HAMILTON, N.Y. — Though one day later and at a different venue than expected, the Cornell men's hockey team will open its regional rivalry series against Colgate at 7 p.m. tonight at Class of 1965 Arena. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+ in the U.S. (with an option for international viewers also available through Stretch Internet). The game 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:

#2 Cornell at Colgate
7 p.m. EST Saturday, Feb. 8, 2020
PLACE: Class of 1965 Arena  •  Hamilton, N.Y.
RECORDS: Cornell 15-2-4, 10-2-2 ECAC Hockey;
                    Colgate 9-11-6, 7-4-3 ECAC Hockey
BROADCAST (U.S.): ESPN+
BROADCAST (Int'l): Stretch Internet
RADIO: WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM)
LIVE STATS: StatBroadcast.com
TICKETS: GoColgateRaiders.com
GAME NOTES (PDF): Cornell | Colgate

Whither The Weather:

•  With Cornell University's main campus closing on Friday due to inclement weather, the game between the Big Red and Raiders originally scheduled for Friday night has been moved to 4 p.m. Sunday. The rematch between the teams will now be the only Division I game in the country on Sunday.

Big Red Rewind:

•  Cornell is coming off a disappointing ECAC Hockey road trip in which it suffered a 5-0 loss last Friday against Quinnipiac before needing three goals in the third period to hold off Princeton for a 5-3 victory on Saturday. 
•  The loss against the Bobcats ended an eight-game unbeaten streak for the Big Red, and it slipped to second place in the ECAC Hockey standings.
•  Tristan Mullin scored twice on Saturday, the first of which came 96 seconds after Max Andreev's extra-attacker goal to give Cornell a 2-0 lead just 10:05 in. •  Alex Green put Cornell ahead for good with a power-play strike 5:06 into the third, then Ben Tupker doubled the lead 51 seconds later. Mullin closed the scoring with his team-leading sixth power-play goal of the year.
•  All three of Princeton's goal came on the power play, ending the Big Red's string of 17 consecutive penalty kills. Meanwhile, Cornell's power play now has five goals in its last four games.

Highlights From Friday's Game at Quinnipiac:

Highlights From Saturday's Game at Princeton:

By The Numbers:

•  Despite being touched up for eight goals last weekend, the Big Red still ranks second in the nation in team defense (1.71 goals against per game). Cornell also ranks 11th in offense (3.29 goals per game), which leads to the nation's fourth-largest scoring margin (+1.57).
•  For the first time in the program's modern-era history, Cornell did not surrender more than two goals in its first 14 games of the season. That helped the Big Red remain the last team in the nation to yield three or four goals in a game.
•  Cornell's power play ranks eighth in the nation with a 25.6% success rate. Junior forward Tristan Mullin leads the team with six goals on the man advantage, and his average of 0.29 power-play goals per game ranks seventh in the nation and second among players in ECAC Hockey.
•  One of the keys to Cornell's success is its ability to play with the lead and – failing that – erasing deficits. Opponents have taken a one-goal lead on the Big Red 14 times this season, and in 12 of those instances Cornell has scored the next goal.
•  After spending three consecutive weeks at the top spot for the first time in program history, Cornell dropped to #2 in both national polls. The Big Red now sits third in the Pairwise Comparison Ratings.

Forward Thinking:

•  Junior forward Morgan Barron (9-13–22) leads the team in scoring after leading the team with 34 points a season ago. The Preseason All-ECAC Hockey selection 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.
•  Junior forward Brenden Locke (7-12–19) ranks second in team scoring, traditionally centering a line with Barron on the left wing. Classmate Cam Donaldson (4-12–16), who's tied for third in team scoring, typically joins them on the right wing. Locke (plus-17) and Donaldson (plus-16) rank first and second in ECAC Hockey in plus-minus rating.
•  Junior forward Tristan Mullin (8-5–13; 6 PPGs) has scored six goals since the calendar turned to 2020, which is at least double the goal total of anyone else on the team in that span. He's tied for second on the team in goals with sophomore forward Michael Regush (8-6–14).

More Than Just Defense:

•  Not only has Cornell surrendered just 20 even-strength goals this year (an average of 0.95 per game), it also ranks fifth in the nation with 2.81 points per game for defenseman.
•  Senior defenseman Yanni Kaldis (2-14–16), who is the team's leading active scorer with 77 collegiate points, leads the team in assists. The three-time selection to the All-Ivy League first team was also a Preseason All-ECAC Hockey selection in September.
•  Junior defenseman Alex Green (5-9–14, plus-14), a fourth-round pick of the Tampa Bay Lightning, has already tripled his point production from an injury-riddled sophomore campaign. His average of .161 goals per shot on frame is best in the nation among defensemen.
•  Travis Mitchell (2-8–10, plus-15) leads the nation's freshman defensemen in rating.

Goaltending, Inc.:

•  Junior goaltender Matthew Galajda (15-2-4, 1.72, .929, 2 SO) ranks second in the nation in goals against average, having surrendered just 20 even-strength goals through 21 games.
•  He recorded a 25-save shutout Jan. 10 at Rensselaer, which was the 16th of his collegiate career. That keeps him in third place on the program's all-time list, trailing just 18 posted by David McKee (2003-06) and 19 by Ben Scrivens '10.
•  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 started a game yet this season, he was an All-Ivy League first-team selection last year.

Honor Roll:

•  Cornell has laid claim to six of the ECAC Hockey's weekly awards already this season. Five came in the first five weeks of the Big Red's season, and Cornell also collected a pair monthly awards for November. Galajda was named the league's goalie of the month and freshman defenseman Sam Malinski was tabbed rookie of the month.
•  Three of the team's five weekly honors in November were rookies of the week. Malinski earned the accolade after each of his first two weekends in the collegiate ranks (Nov. 4, Nov. 11), then freshman forward Ben Berard claimed it Nov. 25 after scoring his first collegiate goal two days earlier against Princeton.

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).

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 Colgate:

•  The Raiders are 9-11-6 overall and sit in 40th in the Pairwise Comparison Ratings – but they have been much stronger in ECAC Hockey play. Colgate's 7-4-3 league mark has it sitting in a tie for fifth place.
•  Colgate split its road trip last weekend, scoring three second-period goals for a 3-0 victory Friday at Princeton before being outlasted by Quinnipiac the next night, 2-1.
•  Senior forward Bobby McMann (#9; 7-7–14) leads the team in scoring, having missed a pair of games before returning to the lineup Saturday at Quinnipiac. He typically plays on the left wing of an all-senior line with Tyler Penner (#21; 3-5–8) at center and Ben Sharf (#17; 7-6–13) on the opposite wing.
•  Junior Paul McAvoy (#5; 8-5–13) leads in the team in goals and is tied for second in overall scoring with Sharf and freshman forward Colton Young (#12; 7-6–13).
•  While sophomore Mitch Benson (#1; 3-7-4, 2.38, .918, SO) has started 14 of 26 games in goal for the Raiders, sophomore Andrew Farrier (#31; 6-4-2, 1.99, .933, SO) has started the last six games. He made 25 saves for his second career shutout last Friday at Princeton, then stopped 38 of 40 shots the next night at Quinnipiac.
•  Special teams have largely been a struggle for the Raiders, who rank 59th among the nation's 60 teams in combined special teams (41.2%). While the power play ranks dead last with a 6.3% success rate, two of Colgate's six power-play goals to date came last Friday at Princeton.
•  The Raiders are 7-7-2 when playing away from Hamilton, but just 2-4-4 at Class of 1965 Arena.
•  Don Vaughan, a former Cornell assistant coach, is in his 27th season as the head coach at Colgate.

The Series Against Colgate:

•  Cornell holds an 84-58-15 lead in the all-time series, which dates back to 1921. 
•  The Big Red has lost only five times in the last 37 meetings with the Raiders, but one of them is the most recent clash. John Snodgrass' second of two goals came with 1:12 left in overtime in a 3-2 victory on Jan. 26, 2019 at Lynah Rink. Morgan Barron opened the scoring, then helped set up Cam Donaldson's goal for Cornell. Mitch Benson made 41 saves for the Raiders.
•  In the first of last year's meetings between the teams, Cornell earned a 3-2 victory in Hamilton. Michael Regush scored the winner with 10:47 left.

Perfect Turns 50:

•  A reunion for the 50th anniversary of Cornell's second national championship and the only team in men's hockey history to win an NCAA title after an undefeated season with no ties was held Jan. 24-25. The Big Red wore special commemorative jerseys for a game at Dartmouth that listed the team's list of accomplishments from a memorable 1969-70 season that featured a sterling 29-0 record.
•  Festivities dotted the weekend, culminating with a ceremony to honor the returning members of the team during the first intermission of the annual rivalry game against Harvard.

The League Within The League:

•  With Saturday's win over Princeton, Cornell has extended its lead in the Ivy League standings to three points with just two games to play. That means the Big Red can lock up its third straight and 20th overall Ivy League title if it wins games Feb. 21 at Yale and Feb. 22 at Brown.
•  Cornell is 22-3-4 in its last 28 Ivy League contests.

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 number must not be too unlucky, though. Malone scored in his first collegiate game; a goal that was also the team's first of the season.

Chasing Whitelaw:

•  Cornell trails Clarkson by two points for first place in the ECAC Hockey standings, though the Big Red has a game in hand. That will come Friday against Colgate, while Clarkson sits idle.
•  The Big Red is the two-time defending Cleary Cup champion, sharing the honor last year. Cornell has won the ECAC Hockey's regular-season title in consecutive seasons for the first time since 2002 and 2003, and winning it again this year would mark the first time in program history that it could boast three straight.

Draw Drama:

•  Cornell ranked 15th in the nation with a 51.9% success rate of faceoffs, but that's well down from its standing of sixth at 53.4% on Jan. 23.
•  The Big Red is just 105-128 (45.1%) on faceoffs over its last four games. In all four of those games, Cornell has been without the services of junior forward Kyle Betts and his team-leading 57.6% success rate on draws. Junior forward Morgan Barron (55.1%) ranks second on the team, and junior forward Brenden Locke (54.1%) leads the team with 294 faceoffs taken.

January Juggernaut:

•  Cornell is 19-2-6 during the month of January over the last three seasons. Oddly enough, both of those losses came on the Big Red's final game of the month in each of the last two seasons.

First Ivy League Coach To 400:

•  Already the winningest coach in program history and in Ivy League history, Mike Schafer '86 ranks fifth among active coaches with 473 victories at the Division I level. He also leads all actives coaches of Cornell's 37 varsity teams in career victories.

Neither Here Nor There:

•  Cornell is one of three remaining teams in the nation to not have a short-handed goal for or against in a game yet this season. The others are Rensselaer and New Hampshire. The Big Red hasn't scored a non-empty-net short-handed goal since Nov. 4, 2016 (Mitch Vanderlaan '19 at Dartmouth).
•  The Big Red has yielded just three even-strength goals inside five minutes of any period this year – none of which have occurred in the first period.
•  In four-on-four play this season, Cornell has outscored its opposition, 2-0 (Tristan Mullin on Nov. 23 vs. Princeton; Michael Regush Jan. 17 vs. Northern Michigan), after holding a 6-1 advantage in those scenarios last season.

Up Next:

•  Cornell and Colgate will face off in a rematch at 4 p.m. Sunday in the sixth annual Courage Classic at Lynak Rink in Ithaca.