ITHACA, N.Y. — The Cornell men's hockey team continues a stretch of nine consecutive games away from home on Friday, when it plays the first of two games against North Dakota at Ralph Engelstad Arena in Grand Forks, N.D. 

Game Information:

#14 Cornell at #5 North Dakota
SITE: Ralph Engelstad Arena — Grand Forks, N.D. 
TIME: 7:07 p.m. CT 
DATE: Friday, January 7, 2022 
BROADCAST: NCHC.tv
RADIO: WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM)
STATS: FightingHawks.com
GAME NOTES (PDF): Cornell  |  North Dakota

How To Watch:

•  The game will be broadcast on subscription-based NCHC.tv, with a simulcast also pushing to regional television on Midco Sports.
•  The game can also be heard on WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM) with Jason Weinstein in his 17th season on play-by-play.

Big Red Rewind:

•  After leading the nation in winning percentage on Jan. 1 for the third time over its last four seasons, an eight-game Cornell unbeaten streak came to a close last weekend in the form of two losses to Arizona State.
•  The Sun Devils scored a pair of goals off defensive miscues in the second period of Saturday's series opener en route to a 5-2 victory, though a pair of empty-net goals made the score more lopsided than the run of play. ASU then scored three times inside the first 19 minutes of Sunday's rematch before holding off Cornell's rally for a 3-2 win. 
•  Senior forward Brenden Locke had both goals in the second game to go with a primary assist on Saturday to give him eight points over the last five games.
•  Freshman Ian Shane was named the ECAC Hockey MAC Goaltending Goalie of the Week on Monday after excelling in his collegiate debut on Sunday. Coming on in relief, Shane stopped all 23 shots he saw to set the table for the Big Red's rally. All three of Cornell's goalies were deployed during the course of the two games.
•  Freshman forwards accounted for Cornell's goals on Saturday. Justin Ertel opened the scoring with his first collegiate strike, then Ondrej Psenicka scored an extra-attacker goal to shave Arizona State's lead to one goal late in the third period.
•  Senior forward Max Andreev and junior forward Matt Stienburg had lengthy scoring streaks snapped on Sunday. Andreev had scored 16 points over his eight-game streak, while Stienburg's run of points in 11 straight games was the longest Cornell has seen since the 1990-91 season — when Doug Derraugh '91 and Ryan Hughes '93 had streaks of 20 and 19 games, respectively.

Sunday's Highlights vs. Arizona State:

Saturday's Highlights vs. Arizona State:

 

By The Numbers:

•  Junior forward Matt Stienburg (#20, 8-11–19, plus-10) leads the team in scoring and ranks third in the nation with an average of 1.46 points per game. He regularly plays on the wing of a line pivoted by senior forward Max Andreev (#15, 7-10–17). Like Stienburg, Andreev has enjoying a breakthrough season, leading the team in rating (plus-11) and faceoff winning percentage (60.1).
•  Senior forward Brenden Locke (#28, 4-8–12) has used his recent offensive surge to move into third in team scoring. Locke was second in scoring during the team's 2019-20 season while centering a line with All-American Morgan Barron '21 on the wing, and his 71 career points are highest among Cornell's 27 skaters coming into this weekend.
•  Three of the seven hat tricks recorded by ECAC Hockey players this season have come from Cornell. Joining Stienburg and Andreev in that club is junior forward Ben Berard (#29, 6-4–10), who is tied for fourth in team scoring. Berard recorded his second collegiate three-goal effort Nov. 6 at Dartmouth.
•  Junior Sam Malinski (#24, 3-7–10) leads the team's blueliners in scoring.

No Experience Required:

•  Senior Nate McDonald (#33, 5-1-1, 2.49, .896) and freshman Joe Howe (#34, 4-2, 2.35, .905, SO) have 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 (while Mike Schafer '86 was a sophomore on the blue line).
•  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, making 21 saves to earn the overtime victory over Alaska on Oct. 29.

Welcome Home:

•  Senior defenseman Cody Haiskanen (#3, 0-2–2) will be returning to his native state for this weekend's games. Haiskanen hails from nearby Fargo, where he also became the first native son to play for the USHL's Fargo Force — an organization for which freshman defenseman Michael Suda has also competed.

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:

•  With a Nov. 20 win over Yale, Cornell not only moved into solo possession of first place in ECAC Hockey, it also moved the Big Red atop the Ivy League standings. Cornell is 27-4-4 in its last 34 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. Harvard has since moved into first in the Ivy League standings.

Deep Up The Middle:

•  This weekend's games feature a clash between two of the best faceoff teams in the nation. The Big Red currently ranks sixth in the country with a 53.8% success rate on draws. That number 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 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.

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 490 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 North Dakota:

•  The Fighting Hawks have won three straight, ending the 2021 portion of their schedule with a road sweep of Colorado College in an NCHC series Dec. 10-11. North Dakota conceded the first goal in both games, but went on to win, 5-2 and 4-1.
•  Riese Gaber (#17, 8-12–20) leads the team in scoring, power-play goals (four) and shots on goal (52). He typically plays on a line with Matteo Costantini (#18, 5-5–10, plus-8) on the opposite wing and Connor Ford (#21, 3-13—16) at center. Ford is one of the nation's top faceoff men (60.5%).
•  Defenseman Jake Sanderson (#26, 6-13–19, plus-9) leads the team in rating and ranks second in scoring. He's expected to rejoin the team in time for this weekend's games after serving as captain for the U.S. team at the IIHF World Junior Championships. Tyler Kleven (#25, 4-2–6, plus-8) also competed for the U.S.
•  Zach Driscoll (#33, 12-6, 2.58, .893, SO) carries most of the load in goal.

The Series With North Dakota:

•  Cornell is 3-5 all-time against North Dakota, with this weekend's games renewing a series that has sat idle since the teams split a pair of contests at Lynah Rink in 2010. 
•  The Big Red's only other trip to Grand Forks also resulted in a split, with Cornell rebounding from a 7-3 loss in the first game with a 2-1 victory in the rematch Nov. 28-29, 2008 at Ralph Engelstad Arena.
•  The first meeting between Cornell and North Dakota came in the semifinals of the 1967 NCAA tournament. The Big Red won that game, 1-0, behind a 30-save shutout by Ken Dryden '69 en route to the program's first national championship.

Looking Ahead:

•  The Big Red returns to the Northeast to wrap up its stretch of nine straight games away from home with an ECAC Hockey and Ivy League road trip Jan. 14-15 at Yale and Brown.
•  Cornell's next games at Lynah Rink come in the form of visits from Princeton (Friday, Jan. 21) and Quinnipiac (Saturday, Jan. 22).