ITHACA, N.Y. — The Cornell men's hockey team wraps up a four-game home stand this weekend with a visit from a pair of Ivy League foes that always great a highly-anticipated weekend at Lynah Rink. The Big Red first plays host to Dartmouth at 7 p.m. Friday before a showdown with rival Harvard at 7 p.m. Saturday. Available tickets for both games were sold out 2½ hours after they became available on Tuesday.

Game Information:

Dartmouth at #8 Cornell
SITE: Lynah Rink — Ithaca, N.Y. 
TIME: 7 p.m.
DATE: Friday, January 28, 2022 
BROADCAST (U.S.): ESPN+
BROADCAST (Int'l): Stretch Internet
RADIO: WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM)
STATS: CornellBigRed.com

Harvard at #8 Cornell
SITE: Lynah Rink — Ithaca, N.Y. 
TIME: 7 p.m.
DATE: Saturday, January 29, 2022 
BROADCAST (U.S.): ESPN+
BROADCAST (Int'l): Stretch Internet
RADIO: WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM)
STATS: CornellBigRed.com

How To Watch:

•  Both games will be broadcast on ESPN+ in the U.S. (with an option for international viewers also available through Stretch Internet). Grady Whittenburg will handle the play-by-play with color commentary from Tim Vanini '91.
•  The games can also be heard on WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM) with Jason Weinstein in his 17th season on play-by-play and Tony Eisenhut '88 provided color commentary.

Big Red Rewind:

•  Cornell took the circuitous route to holding steady at a season-high #8 for a second straight week in the DCU/USCHO.com poll after a disappointing 5-4 loss to Princeton on Friday before a reverberating 2-1 overtime victory against then-#1 Quinnipiac on Saturday in front of a limited-capacity crowd at Lynah Rink.
•  Returning to the lineup after a four-game absence, junior forward Ben Berard played a hero's role with three power-play goals and an assist over the weekend — punctuated by the winner with 16 seconds left in overtime against the Bobcats. He also opened the game's scoring in similar fashion, helping Cornell halt Quinnipiac's 17-game unbeaten streak while pushing the team's overtime record this season to 4-0-1.
•  Princeton scored the first three goals of Friday's game before hanging on to hand Cornell its first home loss since March 15, 2019. The Big Red had four different goal-scorers — two of which came on extra-attacker strikes inside the final minute — and junior defenseman Sam Malinski had assists  
•  Freshman goaltender Ian Shane rebounded from Friday's loss with arguably his best effort to date, making a career-high 33 saves to defeat Quinnipiac.

Saturday's Highlights vs. Quinnipiac:

Friday's Highlights vs. Princeton:

By The Numbers:

•  Senior forward Max Andreev (#15, 8-11–19) is enjoying a breakthrough season, leading the team in and faceoff winning percentage (58.0), while also sharing the team lead in rating (plus-14) and the scoring lead with junior forward Matt Stienburg (#20, 8-11–19).
•  Andreev typically centers a line alongside Stienburg, who was named the ECAC Hockey Player of the Month for December — though neither of them were in action for Saturday's game against Quinnipiac. Stienburg, who has missed five of the Big Red's last six games, ranks sixth in the nation with an average of 1.36 points per game.
•  With five assists over last weekend's two games, junior Sam Malinski (#24, 4-13–17, plus-13) now ranks third in team scoring while also leading in blocked shots (21).
•  Senior forward Brenden Locke (#28, 5-8–13) has 72 career points, which is highest among Cornell's 27 skaters coming into this weekend. He has recently centered a line flanked by leading goal-scorer juniors Ben Berard (#29, 9-5–14, 3 PPG) and Jack Malone (#13, 5-7–12). Malone has seven points in his last six games, and Berard now ranks seventh in the nation in goals per game (0.64).
•  Three of the seven hat tricks recorded by ECAC Hockey players this season have come from Cornell, courtesy of Berard (Nov. 6 at Dartmouth), Andreev (Nov. 13 vs. Rensselaer) and Stienburg (Dec. 3 at St. Lawrence).

No Experience Required:

•  Freshman Ian Shane (#30, 4-1, 1.57, .942, SO) has made the most of his window of opportunity, becoming the third Cornell goaltender to win his collegiate debut this season. Shane won consecutive ECAC Hockey MAC Goaltending Goalie of the Week honors (Jan. 3 and Jan. 10) before recording an 18-save shutout Jan. 15 at Yale.
•  Prior to Shane's starts at North Dakota, senior Nate McDonald (#33, 5-1-1, 2.49, .896) and freshman Joe Howe (#34, 4-2, 2.35, .905, SO) had shared starts in the crease after the Big Red entered the season with zero varsity collegiate experience within its goaltending corps for the first time since the 1983-84 season.
•  By making 20 saves Oct. 30 against Alaska, Howe became 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.
•  McDonald — the lone incumbent among the Big Red's goaltending 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 — has the unique distinction of becoming the first goaltender in modern program history to make his collegiate debut as a senior.

A Night To Remember:

•  An 11-3 victory over Rensselaer on Nov. 13 created a long list of occurrences that had not been achieved by the Big Red in a long time. Among them:
    »    Cornell scored at least 10 goals for the first time since Nov. 20, 1999 (10-4 vs. Clarkson).
    »    Cornell scored 11 goals for the first time since Feb. 21, 1979 (11-3 vs. Harvard).
    »    Andreev's six points were the most for a Big Red player in a single game since Ryan Vesce '04 had seven on Nov. 8, 2003 (7-0 at Princeton).
    »    Andreev's four goals were the most for a Big Red player in a single game since Ryan Hughes '93 on Jan. 29, 1991 (5-4 loss vs. Boston College).
    »    Cornell scored at least 15 goals in a two-game span for the first time since March 8-9, 1996 (both games vs. Colgate, 8-3 and 8-1).
    »    Cornell scored at least 11 goals in a single game against Rensselaer for the second time in 115 all-time meetings (the other was 13-1 on Feb. 16, 1924).

The League Within The League:

•  The Big Red's setback against Princeton on Friday was rare in several ways — one being that it came against an Ivy League opponent. Even with the loss, Cornell is 28-5-4 in its last 36 Ivy League contests, and — despite the early end to the 2019-20 season — it had already laid claim to its third straight and 20th overall Ivy League title.

Deep Up The Middle:

•  The Big Red currently ranks ninth in the country with a 53.3% success rate on draws. That number slightly exceeds what Cornell posted in 2019-20, when it was tied for 13th in the nation and third among ECAC Hockey programs at 52.5%. All five of Cornell's preferred options on draws are incumbents.

Flair For The Dramatic:

•  No one on the Big Red's roster had won a collegiate game in overtime before Oct. 29-30, but they were all been a part of two such victories 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 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.

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 in 2019-20. 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 494 victories at the Division I level. He also leads all active coaches of Cornell's 37 varsity teams in career victories.

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, with the program laying claim to at least one selection 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.

About Dartmouth:

•  The Big Green enters a makeup game at 3-11-2 against Union on Wendesday with one win in its last 11 games (1-8-2) — though it tied league contender Clarkson, 5-5, on Friday before succumbing in a shootout. 
•  The result folllows Dartmouth's pattern of seeming to play particularly well against its more successful opponents. Of its 16 games to date, the scoring margin has been the same (minus-1.75) in the eight games against teams currently receiving votes in the DCU/USCHO.com poll as it is in the eight games against teams not receiving votes.
•  Freshman Sean Chisholm (#15, 4-7–11) leads the team in scoring and shots on goal (45), and he typically centers a line with the team's leading goal-scorer, junior Mark Gallant (#11, 6-4–10) on the left wing. Last weekend, the right wing on that line was freshman Mark Hubbarde (#21, 4-2–6), who leads the squad with two power-play goals.
•  Freshman defenseman Ian Pierce (#23, 2-2–4) is the reigning ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Month for December.
•  Senior Justin Ferguson (#31, 1-6-1, 4.00, .863) and sophomore Clay Stevenson (#33, 2-5-1, 2.99, .922) have each made nine appearances in goal — though Ferguson played both of last weekend's games with Stevenson not even dressed.
•  Reid Cashman is in his first season as the head coach of the Big Green.

The Series With Dartmouth:

•  Cornell and Dartmouth have met on 141 occasions since 1909, with the Big Red holding a wide margin in the series with a 85-50-6 advantage. 
•  The Big Red won the first meeting between the teams this season when Ben Berard capped his second collegiate hat trick with 6.2 seconds left, punctuating a 5-4 victory. 
•  Jack Malone and Kyle Penney scored the other Cornell goals in a game that broke recent history between the teams. It marked the first time since Feb. 15, 2013 that either team had scored more than three goals against the other.

About Harvard:

•  After four straight wins to start the season, the Crimson has slowed down a bit to enter Tuesday's game against Rensselaer with a 9-6-1 record. Harvard scored the first three goals of a 4-1 win over St. Lawrence last Friday before Clarkson rallied for two goals inside the final seven minutes of Saturday's game to spill Harvard, 4-3.
•  Harvard's top two scorers, junior center Nick Abruzzese (#16, 5-16–21) and sophomore left winger Sean Farrell (#21, 8-11–19), have combined for nine of the team's 14 power-play goals to date and typically play on the same line — but neither were dressed for last weekend's games against St. Lawrence and Clarkson. Abruzzese's average of 1.50 points per game leads the nation.
•  Sophomore forward Alex Laferriere (#18, 10-7–17) leads the team in goals and ranks eighth nationally in goals per game (0.62).
•  Freshman forward Matthew Coronato (#19, 6-8–14; team-high 56 shots on goal) and freshman defenseman Ian Moore (#2, 0-4–4) were selected to represent the U.S. at the World Junior Championships before its premature cancelation. They are both among the team's 12 NHL draft picks.
•  Junior Mitchell Gibson (#44, 7-5, 2.14, .911) returns after serving as the team's primary goalkeeper as a freshman, though sophomore Derek Mullahy (#35, 2-1-1, 2.56, .894) has started four games — including Saturday's loss to Clarkson. 

The Series With Harvard:

•  Cornell has been battling with ancient rival Harvard since 1910, matching up 158 times with the Big Red holding a 79-67-12 lead entering Saturday's game.
•  The Crimson came out on top in the teams' first meeting this season, 3-2, on Nov. 5 in Boston. Sam Malinski helped set up Matt Stienburg's power-play goal in the first period, then scored his own on a goofy bounce in the second period before Harvard rattled off three unanswered goals. It proved to be Cornell's lone loss (9-1-1) in the 2021 portion of the team's schedule. 
•  Cornell head coach Mike Schafer is 39-20-7 in 66 games against Harvard.

Looking Ahead:

•  The Big Red is scheduled for a rare weekday matinee, when it treks to Rhode Island for a makeup game against Brown at 3 p.m. Tuesday before pivoting back to the Empire State for a pair of games against Colgate — Friday, Feb. 4 in Hamilton and Saturday, Feb. 5 in Ithaca.