TROY, N.Y. – Just like there are myriad ways to cook an egg, there's also no shortage of ways to win hockey games on the road. But with both, it usually comes back to the basics.
 
For the Cornell men's hockey team on Friday night, that was a scintillating start, an early lead, a dearth of penalties and strong goaltending – all resulting in a 3-0 victory over upstart Rensselaer. Junior forwards Brenden Locke and Tristan Mullin each had a goal and an assist, and junior goaltender Matthew Galajda made 25 saves for his second shutout of the season to prevent the Big Red from leaving Houston Field House with egg on its face.
 
Cornell (12-1-1, 8-1 ECAC Hockey) entered the night ranked second nationally in both the USCHO.com and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine polls, but it ascended to the top spot in the Pairwise Comparison Ratings after its victory over RPI (8-11-1, 5-6-1) paired with North Dakota's home loss to Omaha.
 
This particular opponent's involvement is somewhat apropos, given that the Big Red was 3-5-4 in its last 12 meetings with the Engineers over the last six seasons – each of which ended with Cornell having a better winning percentage than RPI. In fact, it was RPI that knocked off Cornell the last time it reached the #1 spot in the national polls – something that Cornell could attain on Monday for the first time since, if it can muster another road win on Saturday at Union.
 
But first, the Big Red had to deal with an Engineers squad that had won three of its last four – including an upset win at Clarkson last Friday. Cornell showed its respect by being the aggressor right off the hop, completely dominating the first period with 16 of the game's first 19 shots on goal.
 
"I thought we got off to a real good start and played the first period with pace, and I thought our guys did a good job of going after it on the road," said Mike Schafer '86, the Jay R. Bloom '77 Head Coach of Men's Hockey at Cornell.
 
Despite the lopsided run of play, the Big Red's lead stood at one skinny goal. Mullin swept in his fourth goal of the season and team-leading third on the power play, capping a pretty passing play from sophomore forward Michael Regush and Locke.
 
The strike was Cornell's third in just six power-play opportunities since the semester break, and it bumps the team up to a 28.3% conversion rate on the man advantage for the season – fourth-highest in the nation.
 
"I think they're moving pucks a little bit quicker, and they're playing with their eyes up and not being pre-determined on what they're going to attack off of," Schafer said of the power play's increase in productivity since an 0-for-18 drought. "I think we've made some pretty good touch plays down by the net to score a couple of goals, but we're also getting really good looks at other times, too."
 
RPI came out in the second period with a clear motive to force more pucks on net quicker, but Galajda was able to fight through traffic atop his crease and control rebounds to effectively limit second chances. Then Cornell scored a pair of goals 2 minutes, 19 seconds apart toward the middle of the second period to inflate its lead to three goals.
 
The first goal of those goals came from Locke, set up by a highlight-reel setup by junior forward Cam Donaldson. Trademark puck possession along the wall by freshman forward Matt Stienburg and senior forward Jeff Malott then led to Malott's fourth goal of the season.
 
"I think our guys really ramped it up in the second period. We missed a breakaway and we missed a two-on-one, but then we had a big goal by Jeff Malott to make it 3-0," Schafer said. "Then we got a little bit loose after that. I think we weren't as tight (defensively) and didn't play with as much pace."
 
While Galajda made 14 of his 25 saves in the second period, he was tested most in a third period that saw RPI catch a second wind.
 
The Engineers won a faceoff that led to a dangerous tip on net from Ture Linden in the left circle, but Galajda flashed his left pad for a stop early in the period. About five minutes later, Shane Baer was set up for a wide-open one-timer from the right circle that Galajda not only stopped, but swallowed up with no rebound.
 
"Give Cornell credit, they came out and controlled the flow of the game," RPI head coach Dave Smith said. "Once it gets to 3-0, the score effects kick in, but I liked our compete and liked our willingness to try and get our game to where it needs to be."
 
The shutout was Galajda's 16th in his career at Cornell, which remains third-most in program history. It draws him just two shy of tying David McKee (2003-06) for second, and it's just three back of the record of 19 set by Ben Scrivens '10.
 
"Matty made some big saves to make sure it stayed a 3-0 game," Schafer added. "Overall, it was a really good road win for us."
 
In addition to the Pairwise implications, the victory helped Cornell keep pace with Clarkson – a 3-2 victor at home against Princeton on Friday – atop the ECAC Hockey standings, though the Big Red has a game in hand. The Big Red wraps up its current stretch of seven straight games away from home at 7 p.m. Saturday against Union in Schenectady.

The Big Red's Lineup:

How The Goals Were Scored:

Cornell's 1st Goal
1st period, 16:46 (pp)  •  Mullin 4 (Locke, Regush)  •  Cornell 1, RPI 0
•  Making use of the game's first power play, the Big Red had several chances in the early stages of the opportunity before finally breaking through on Mullin's team-leading third power-play goal of the year. Alex Green and Michael Regush exchanged passes at opposite ends of the point before Regush forced a pass through a pair of RPI sticks to Locke near the far post. Locke then quickly tapped a pass to Mullin popping back into the low slot for the easy conversion.
 
Cornell's 2nd Goal
2nd period, 7:10  •  Locke 6 (Donaldson, Mullin)  •  Cornell 2, RPI 0
•  Just after the Big Red finished killing off RPI's lone power play of the night, Mullin joined the play and flipped a puck through the neutral zone that descended near Locke. Rather than play the puck, Locke drew a defender to him to allow Donaldson to gather the puck and gain the offensive zone along the left wall one-on-one with a defender. Donaldson cut across the top of the circle toward the slot and stick-handled around the defender in front of him and two backcheckers, then drew the attention of RPI goalie Linden Marshall before feeding a pass back to the middle for Locke in the slot to smash into the empty net.
 
Cornell's 3rd Goal
2nd period, 9:29  •  Malott 4 (Mitchell, Stienburg)  •  Cornell 3, RPI 0
•  Strong play along the left wall in the offensive zone by Stienburg kept Cornell in business. He dished off the Malott, who rolled up the half wall and set up Mitchell for a shot from the top outside part of the left circle. The puck then banked off an RPI player defending Stienburg at the near post and right to Malott crashing down the middle for an easy conversion.