Hockey, 1-1-2 Ivy League
VIDEO: ESPN+ — United States | International
RADIO: WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM)
LIVE STATS: www.CornellBigRed.com
TICKETS: CornellBigRedTickets.com
GAME NOTES: Cornell | Harvard | ECAC Hockey
 

About The Frozen Apple:

•  Saturday's game will be the fourth chapter of the biennial event, which spawned off five wildly successful renditions of the Red Hot Hockey series against Boston University. Cornell has wins in each of the first three games of The Frozen Apple. The Big Red topped Michigan, 5-1, in the inaugural event in 2012. Cornell then defeated Penn State, 3-1, in 2014 and New Hampshire, 3-1, in 2016. To see a complete history the Big Red's recent history in New York, see Page 7 of the game notes.
 

The Big Red Rewind:

•  Cornell enters the weekend having won five of its last six and atop the ECAC Hockey in winning percentage after a 5-1 victory over defending league champion Princeton last Saturday at Lynah Rink.
•  Mitch Vanderlaan and Tristan Mullin each scored their first goals of the season, and Max Andreev and Cam Donaldson had a goal and an assist apiece for the Big Red.


•  The only time Cornell has trailed over its last six games was after Chase Priskie's bizarre game-winning goal for Quinnipiac last Friday. His 70-foot shot sailed high and wide of the net, but caromed hard off the endboard glass and into the net off the back of the Cornell goaltender.

 

About The Big Red:

•  Junior defenseman Yanni Kaldis (4-5–9; 2 PPG), a two-time All-Ivy League first-team defenseman, leads the team in scoring and has already matched his goal total from last season. Kaldis was also named to the All-ECAC Hockey third team last year.
•  Senior forward and two-time captain Mitch Vanderlaan (1-7–8) leads the team in assists and ranks in scoring. The Big Red's second-year captain is the team's active leading scorer over his collegiate career with 75 points in 104 games (Kaldis ranks second at 42).
•  Sophomore forward Morgan Barron (5-2–7; 2 PPG) is a New York Rangers draft pick, leads the team with 39 shots on goal and ranks second in the nation with an average of 4.88 shots on goal per game.
•  Matt Nuttle (1-2–3), one of three senior pillars on defense, is off to a quick start with a plus-8 rating. He was second in the nation last year at plus-23.
•  Sophomore goaltender Matthew Galajda (5-3, 2.52, .885), a first-team All-American as a freshman last year, has rebounded after a rough season-opening series against Michigan State. Galajda has a 1.84 goals against average and .910 save percentage while leading ECAC Hockey with five victories in six November games.
 

Wasting No Time:

•  The Big Red has scored inside seven minutes in five of the team's first eight games. Cornell has not conceded any goals in that same time frame.
•  Underclassmen have been at the forefront of Cornell's arsenal in the early going, scoring 16 of the team's 25 goals (64 percent).
•  Max Andreev (2-4–6) scored the Big Red's first goal Oct. 26 against Michigan State, making the program's first native of Russia also the first freshman to score the team's first goal of a season since Joe Devin '11 did so against RIT on Oct. 27, 2007.
 

The Offensive Defense:

•  The trend started last year of generating more offense from the blue line has continued for Cornell. The Big Red has seven goals from defensemen through eight games (Kaldis 4; Cairns, McCrea and Nuttle 1 each).
•  The Big Red had 21 goals from defensemen last year after receiving just 13 goals from blueliners in each of the previous two seasons.
 

Kill Zone:

Cornell's penalty kill has started to round into form after a rough start to the season. This will be the second straight game the Big Red plays against a team converting at better than 36 percent on the power play, with Cornell going a perfect 3-for-3 last Saturday.
•  The Big Red penalty kill is now 12-for-12 in the first period this year.
 

Is Mending Trending?:

•  A helpful factor in Cornell's national-leading team defense last year was its relative health. For the entirety of the 2017-18 season, the Big Red lost just 10 man-games to injury.
•  Unfortunately for Cornell, that trend hasn't continued early this year. The Big Red has already lost 10 man-games to injury from the same group, having played the last three games without two of its top-four blueliners — Alex Green and Brendan Smith.
 

Feel The Draft?:

•  Cornell has five players on the roster who have been selected in the NHL Entry Draft — one in each of the last five drafts. Sophomore defenseman Matt Cairns (Edmonton Oilers) was selected earliest in that group, having been taken in the third round with the 84th overall pick in 2016.
•  Junior forward Beau Starrett (Chicago Blackhawks) was also taken in the third round during the 2014 draft. One other forward is a draft pick in Morgan Barron, who was snagged in the sixth round by the N.Y. Rangers in 2017. He then became the first freshman in program history to have at least one point in each of his first seven games. 
•  Three underclassmen represent the Big Red's three NHL Draft picks along the blue line. Alex Green leads that group after his outstanding collegiate debut led to a fourth-round selection by the Tampa Bay Lightning last summer.
•  Defenseman Misha Song (N.Y. Islanders in 2015) is the only newcomer to have his NHL rights already owned.
 

Odds and Ends:

•  Cornell has scored at least two goals in each of its first eight games for the first time since the 2009-10 season, which produced the program's last ECAC Hockey championship.
•  Senior forward Beau Starrett's eldest of three brothers, Peter, played at Harvard from 2008-12.
•  Junior defenseman Yanni Kaldis has five points (1-4–5) in five career games against Harvard, and he's the only current member of the Big Red to have points in both games against the Crimson last year.
•  The Frozen Apple will feature two of the best faceoff men in the country. Harvard's Jack Badini leads the nation with a 74.3 percent success rate and Cornell freshman Max Andreev's 62.9 percent ranks sixth among players that have taken at least 30 draws to date.
 

Scouting Harvard:

•   The Crimson is 2-3-2 after splitting a home series with Arizona State last weekend at Bright-Landry Hockey Center. Harvard took three of a possible four ECAC Hockey points on the road the weekend prior, tying Yale on Nov. 9 before defeating Brown the next night.
•  Harvard ranks fifth in team offense with an average of 3.86 goals per game, thanks to a variety of goal-scorers and one of the top set-up men in the nation. Junior defenseman Adam Fox (3-12–15l 2 PPG) leads the country in in points per game (2.14).
•  Senior forward Lewis Zerter-Gossage (5-2–7) leads the team in goals with sophomore defenseman Reilly Walsh (4-3–7; 4 PPG) ranking second.
•  The Crimson finds itself on the other end of the national spectrum in team defense, conceding 3.57 goals per game. Senior Michael Lackey (2-2-2, 3.23, .880) has assumed the starting goaltending role after the graduation of three-year starter Merrick Madsen.
•  While the power play leads the nation (36.4%), the penalty kill is second-worst in the nation (70.4%).
•  Ted Donato is in his 15th season as the head coach at his alma mater.
 

The Series Against Harvard:

•  Cornell has been battling with ancient rival Harvard since 1910, and they have matched up 152 times with the Big Red holding a 76-65-11 lead following last year's series sweep.
•  The Frozen Apple will mark the first regular-season meeting outside of Ithaca or the Boston metro area between the teams since the series' first two games in 1910 and 1911 at now-defunct St. Nicholas Rink in New York.
•  The Big Red won an exhilarating 3-2 affair on Nov. 11, 2017 at Lynah Rink, storming back after the Crimson scored the first two goals inside 16 minutes.
Yanni Kaldis and Jeff Malott scored to knot the score by the 1:15 mark of the second period, then Alec McCrea's one-timer on the power play with 2.3 seconds left in the third period proved to be the winner.
•  Cornell then won the rematch in Cambridge, 3-0, behind a hat trick from Anthony Angello and a 35-save shutout from Matthew Galajda.
•  Cornell head coach Mike Schafer is 36-18-6 in 60 games against Harvard. 
 

Up Next:

•  Cornell hits the road within ECAC Hockey play for the first time next weekend, first visiting Dartmouth at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 30 before heading down to a rematch with Harvard at 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 1.