ITHACA, N.Y. —  Off to the program's best start in 48 years and ranked second in both major national polls, the Cornell men's hockey team will take to the big stage on Saturday for Red Hot Hockey — a game against Boston University at Madison Square Garden in New York. Faceoff is set for shortly after 8 p.m., and the game will be streamed for free on the Patriot League Network. Featuring the call of Jason Weinstein (play-by-play) and Tony Eisenhut '88 (color commentary), the game can also be heard on WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM) and worldwide through the station's website.

Red Hot Hockey Information:

#2 Cornell vs. Boston University
8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30, 2019
PLACE: Madison Square Garden  •  New York, N.Y.
RECORDS: Cornell 8-0, 6-0 ECAC Hockey, 3-0 Ivy League;
                    Boston University 4-5-5, 3-3-4 Hockey East
BROADCAST: Patriot League Network
RADIO: WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM)
LIVE STATS: GoTerriers.com
TICKETS: Ticketmaster.com
GAME NOTES (PDF): Cornell | BU

About Red Hot Hockey:

•  Cornell and Boston University will play the seventh edition of the biennial Red Hot Hockey series on Saturday. The games have been mostly sellouts at The World's Most Famous Arena. 
•  Cornell has also started The Frozen Apple series in even-numbered years, having defeated Michigan in 2012, Penn State in 2014 and New Hampshire in 2016 before a loss in 2018 against Harvard.

The Big Red Rewind:

•  Off to the program's best start since the 1971-72 campaign, Cornell is 8-0 and joins Harvard as the last remaining undefeated teams in the nation. 
•  The Big Red is coming off a home ECAC Hockey weekend sweep, starting with a 2-1 victory over Quinnipiac on Friday. Matthew Galajda made 13 of his 22 saves in the third period to make the lead stand up on Michael Regush's game-winning goal on the power play midway through the second. Brenden Locke opened the scoring earlier in the middle frame.

•  Cornell came out slow the next night against Princeton, but Galajda made a handful of superb saves to keep the game scoreless until the Big Red took over with four goals in the second. Cam Donaldson led the way with a goal and an assist in the 5-1 victory.
 

By The Numbers:

•  The Big Red ranks second in the country in both offense (4.50 goals per game) and defense (1.50 goals against per game), which leads to a predictable standing of second in the nation in margin of victory (+3.00).
•  Cornell has scored at least four goals in six of its eight games to date, and it has yet to surrender more than two in a game.
•  The Big Red's power play was the nation's best for two consecutive weeks before a 1-for-10 performance last weekend against Quinnipiac and Princeton. That still leaves Cornell with an impressive 33.3% conversion rate on the man advantage, which ranks second behind only Penn State (34.6%).
•  Cornell has not only scored first in each of its last seven games, it hasn't trailed in any of those games either. The Big Red has trailed for just a total of 16:05 this season, and it has played a streak of 449:15 since it last trailed.
•  The Big Red has scored 20 of its 36 goals in second periods this year. That's an average of 2.5 goals per middle stanza, which by a wide margin leads the country for any period. (Harvard averages 2.0 goals per first and third periods).

The Red's Barron:

•  Junior forward Morgan Barron (6-6–12) not only leads the team in scoring, he ranks second in the nation with an average of 1.5 points per game. He became the first Cornell men's hockey player with at least 12 points through six games since Matt Moulson '06 and Ryan Vesce '04 both did so in the 2003-04 campaign. Barron, a sixth-round draft pick of the New York Rangers, was named to the All-ECAC Hockey first team last season and was tabbed a Preseason All-ECAC Hockey selection in September.

Forward Thinking:

•  Junior forward Brenden Locke (3-6–9) is tied for second in team scoring with a team-best plus-11 rating that ranks in the top 10 in the nation. Since being reunited on a line with junior forward Cam Donaldson (2-6–8), both players have a plus-9 rating over six games.
•  Sophomore forward Michael Regush (4-2–6) ranks second on the team in goal-scoring after netting 12 goals in his collegiate debut season. His two power-play goals are tied for the team lead with Barron and sophomore forward Max Andreev (2-6–8), who all play on the same power-play unit.
•  Scoring depth has powered the Big Red in the early going. Eight forwards already have multiple goals for Cornell through eight games compared to 12 for all of last season.

More Than Just Defense:

•  Junior defenseman Alex Green (3-6–9, plus-8) enters Saturday's game on a season-high scoring streak of six games, having already more than doubled his point production from an injury-riddled sophomore campaign.
•  Sam Malinski (2-7–9, plus-8) leads the nation in scoring for freshman defenseman with an average of 1.12 points per game. His 19 shots on goal rank third on the team and tops among all blueliners.
•  Senior defenseman Yanni Kaldis (2-6–8) is the team's leading active scorer with 69 collegiate points. The three-time selection to the All-Ivy League first team was also a Preseason All-ECAC Hockey selection in September.

Goaltending, Inc.:

•  Junior goaltender Matthew Galajda (8-0, 1.50, .935) ranks third in the nation in goals against average, having surrendered just five even-strength goals through eight games. His save percentage also ranks 10th nationally.
•  Galajda has returned to form after sophomore season was cut short by multiple injuries. As a freshman, he was a Hobey Baker Memorial Award finalist, a Mike Richter Award finalist, a first-team All-American, the ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Year and Ivy League Player of the Year.
•  The Big Red has the rare claim of two all-league goaltenders from a season ago in Galajda and classmate Austin McGrath. Though McGrath hasn't appeared yet this season, he was an All-Ivy League first-team selection last year.

Empire State of Mind:

•  Junior forward Morgan Barron was a sixth-round draft pick of the New York Rangers in last summer's NHL Entry Draft. Barron has since attended the Rangers' prospect camp three times. He is Cornell's first Rangers draft pick since 1983 (Pete Marcov).
•  While his hometown is in Halifax, Nova Scotia, senior forward Noah Bauld was actually born in New York before moving when he was a baby. Bauld's first collegiate goal was the game-winner in the 2016 Frozen Apple against New Hampshire at Madison Square Garden.
•  Freshman forward Jack Malone's home in Madison, New Jersey is less than 25 miles from Red Hot Hockey's venue in Manhattan. Though originally from California, Malone moved to The Garden State when he was 6.

Don't Be Bashful:

•  In each of the last three seasons, Cornell has seen a freshman score his first collegiate goal in its annual visit to Madison Square Garden – senior forward Noah Bauld (GWG in 2016 vs. New Hampshire), junior forward Tristan Mullin (GWG in 2017 vs. Boston University) and sophomore forward Liam Motley (2018 vs. Harvard).

Honor Roll:

•  Freshman forward Ben Berard is the reigning ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week after scoring his first collegiate goal last Saturday against Princeton and adding an assist in Friday's win against Quinnipiac. It marked the third time in the first four weeks of Cornell's season that it has garnered the award. Freshman defenseman Sam Malinski has also already twice been named ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week (Nov. 4, Nov. 11).
•  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.

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.

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.

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 Boston University:

•  The Terriers slipped back to below .500 on Tuesday with a 4-0 home loss to Sacred Heart, leaving the team 4-5-5 overall. After a 3-0 victory and 3-3 tie at home against Vermont over the weekend, BU is 3-3-4 in Hockey East.
•  Junior defenseman David Farrance (10-9–19) – a native of Victor, just 90 minutes away from Cornell's campus – leads the team in goals and overall scoring. His eight power-play goals are tied for the national lead, and his average of 0.71 goals per game leads all of the nation's blueliners.
•  Senior forward Patrick Harper (5-11–16) ranks second in scoring, and – like Farrance – is a Nashville Predators draft pick. He typically plays with senior Patrick Curry (9-6–15, plus-9) on the opposite wing and freshman Trevor Zegras (4-9–13) at center.
•  The Terriers have two graduate transfers on the roster, and both came from Ivy League schools – forward Alex Brink (via Brown) and goaltender Sam Tucker (via Yale). Tucker (4-3-5, 2.69, .910, 2 SO) has assumed the starting role in goal after splitting starts last year with the Bulldogs.
•  BU has outscored its opposition in second periods, 23-10, but its been outscored in third periods, 20-8.
•  Albie O'Connell is in his second season as head coach at BU after serving as an associate head coach for three years prior and assistant coach in 2014-15.

The Series Against Boston University:

•  Two longtime rivals, Cornell and Boston University have met 47 times, with the Big Red holding a 24-20-3 lead in the all-time series.
•  The last meeting between the two storied programs came in the first round of the 2018 NCAA tournament. The top-seeded Big Red was toppled by the Terriers, 2-1, in an East Region semifinal in Worcester, Mass.
•  The two programs have combined to win seven NCAA championships, with the Big Red defeating the Terriers for the title in 1967, Cornell's first national championship.
•  Cornell won the Kelley-Harkness Cup bestowed upon the Red Hot Hockey champion for the first time in 2017, scoring the first three goals of a 4-3 victory. Boston University won three of the first five versions of Red Hot Hockey, with the 2009 and 2015 meetings ending in 3-3 ties.
•  Under Cornell head coach Mike Schafer, the Big Red is 4-6-2 against BU.

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 last year, marking the Big Red's second straight Ivy crown and its 19th outright title. Cornell is 20-2-3 in its last 25 Ivy League contests after defeating Princeton last Saturday.
•  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:

•  Cornell 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.