Men's Hockey Opens ECAC Play at Princeton, #7 Quinnipiac

Mike Schafer '86
The Jay R. Bloom ‘77 Head Coach of Cornell Men’s Ice Hockey

PUCK DROP
• The Cornell men's hockey team continues its season-opening, six-game road trip this weekend when the Big Red returns to the Eastern time zone this weekend to open ECAC Hockey play against Princeton and No. 7 Quinnipiac, the ECAC preseason favorite.

ECAC OPENING WEEKEND
• Since Mike Schafer '86 took over as the head coach of the Cornell men's hockey team prior to the 1995-96 season, Cornell has excelled in its first weekend of ECAC Hockey play. Over the previous 26 seasons of competition, the Big Red is 38-10-3 (.775) in the first weekend of league play.

• Over the last four years, Cornell has a 7-1-0 mark in the first weekend of ECAC play. The lone setback in the stretch came to Harvard on Nov. 5, 2021.

• Cornell has at least one win in the opening weekend of ECAC Hockey play in 25 of the 26 seasons with Schafer behind the bench. The lone year the Big Red went winless in the first weekend was 2016-17 when Cornell tied with Dartmouth and lost to Harvard. 

ONE WIN AWAY
• Mike Schafer '86, the Jay R. Bloom ‘77 Head Coach of Men’s Hockey, is one victory away from reaching a historic milestone.

• With his next victory, Schafer would notch his 500th career head coaching victory, becoming the 18th Division I hockey head coach to reach 500 career wins.

• Schafer would become just the seventh active head coach — the fourth at the Division I level — to log 500 career coaching victories. The other Division I coaches include Mercyhurst’s Rick Gotkin (589), ECAC Hockey counterpart Rand Pecknold of Quinnipiac (584), and Notre Dame’s Jeff Jackson (562).

• Schafer’s 499 career wins stand as the most by a Cornell hockey head coach and is the most by any active head coach of Cornell's 37 varsity sports.

SHANE'S STRONG START
• Sophomore goaltender Ian Shane has had a strong start to the season so far, posting a 2.32 goals-against average (fifth in ECAC Hockey) and his .927 save percentage is third among ECAC netminders, trailing Yale's Nathan Reid (.961) and Brown's Mathieu Caron (.941).

• Shane stopped 29 of 32 Minnesota Duluth shots last weekend in the series opener, before saving all nine shot attempts he faced in the third period after relieving freshman goaltender Remington Keopple in the series finale.

LUCK OF THE DRAW
• Junior forward Gabriel Seger exceled in the faceoff circle in his first weekend with Cornell. He went 24-of-34 (.706) last weekend in Minnesota, registering 12.0 faceoff wins per game, which is tied with Yale's William Dineen for the ECAC lead.

ON THE PLUS SIDE…
• Saturday's matchup between Cornell and Quinnipiac will feature myriad of players who help benefit their team's offense.

• Of the top 10 active ECAC Hockey players in plus-minus rating, eight of the players will be playing at M&T Bank Arena in Hamden, Conn. Quinnipiac's Zach Metsa (No. 1 — +62), Ethan de Jong (No. 2 — +49), and Michael Lombardi (No. 3 — +47) assume the top three positions. Cornell defensemen Travis Mitchell (No. 4 — +34) and Sam Malinski (No. 5 — +33) are right behind the Quinnipiac trio, while forward Max Andreev (No. 6 — +32) is right behind the Big Red blueline tandem.

• Mitchell's figure is the second-highest by a defenseman, trailing Metsa's ECAC Hockey-leading total. Malinski and Andreev are both third in their respective positions.

• Iivari Räsänen (T-7th — +29) and Jayden Lee (No. 10 — +28) are the other two Bobcat players appearing in the top 10. Clarkson's Mathieu Gosselin (7th — +31) and Harvard's Henry Thrun (T-8th — +29) are the others on the list.

ECAC PRESEASON POLL
• ECAC Hockey announced Sept. 21 during its annual Media Day call that the Cornell hockey team was slated to finish fourth.

•Quinnipiac was dubbed the preseason favorite after receiving eight first-place votes, finishing with 118 points. Harvard received the remaining four first-place votes, logging a 109-point total. Clarkson was the only other program to have a point total over the century mark (105).

•Cornell followed Clarkson with its 90 points, while Colgate finished in fifth with 77 points. RPI (70), St. Lawrence (57), and Union (45), Dartmouth (43), Yale (32), Brown (26), and Princeton (20) rounded out the poll.

LEADERSHIP GROUP ANNOUNCED
• Senior defensemen Sam Malinski and Travis Mitchell were named co-captains, while fifth-year forward Max Andreev and senior forward Matt Stienburg were tabbed co-alternate captains on Sept. 29.

• All four players will be assuming leadership roles for the first time with the Cornell hockey program.

WELCOME BACK!
• Cornell returns 81 percent of its goals scored from last season, which was the eighth-highest percentage by a Division I program entering the 2022-23 season.

• Air Force led the nation, returning all of its scoring from the 2021-22 season. Penn State (93 percent) had the second-highest total, while Dartmouth (86 percent), Northeastern (85 percent), Sacred Heart and Yale (84 percent), and St. Lawrence (83 percent) were ahead of the Big Red.

• Of the programs remaining seven teams in the top eight, Cornell will be playing four of the teams this season (Dartmouth, Sacred Heart, St. Lawrence, and Yale).

ABOUT PRINCETON
• Princeton opened its season last Saturday with a 4-2 loss to Harvard. Brendan Gorman scored his first collegiate goal for the Tigers while Jack Cronin tallied the other goal for Princeton. Aidan Porter made 28 saves for Princeton in the defeat.

• As a team, Princeton blocked 20 Harvard shots last Saturday, highlighted by five blocks by Noah de la Durantaye. Pito Walton chipped in four blocked shots.

THE SERIES
• Friday will be the 159th meeting between the Big Red and Tigers in a series that dates back to 1900-01. Cornell leads the series, 97-53-8

• The series has heavily favored the Big Red recently, as Cornell is 16-3-0 over its last 19 against Princeton. Cornell is 9-1-0 over its last 10 games at Hobey Baker Memorial Rink and has won its last six at the venue, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary later this year. The last time Cornell lost on the road to Princeton was on Nov. 7, 2014, by a 2-1 score.

THE LAST TIME AGAINST PRINCETON
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PRINCETON, N.J. (FEB. 26, 2022) — Freshman forward Sullivan Mack and junior defenseman Sebastian Dirven each scored their first goals of the season in front of freshman goaltender Ian Shane's second straight shutout, and the Cornell men's hockey team clinched a first-round bye through the ECAC Hockey Championship playoffs with a 4-0 victory over Princeton on Saturday night at Hobey Baker Rink.

ABOUT QUINNIPIAC
• Quinnipiac enters the weekend with a 3-1-2 overall record. The Bobcats' victories have come against Boston College (4-0 on Oct. 7), then-No. 3 North Dakota (6-2 on Oct. 15), and Maine (6-2 on Oct. 23). The lone loss came to Maine in the opening game of last weekend's two-game series. 

• Jacob Quillan has a team-leading seven points (two goals, five assists) over the Bobcats' six games so far. Ethan de Jong has a Quinnipiac-best three goals on the year.

• Yaniv Perets, the reigning ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Year, has started all six games between the pipes for Quinnipiac, posting a 3-1-2 record with a 2.47 goals-against average and a .909 save percentage.

• Quinnipiac enters the weekend ranking in the top 10 in scoring margin (+1.33) and scoring offense (3.83) this season.
 

THE SERIES
• Saturday will be the 48th meeting between Cornell and Quinnipiac. Cornell continues hold onto a 25-18-4 lead in the series and is 8-2-1 over the last 11 meetings against the Bobcats.

• Four of the last five meetings have been decided by one goal or less. The lone game to not be decided within a goal favored Quinnipiac, 5-0, in Hamden, Conn., on Jan. 31, 2020.

• Quinnipiac has held Cornell to two goals or less in 11 of the last 12 games. Cornell's only time potting more than two goals on Quinnipiac during the stretch came in a 9-1 victory on March 9, 2018, in opening game of the 2018 ECAC quarterfinals.

THE LAST TIME AGAINST QUINNIPIAC
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HAMDEN, Conn. (Feb 25, 2022) – Needing positive results to ensure it hangs on to fourth place and the subsequent first-round bye through the ECAC Hockey Championships, the Cornell men's hockey team took another big step toward that end on Friday with a 1-0 victory over Quinnipiac at Frank Perrotti Jr. Arena.
 
Junior forward Jack Malone scored on the power play 5 minutes, 58 seconds into the game, and freshman goaltender Ian Shane took care of the rest with a career-high 42 saves to earn his second collegiate shutout.

FRIDAY RECAP I FRIDAY BOX SCORE I SATURDAY RECAP I SATURDAY BOX SCORE
No. 19 Minnesota Duluth swept Cornell's season-opening series with 3-2 and 4-2 victories over the Big Red at Amsoil Arena in Duluth, Minn., last weekend.

Senior Ben Berard, junior Jack O'Leary, and freshmen Sean Donaldson and Winter Wallace, scored for the Big Red in the two-game series.

Junior Gabriel Seger went 24-of-34 in the faceoff circle, posting a .706 success rate. Seger's 12.0 faceoff wins per game is currently tied with Yale's William Dineen for the highest average in ECAC Hockey. In the series finale, Seger won 16 faceoffs which is tied for the second-most faceoff wins by an ECAC player this season (Quinnipiac's Skyler Brind'Amour — 17 vs. LIU on Oct. 9).

2022-23 Roster

If you’ve never been to a Big Red hockey game at Cornell’s James Lynah Rink, there are quite a few things you’ve never experienced. You’ve never camped out in line just to get season tickets and ensure your spot as one of the raucous and devoted "Lynah Faithful." But most importantly, if you’ve never been to Lynah, you’ve never really experienced all the best that college hockey has to offer.

Lynah Rink, which turned 65 years old in 2022, is the home of Big Red hockey. The rink, which was dedicated April 6, 1957, was named in honor of the late James Lynah (class of 1905), director of athletics at Cornell from 1935-43.

• Cornell continues its six-game, season-opening road trip with another pair of ECAC Hockey games next weekend when the Big Red travels to the North Country to take on St. Lawrence and Clarkson. Both games are scheduled for 7 p.m. puck drops and will be broadcast on ESPN+.