ITHACA, N.Y. — With a pair of exhibitions and a pair of non-league games in its wake, the Cornell men's hockey team prepares for more pairs of firsts this weekend with a trip to Harvard (7 p.m. Friday) and Dartmouth (7 p.m. Saturday) — marking the team's first road trip, ECAC Hockey games and Ivy League games of the season.

Game Information:

#15 Cornell at #13 Harvard
SITE: Bright-Landry Hockey Center — Cambridge, Mass. 
TIME: 7 p.m. Friday, November 5 
BROADCAST: ESPN+
RADIO: WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM)
TICKETS: Harvard Athletic Ticketing
STATS: GoCrimson.com
GAME NOTES (PDF): Cornell  |  Harvard 

#15 Cornell at Dartmouth
SITE: Thompson Arena — Hanover, N.H. 
TIME: 7 p.m. Saturday, November 6
BROADCAST: ESPN+
RADIO: WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM)
TICKETS: Dartmouth Athletic Ticketing
STATS: DartmouthSports.com
GAME NOTES (PDF): Cornell  |  Dartmouth (coming soon)

How To Watch:

•  Both games will be broadcast on ESPN+ in the U.S. (with an option for international viewers also available through portal.stretchinternet.com).
•  Featuring play-by-play from Jason Weinstein, the games can also be heard on WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM) and worldwide through the station's website.

... And We're Back:

•  For the first time since a memorable, though unceremoniously truncated, 2019-20 season featuring a 23-2-4 record and a perch at the #1 ranking in both major national polls, the Big Red returned to regular-season action last weekend with a two-game sweep of Alaska at Lynah Rink.
•  Cornell erased a pair of deficits before Brenden Locke's winner capped a 3-2 victory in Friday's opener. The rematch was just as tightly contested, as the teams remained scoreless until a power play that carried into overtime led to junior Matt Stienburg's strike for punctuation on a 1-0 win.
•  Seniors Kyle Betts, Cody Haiskanen and Brenden Locke are serving as tri-captains for the Big Red this season. 
•  Mike Schafer '86 returns for his 26th season as the Jay R. Bloom '77 Head Coach of Men's Hockey at Cornell, as does his entire support staff.

Wasting No Time:

•  One of the modern trends in college hockey is how much more quickly newcomers seem to be major contributors on their respective teams. The Big Red has been putting that reality on display in a variety of ways — including the fact that for a third straight season, the team's first goal has been scored by a freshman forward. Ondrej Psenicka (#26, 1-0–1) had the honor on Friday, tipping in a shot by junior forward Zach Tupker (#21, 0-1–1).
•  Junior forward Jack Malone (#13, 0-0–0) scored the Big Red's first goal in 2019-20 (at Michigan State) and senior forward Max Andreev (#15, 0-1–1) got the scoring started in 2018-19 (also vs. Michigan State). 

The Offensive Defensive:

•  Senior Kyle Betts (#11, 1-1–2; plus-2) has the team's early scoring lead in orthodox fashion, with neither of his points coming off offensive touches of the puck. 
•  He scored with the tying goal midway through the third period of Friday's game directly off the forecheck, when his pressure on the puck caused a panicked pass from a defenseman that clattered into the goal off his goaltender's skates.
•  Betts then assisted on Brenden Locke's overtime winner, dispossessing a Nanooks player in the corner before Sam Malinski's pass to the doorstep for Locke's redirection.

No Experience Required:

•  For the first time since the 1983-84 season, the Big Red goaltending corps entered a season with zero varsity collegiate experience — but early results belie that fact.
•  Senior Nate McDonald (#33, 1-0, 1.98, .913) is the lone incumbent among the trio who backed up All-American Matthew Galajda '21 and All-Ivy League first-teamer Austin McGrath '21 for his first two seasons at Cornell. He became the first goaltender in modern program history to make his collegiate debut as a senior, making 21 saves to earn the overtime victory over Alaska on Friday.
•  Freshman Joe Howe (#34, 1-0, 0.00, 1.000, SO) followed suit with 20 saves the next night, becoming the first Cornell freshman goaltender to earn a shutout in his collegiate debut since the aforementioned 1983-84 season, when Don Fawcett '87 blanked Wilfrid Laurier (while Mike Schafer '86 was a sophomore on the blue line).

Block Party (Not The Fun Kind):

•  While the power play's 10% success rate is an easy target for the blame on limited offense during Cornell's opening weekend of play, there's a more striking statistic that surfaced after the weekend to explain the dearth of goals.
•  Alaska departed Ithaca with a whopping 38 blocked shots last weekend compared to just 15 for the home side. The Big Red had at least 38 shots blocked in consecutive games just twice during the entire 2019-20 season.

Friday's Highlights:

Saturday's Highlights:

Paring Down The Pairwise:

•  If not for the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cornell was a shoo-in to earn a berth to the NCAA tournament for a fourth consecutive season. That feat has only happened once in program history — a stretch from 1967 to 1970 that was book-ended by a pair of national championships.
•  The numbers bear out Cornell's standing as one of the nation's elite programs. The Big Red's season-ending average Pairwise Ratings Index scores over its last three seasons is 5.7. For comparison, that numbers ranks: 
       •  second in the country (trailing just Minnesota State, 3.7)
       •  first among ECAC Hockey programs (Clarkson 8.0, Quinnipiac 18.3, etc.)
       •  first among Ivy League programs (Harvard 22.7, Yale 36.0, etc.)

The First Ivy League Coach to 400 Wins:

•  Already the winningest coach in program history and in Ivy League history, Mike Schafer '86 ranks fifth among active coaches with 481 victories at the Division I level. He also leads all active coaches of Cornell's 37 varsity teams in career victories.

Deep Up The Middle:

•  Normally a formidable team on faceoffs, the Big Red had a rough opening weekend in that department with just a 45.5% success rate in the games against Alaska.
•  Cornell finished tied for 13th in the nation and third among ECAC Hockey programs with a 52.5% success rate on faceoffs in 2019-20. While that was two seasons ago, the Big Red still manages to return three of its top four centers from then.
•  Senior Brenden Locke (56.6%) was the team's leading faceoff man in the Big Red's most recent season, and classmate Kyle Betts (54.7%) is also typically proficient on draws. 

Don't Forget ...

•  Despite the early end to the 2019-20 season, Cornell had already laid claim to its third straight and 20th overall Ivy League title. Entering next weekend's games at Harvard and Dartmouth, the Big Red is 24-3-4 in its last 30 Ivy League contests.
•  By a long shot, the Big Red enters this weekend on the nation's longest winning streak at nine games — although the obvious caveat is that the streak began Feb. 1, 2020. That's when Cornell defeated host Princeton, 5-3, to start a blazing-hot finish to the 2019-20 season, when all nine of its victories were by a margin of multiple goals. Just one of those victories consisted of fewer than four goals for the Big Red.

The Twin Tradition:

•  Juniors Ben and Zach Tupker give the Big Red its fourth pair of twins in Mike Schafer's 27-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 four players on the roster who have been selected in the NHL Entry Draft — at least one in six of the last seven 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.
•  Another St. Andrew's College product, freshman forward Justin Ertel, was also selected in the third round of the draft. The Dallas Stars selected the budding power forward with the 79th overall pick last summer.
•  Junior forward Jack Malone was taken by the Vancouver Canucks in the sixth round in 2019, and freshman defenseman Hank Kempf was taken in the seventh round last summer by the New York Rangers.

Rare Territory:

•  Freshman goaltender Joe Howe is doing something that no Cornell men's hockey player has ever done before — wearing #34. It is the 36th number to be worn by a member of the Big Red, and currently only the second to be worn by just one player (fellow goaltender Eddie Skazyk '96 is the only to have worn #39).
•  Junior forward Jack Malone is the first Cornell men's hockey player to wear #13 in more than 50 years. 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.
start a blazing-hot finish to the 2019-20 season, when all nine of its victories were by a margin of multiple goals. Just one of those victories consisted of fewer than four goals for the Big Red.

Flair For The Dramatic:

•  No one on the Big Red's roster had won a collegiate game in overtime before last weekend — and now they've all been a part of two in a span of just around 24 hours. 
•  With the caveat that college hockey's modified overtime rules encourage more scoring, Cornell's sweep of Alaska last weekend marks the program's first consecutive extra-session victories since March 10-11, 2006 — a pair of double-overtime wins over Clarkson to earn a sweep in an ECAC Hockey Championship quarterfinal series.

About Harvard:

•  The Crimson debuted with a burst of offense last weekend, cruising to home victories of 9-3 against Dartmouth and 7-3 against Bentley.
•  Junior defenseman Henry Thrun (#3, 1-7–8; plus-4) holds the early lead in team scoring, taking ECAC Hockey Player of the Week honors. Sophomore forward Sean Farrell (#21, 3-4–7; plus-4), who scored all of his goals on the power play, was the league's rookie of the week.
•  Freshman forward Matthew Coronato (#19, 3-3–6; plus-6), a first-round selection of the Calgary Flames, is one of 11 NHL draft picks on the team.
•  Junior Mitchell Gibson (#44, 2-0, 2.40, .867) returns after serving as the team's primary goalkeeper as a freshman. 

The Series With Harvard:

•  Cornell has been battling with ancient rival Harvard since 1910, matching up 157 times with the Big Red holding a 79-66-12 lead entering Saturday's game.
•  The Big Red has wins in each of its last three visits to Bright-Landry Hockey Center, most recently a 3-1 decision on Dec. 6, 2019. Cornell dominated the first two periods, with Brenden Locke and Travis Mitchell among the goal-scorers to help the team build a three-goal lead while outshooting Harvard, 28-9, through 40 minutes.
•  Cornell head coach Mike Schafer is 39-19-7 in 65 games against Harvard.

About Dartmouth:

•  The Big Green started off with a 9-3 setback against Harvard on Friday, then surrendered three goals over the final six minutes of a 4-1 loss to visiting Connecticut on Saturday.  
•  Sophomore forward Joey Musa (#8, 2-0–2), who scored once in each game, shares the early team lead in scoring with senior forward Jeff Losurdo (#26, 0-2–2). Junior defenseman Tanner Palocsik (#6, 1-0–1) and sophomore forward Ryan Sorkin (#10, 1-0–1) had the other goals against the Huskies.
•  Senior Justin Ferguson (#31, 0-1, 9.00, .757) got the nod against Harvard, then sophomore Clay Stevenson (#33, 0-1, 2.07, .944) made 34 saves against Connecticut.
•  Reid Cashman is in his first season as the head coach of the Big Green after two years as an assistant coach with the NHL's Washington Capitals.

The Series With Dartmouth:

•  Cornell and Dartmouth have met on 140 occasions since 1909, with the Big Red holding a wide margin in the series with a 84-50-6 advantage. 
•  After its 10 consecutive victories to start the 2019-20 season, the Big Red was handed its first loss by the Big Green, 2-1, on Dec. 7, 2019 at Thompson Arena. Despite losing, Cornell held a 40-17 advantage in shots on goal.
•  One trend that has emerged in the teams' most recent meetings in Hanover are a lack of goals. Neither team has scored more than three goals against each other at Thompson Arena since the Big Red's 4-2 victory on Feb. 15, 2013.

Looking Ahead:

•  The Big Red home for four straight, beginning with a visit from Union (Nov. 12) and Rensselaer (Nov. 13).
•  Brown (Nov. 19) and Yale (Nov. 20) then descend on Lynah Rink for Cornell's final true home games for nearly two months.