ITHACA, N.Y. — Junior goaltender Matthew Galajda made 19 saves for his third consecutive shutout to tie the program's career record, backstopping the Cornell men's hockey team's 5-0 rout of St. Lawrence on Friday night at Lynah Rink. Coupled with Clarkson's tie at Colgate, the results lead to Cornell clinching the Cleary Cup for a third straight year — a first in program history.
 
Galajda moved into a tie with Ben Scrivens '10 for the program's all-time lead with 19 shutouts over his collegiate career. He's also chasing another one of Scrivens' program records – the longest shutout streak. Galajda has now played 197 minutes, 21 seconds since surrendering a goal early in the third period in a game against RPI on Feb. 15. It's currently the sixth-longest shutout streak in program history.


Sophomore forward Max Andreev and sophomore defenseman Joe Leahy each had a goal and two assists to pace the offense for Cornell (22-2-4, 17-2-2 ECAC Hockey). The Big Red, which sits atop the USCHO.com poll for a fourth week this season, extended its winning streak to eight games.
 
For the 18th time in just eight February games, Cornell struck in the first period. Just 1:49 into the game, Andreev took freshman forward Jack Malone's feed and a point-blank shot saved by St. Lawrence's Daniel Manella, only to score when the rebound jumped in off his skate.
 
St. Lawrence (4-25-4, 2-15-4), which entered the game off its biggest win of the season – a 6-3 decision over Harvard last Saturday – then battled its way through a fairly even opening 20 minutes. The Saints' nearly pulled even at the 9:47 mark when Callum Cusinato entered the zone on a two-on-one, but his shot was squeezed off by Galajda.
 
The Big Red took control in the second period. Sophomore forward Michael Regush scored on a backhand wraparound for his 10th goal of the season, becoming just the fifth player at Cornell to score double-digit goals in both his freshman and sophomore seasons since the turn of the century (Anthony Angello, Riley Nash, Colin Greening '10 and Matt Moulson '06 are the others). Just 88 seconds later, Leahy's shot from the left point sailed over Manella's glove for a 3-0 Cornell lead.
 
Though comfortably ahead, the Big Red needed more from Galajda to preserve the shutout than it had in clean sheets last weekend at Yale and Brown. A strange bounce off the boards set up Alex Gilmour for an open shot from the slot, but Galajda made the save with 14:35 left. After freshman defenseman Sam Malinski scored the first of Cornell's two power-play goals in the third period, Galajda made another big save by sprawling to his right to stop Kaden Pickering's shorthanded chance.
 
Freshman forward Matt Stienburg, the reigning ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week, then closed the scoring with a rebound goal on a late power play.
 
As the waning moments were ticking down, attention paid to out-of-town scores discovered that Colgate had scored with 2.7 seconds left in third period to force overtime against Clarkson. Overtime resolved nothing, and the subsequent 1-1 tie left the Big Red three points ahead of the Golden Knights with just one game to play.
 
By clinching the Cleary Cup — awarded to ECAC Hockey's top team in the regular season — outright, Cornell has earned the No. 1 overall seed for the ECAC Hockey Championship playoffs. The Big Red will have a bye through the first round, then host the lowest-remaining seed in a best-of-three quarterfinals series March 13-15 at Lynah Rink.

But first, a visit from Clarkson at 7 p.m. Saturday will close out the regular season. While the game is meaningless in terms of the ECAC Hockey standings (Cornell has clinched the No. 1 seed; Clarkson is locked into the No. 2 seed), there is still plenty on the line in terms of the Pairwise Comparison Ratings.