ITHACA, N.Y. —  One of two remaining undefeated teams in the country, the Cornell men's hockey team will play its final home games of 2019 when it takes on Quinnipiac at 7 p.m. Friday and Princeton at 7 p.m. Saturday at Lynah Rink. Featuring the call of Grady Whittenburg and color commentary from former assistant coach and team captain Topher Scott '08, the games will be broadcast on ESPN+ in the U.S. (with an option for international viewers also available through portal.stretchinternet.com). The games can also be heard on WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM) with Jason Weinstein back for his 16th season on play-by-play and Tony Eisenhut '88 on color commentary.

Game Information:

Quinnipiac at #2 Cornell
7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 22, 2019
PLACE: Lynah Arena  •  Ithaca, N.Y.
RECORDS: Cornell 6-0, 4-0 ECAC Hockey
                    Quinnipiac 6-4-1, 2-1-1 ECAC Hockey
BROADCAST: ESPN+
RADIO: WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM)
LIVE STATS: CornellBigRed.com
TICKETS: CornellBigRedTickets.com
GAME NOTES (PDF): Cornell | Quinnipiac

Princeton at #2 Cornell
7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 23, 2019
PLACE: Lynah Arena  •  Ithaca, N.Y.
RECORDS: Cornell 6-0, 4-0 ECAC Hockey
                    Princeton 1-3-2, 0-3-1 ECAC Hockey
BROADCAST: ESPN+
RADIO: WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM)
LIVE STATS: CornellBigRed.com
TICKETS: CornellBigRedTickets.com
GAME NOTES (PDF): Cornell | Princeton

The Big Red Rewind:

•  Cornell has risen to a national ranking of No. 2 in the USCHO.com poll while garnering 13 of 50 first-place votes after a 6-0 start to the season. 
•  The Big Red is coming off its first road sweep of ECAC Hockey's North Country trip since 2005, starting with a 4-2 victory Friday at Clarkson in a matchup of top-10 teams before a 6-1 rout of St. Lawrence on Saturday.
•  Cornell had 10 different goal-scorers for its 10 goals last weekend.
•  The Big Red ranks second in the nation with an average of 4.83 goals per game. Cornell has 29 goals in its first six games for the first time in 20 years, dating back to a 10-4 win at Clarkson to cap a similar scoring run in 1999.
•  Cornell's potent power play has helped drive the offensive production, leading the country with a 42.3% success rate. The Big Red has scored at least once on the man advantage in its first six games for the first time since 2009.

About The Big Red:

•  Junior forward Morgan Barron (6-6–12) not only leads the team in scoring, he ranks second in the nation with an average of 2.0 points per game. He's the first Cornell men's hockey player with at least 12 points through four games since Matt Moulson '06 and Ryan Vesce '04 both did so in the 2003-04 campaign. Barron, who has points in all six games so far, was named to the All-ECAC Hockey first team last season and was tabbed a Preseason All-ECAC Hockey selection in September.
•  Sam Malinski (2-7–9, plus-8) leads the nation's defensemen with an average of 1.5 points per game, which is also second-highest among all of the nation's freshmen.
•  Junior forward Brenden Locke (2-5–7) and sophomore forward Max Andreev (2-5–7, 2 PPG, plus-9) have both spent time centering Barron's line. They're tied for third in team scoring with junior defenseman Alex Green (2-5–7), who has already nearly doubled his point total from an injury-riddled 2018-19 season.
•  Senior defenseman Yanni Kaldis (2-4–6) is the team's leading active scorer with 67 collegiate points. The three-time selection to the All-Ivy League first team was also a Preseason All-ECAC Hockey selection in September.
•  Junior goaltender Matthew Galajda (6-0, 1.67, .926) ranks fifth in the nation in goals against average, having surrendered just four even-strength goals through six games.

Rare Territory:

•  Freshman forward Jack Malone is doing something that no Cornell men's hockey player has done in more than 50 years — wear #13. The perceived unluckiest of numbers has only been donned by five previous members of the Big Red, all in the first nine years of the program's resurrection in 1957. The last to wear 13 was James Wallace during the 1965-66 season.

No Sophomore Slump Here:

•  An all-sophomore line headlined the Big Red attack last year, with Brenden Locke centering Morgan Barron and Cam Donaldson. But the class' contributions didn't stop there — the group averaged 1.36 goals per game for the season, which is highest in ECAC Hockey and fourth-highest in the nation.

The Twin Tradition:

•  The arrival of freshmen Ben and Zach Tupker give the Big Red its fourth pair of twins in Mike Schafer's 25-year tenure as the program's head coach. The others were the Devins (Joe and Mike, 2007-11), the Abbotts (Chris and Cam, 2001-06), and the McRaes (Mark and Matt, 1999-2003). Zach Tupker (1-0–1) scored his first collegiate Nov. 9 vs. Yale.

Wasting No Time:

•  Freshman forward Jack Malone scored the Big Red's first goal Nov. 1, marking the second straight year that a newcomer has opened the team's scoring for the season. Sophomore forward Max Andreev got the scoring started last year, which was the first time a freshman did the honors since Joe Devin '11 in 2007.

Honor Roll:

•  Junior forward Morgan Barron was named ECAC Hockey Player of the Week on Nov. 11 after leading the circuit with six points the previous weekend. Freshman defenseman Sam Malinski has also already twice been named ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week (Nov. 4, Nov. 11).

Feel The Draft?:

•  Cornell has six players on the roster who have been selected in the NHL Entry Draft — at least one in each of the last five drafts. Freshman forward Matt Stienburg (Colorado Avalanche) was selected earliest in that group, having been taken in the third round with the 63rd overall pick in June.
•  Junior defenseman Matt Cairns (Edmonton Oilers) was also taken in the third round with the 84th overall pick in the 2016 draft. Classmate Alex Green was taken with an overaged selection by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2018 draft, and Misha Song (2015 sixth round, New York Islanders) gives the Big Red blue line three NHL picks.
•  Two sixth-round picks also give Cornell three NHL picks when joined by Stienburg. Junior Morgan Barron, a fellow St. Andrew's graduate, was snagged in the sixth round by the N.Y. Rangers in 2017. Freshman Jack Malone was taken by the Vancouver Canucks in the sixth round last summer. 

Scouting Quinnipiac:

•  The Bobcats are coming off a home ECAC Hockey weekend sweep to improve to 6-4-1 overall and 2-1-1 in league play. Junior Keith Petruzzelli (6-3-1, 2.50, .902, SO) is the reigning ECAC Hockey MAC Goaltending Goaltender of the Week after backstopping Quinnipiac to victories over Union (2-1 on Friday) and Rensselaer (3-1 on Saturday).
•  Junior center Odeen Tufto (1-12–13) is a Preseason All-ECAC Hockey Team selection and the team's leading scorer. He typically plays alongside sophomore left wing Wyatt Bongiovanni (6-3–9, 2 PPG), who leads the team in goals.
•  Like the Big Red, the Bobcats have just three seniors on their roster. Defenseman Kārlis Čukste (1-6–7), who ranks third on the team in scoring, is the only upperclassmen among blueliners.
•  Special teams, normally a strength for Quinnipiac, have gotten off to a slow start at a combined 45.1% (ranked 50th in the country).
•  Rand Pecknold is in his 26th season as the head coach at Quinnipiac.
•  The Bobcats were selected to finish second in ECAC Hockey's preseason coaches poll and third in the media association poll.

The Series Against Quinnipiac:

•  Cornell leads the all-time series against Quinnipiac, 22-17-4, though it only managed one point in two meetings against the Bobcats last year. 
•  The Bobcats scored three unanswered goals in the third period — including a bizarre game-winner that came from the neutral zone after caroming off the glass behind the net — to secure a 4-2 victory over the Big Red in the season's first meeting on Nov. 16 in Ithaca. 
•  Cornell then rallied for a 2-2 tie in the rematch on Jan. 5 in Hamden. Morgan Barron helped set up Cam Donaldson's power-play goal late in the first period, then scored an unassisted goal in the second to tie it.

Scouting Princeton:

•  The Tigers are 1-3-2 overall and 0-3-1 in the league after rallying for a 2-2 tie Friday against RPI and suffering a 2-1 overtime loss to Union on Saturday.
•  Senior center Jackson Cressey (2-5–7) leads the team in scoring, having recently eclipsed the 100-point milestone for his career. He played the first five games with sophomore leading goal-scorer Corey Andonovski (4-1–5, 2 PPG) on the right wing, but they were split up Saturday against Union.
•  Junior goaltender Ryan Ferland (1-2-1, 2.42, .917) started both of last weekend's games after sharing starts with freshman Aidan Porter (0-1-1, 3.91, .877) over the first two weekends of the Tigers' season.
•  Ron Fogarty is in his sixth season as the head coach at Princeton.
•  The Tigers were selected to finish tied for ninth in ECAC Hockey's preseason coaches poll and 11th in the media association poll.

The Series Against Princeton:

•  Cornell has been dominant against the Tigers, holding a 94-52-8 lead all-time with wins in nine of the teams' last 10 meetings. 
•  The Big Red swept last season's series with a 5-1 victory on Nov. 17 at Lynah Rink and a 3-2 win on Jan. 4 at Princeton. In the first game, Cam Donaldson and Max Andreev had a goal and an assist apiece with the Big Red scoring three times in the game's final eight minutes. In the rematch bereft of any penalties, Brenden Locke opened the scoring before the Tigers erased a two-goal deficit. Alec McCrea '19 scored the winner for Cornell.
•  The Big Red has scored 30 goals in its last seven games against Princeton (4.29 goals per game), and Cornell's penalty kill has a 90% success rate against the Tigers' power play over their last nine meetings.

First In Second:

•  Cornell has been particularly proficient on offense in second periods this season, which is when it has scored 14 of its 29 goals (48.3%). That works out to be an average of 2.33 goals per second period in the early going, which leads the nation — well ahead of Boston University, which ranks second at 1.73.

First Ivy Coach To 400:

•  Already the winningest coach in program history and in Ivy League history, Mike Schafer ranks fifth among active coaches with 460 victories at the Division I level. He also leads all actives coaches of Cornell's 37 varsity teams in career victories.

Two Crowns Down:

•  Cornell won the program's 23rd Ivy League championship, marking the Big Red's second straight Ivy crown and its 19th outright title. Cornell is 17-2-3 in its last 22 Ivy League contests.
•  In winning the Cleary Cup for a second straight year (though shared this time around), the Big Red has won the ECAC Hockey's regular-season title in consecutive seasons for the first time since 2002 and 2003.

Up Next:

•  The Big Red turns its attention to the Big Apple, where it will play in the biennial Red Hot Hockey event with a game against Boston University at 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
•  Cornell then wraps up the fall semester portion of its schedule with an ECAC Hockey and Ivy League road trip to Harvard on Friday, Dec. 6 and Dartmouth on Saturday, Dec. 7.