ITHACA, N.Y. – Inside the insulated walls that house the Cornell men's hockey program, Monday was a day to get back to work. Really, that's the case every Monday – but those walls were particularly impermeable given how disappointing Saturday's effort at Union was.
 
Outside those walls, the Big Red fan base's anticipation was hitting fever pitch. Not only is it the week of the team's first home games in eight weeks, Cornell was ranked #1 in both of college hockey's major weekly polls. While it ramps up some excitement among more astute fans, its bigger effect is a resonation with the rest of university's community. There will be plenty of people who weren't paying too much attention before that will be paying attention now that the #1 adorns Cornell's name.
 
With that in mind, being #1 in the polls does matter. But there's a harsh reality to face here. Aside from increasing visibility, enlarging of the target of its proverbial back and some inevitable chest-puffing from proud friends and fans of the program, there's really no significance to standing in the national polls. But for the Pairwise Comparison Ratings, there actually is significance to it.
 
First, the obligatory disclaimer: Saturday night's game at Union was mathematically the halfway point of the Big Red's regular season, so there's quite a bit of real estate left to cover before the postseason. There's no shortage of ifs, and there's no reason to believe that the current landscape will remain unchanged.
 
Second, a truncated explanation of how this all works: The polls are subjective; the Pairwise is completely objective – an algorithm predicated on the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), a formula adopted across several NCAA sports, then further tweaked mathematically to account for college hockey's own unique flavor. In college basketball, the NCAA selection committee subjectively culls potential contenders and determines the seeding of said entrants. In college hockey, the NCAA selection committee has no say in the 16 qualifiers (the Pairwise dictates that) – only the seeding and assignments to the four four-team regionals.
 
Over the years, we've seen the NCAA selection committee for men's hockey will alter bracket integrity for a few reasons – specifically, avoiding intra-conference match-ups in the first round and boosting attendance at the neutral regional sites. After all, this is a computer formula ranking these teams, so it's often quite debatable how accurate it is to claim that, say, the #9 overall team is better than the #14 overall team. So why not tweak it a little for the greater good?
 
But precedent has also shown a very clear line in the sand with the #1 overall seed, and – to some degree – the #2 seed. That top seed comes with a nearly-automatic ticket to the NCAA regional site closest to home and a first-round match-up against the bottom seed in the tournament. That's usually a team that only qualifies because it won a conference title, and it usually has a Pairwise standing far lower than the team with the next-lowest Pairwise rating.
 
As the #1 overall seed, the Big Red would almost assuredly be placed in the Albany regional. As an in-state team less than three hours from its main campus and with first-round games on Saturday, Cornell would enjoy the spoils of feeling like the bracket's home team (unless Union or RPI were to win the ECAC Hockey Championship).
 
But literally any other seed in the NCAA tournament would present the possibility of being placed in one of the other three regionals in Allentown, Pa.; Loveland, Colo. and Worcester, Mass. Two of those are hosted by teams (Denver and Penn State) that are currently aligned for NCAA tournaments berths, thus would automatically be placed in those respective regionals – a less-than-desirable assignment for the other teams in the regional. As for Worcester, it's highly unlikely that any fewer than two New England-based teams would end up there, once again leaving the other teams feeling like outcasts.
 
As the second half of the season progresses, bracketology analysis will start to litter the map. It's a little like reading a long-range weather forecast – take credence in some of the trends, but not the specifics. We'll continue to explore the possibilities on occasion in this space moving forward. But, remember – it's just a snapshot.

Changing Places

The Big Red has largely enjoyed great stability in its lineup so far this season, even though its depth at all positions is one of the team's strengths. One of the byproducts is that instead of trial by fire, any tinkering can be done by design.
 
One such experiment took flight last weekend, with freshman Matt Stienburg moving from the wing to center – a position with which he has plenty of experience at St. Andrew's and stops prior. He had a solid collegiate debut at that position Friday at Rensselaer, flanked by senior Jeff Malott and freshman Jack Malone. Stienburg's strong puck possession along the wall eventually led to Malott's goal, which turned out to be the dagger in a 3-0 victory.
 
"That third goal was huge for us. Matt played a big part of that," said Mike Schafer '86, the Jay R. Bloom '77 Head Coach of Men's Hockey, after Friday's game. "Those guys seem to have a little bit of chemistry already with Jack, Matty and Jeff. I'm pretty happy with those guys as we continue to try to shape our lineup. I thought that those guys did a real solid job."
 
With the addition of Stienburg to the mix, Cornell now has at least six tested options at center – four with left-handed shots (Max Andreev, Brenden Locke, Kyle Betts and Zach Tupker) and two with right-handed shots (Michael Regush and Stienburg). For a team that has had a dearth of centers at times over recent years, it's another positive sign of the program's good health.

Around The League

•  There are two sides to every story, and Union's version of Saturday's 3-3 tie against Cornell was understandably quite different than that of the Big Red.
 
The Dutchmen have struggled mightily offensively, so three goals against a staunch defensive team proved cause for optimism. Getting any sort of result also had to prove somewhat therapeutic after losing Friday's game against Colgate on a controversial penalty shot with just 71 seconds left in the third period.
 
"Tonight showed that we can do it. ... It's funny, it's the old Herb Brooks line: 'Now that you showed me, now I'm going to expect it,'" Union head coach Rick Bennett told The Daily Gazette. "That's the way it goes."
 
•  As mentioned above, the schedule is at a point when more and more attention starts to be paid to Pairwise rankings – to a degree. Two teams currently near the bubble for at-large bids, Clarkson and Quinnipiac, squared off on Saturday night. Casey Jones '90, the head coach at Clarkson, wasn't overly concerned about the Pairwise implications after his team's 5-2 victory over the Bobcats.
 
"We didn't put too much emphasis on that," Jones told the Watertown Daily Times. "Someone said today that one of these teams that loses this game was in trouble in the tournament. It's early January, for crying out loud."

Alumni Update

•  Matthew Galajda wasn't the only Cornell goaltender with a shutout this weekend – Mitch Gillam '17 made 48 stops to lock down consecutive clean sheets against Utah and Kansas City in ECHL play this weekend. It was the first back-to-back shutouts by a Wichita goalie since 1998, and Gillam was named the league's goaltender of the week.
 
Gillam was named an ECHL all-star last season with the Worcester Railers, but then found a new organization with which to get an opportunity when he signed on with Wichita (which is in the Edmonton Oilers' farm system). He now has a 3.44 goals against average and .906 save percentage through 27 games with the Thunder.
 
"This year has been a lot of ups and downs," Gillam said in a video posted to the team's Twitter account after Friday's game. "We've been working on our defense a lot, and I think that helped tonight. Seventh (career shutout) – yeah, that's pretty spectacular. I'm excited to finally get another shutout this year. I've been working hard and I got the new gear, so it's starting to feel really good."
 
•  Alex Rauter '18 has nine points in 11 games with the ECHL's Indy Fuel after being traded to the Hoosier State by the Rapid City Rush. … Dwyer Tschantz '18 is back in the SPHL with the Knoxville Ice Bears after a stint with the ECHL's Adirondack Thunder. … When Tschantz was last in Knoxville, he was reunited with classmate Hayden Stewart '18 – though Stewart has since moved on to the same league's Macon Mayhem.
 
Off The Crossbar is a weekly-ish notebook about the Cornell men's hockey team written by assistant director of athletic communications Brandon Thomas, who is in his ninth season as his office's primary contact for the team following a stint of a few years as the team's beat writer at The Ithaca Journal and a few years as an observer from Section D. He can be reached at brandon@cornell.edu.