ITHACA, N.Y. — The Cornell men's hockey team returns to Lynah Rink for its final home games of the regular season, playing host to St. Lawrence at 7 p.m. Friday before a Senior Night clash with Clarkson at 7 p.m. Saturday.

Game Information:

St. Lawrence at #18 Cornell
SITE: Lynah Rink — Ithaca, N.Y. 
TIME: 7 p.m.
DATE: Friday, February 18, 2022 
BROADCAST (U.S.): ESPN+
BROADCAST (Int'l): Stretch Internet
RADIO: WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM)
STATS: CornellBigRed.com

#15 Clarkson at #18 Cornell
SITE: Lynah Rink — Ithaca, N.Y. 
TIME: 7 p.m.
DATE: Saturday, February 19, 2022 
BROADCAST (U.S.): ESPN+
BROADCAST (Int'l): Stretch Internet
RADIO: WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM)
STATS: CornellBigRed.com

Cornell game notes (PDF)

How To Watch:

•  Featuring play-by-play from Grady Whittenburg and color commentary from Tim Vanini '91, the games will be broadcast on ESPN+ in the U.S. (with an option for international viewers also available through Stretch Internet). 
•  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 providing color commentary.

Big Red Rewind:

•  Cornell snapped a six-game winless skid on Saturday, scoring four goals in the third period to power a 5-2 victory at Union. Senior tri-captain Kyle Betts led the charge with two goals after entering the night with just one over the season's first 24 games.
•  Betts' second goal broke a 1-all tie just 37 seconds into the third period, then Cody Haiskanen scored after a scramble around the Union goal to double the lead. After the hosts pulled back to within one, Ben Tupker made it 4-2 with 6:25 to play. Sam Malinski closed the scoring with an empty-netter.  
•  The win snapped a spell in which Cornell went 0-3-3, ultimately concluding with Friday's 6-2 loss at Rensselaer. The deceiving final score was skewed by the Engineers' two shorthanded empty-net goals in the final 1:19. It was the first time the Big Red conceded six goals in a game since March 10, 2019.
•  The Big Red outshot the Engineers, 41-19, and help a 2-1 lead after the first period thanks to goals by Max Andreev and Ben Berard. The latter came on the first of Cornell's two lengthy opportunities on the man advantage after major penalties to RPI.
•  Nate McDonald made 29 saves to earn the victory over Union, which was his first start since Jan. 2. 

By The Numbers:

•  Junior forward Matt Stienburg (#20, 10-13–23) leads the team in scoring and is in a three-way tie for the goal-scoring lead. He has spent the bulk of the season on a line centered by senior forward Max Andreev (#15, 9-13–22, plus-15), who had three points last weekend in his first game action since missing seven straight.
•  Junior Sam Malinski (#24, 5-15–20, plus-13) ranks third in overall team scoring and leads the team in shots on goal (63) alongside another defenseman, junior Travis Mitchell (#10, 3-9–12). Malinski also leads the team in power-play scoring (nine points).
•  Senior forward Brenden Locke (#28, 6-11–17) has 76 career points, which is highest among Cornell's 27 skaters coming into the weekend. He has often centered a line flanked by junior Ben Berard (#29, 10-7–17), who leads the team with four power-play goals.
•  Stienburg and Berard enter the weekend tied with freshman forward Ondrej Psenicka (#26, 10-5–15) for the team's goal-scoring lead, and his plus-16 rating is also highest on the team. Psenicka's average of 0.40 goals per game is fifth-highest among freshmen nationally.

No Experience Required:

•  Freshman Ian Shane (#30, 4-3-3, 1.84, .928, SO) has emerged as the team's primary goaltender, though he was unable to dress for either of last weekend's games. Shane, who became the third Cornell goaltender to win his first collegiate start this season on Jan. 7 at North Dakota, comes into the weekend ranked fifth nationally in goals against average and save percentage — won consecutive ECAC Hockey MAC Goaltending Goalie of the Week honors (Jan. 3 and Jan. 10).
•  Prior to Shane's ascent, senior Nate McDonald (#33, 6-1-1, 2.43, .903) and freshman Joe Howe (#34, 4-3, 2.59, .890, 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.

Postseason Watch:

•  Entering the final nine days of the regular season, Cornell continues to be in the driver's seat for securing a first-round bye through the first round of the ECAC Hockey Championship playoffs — though it will almost assuredly need a strong finish to do so.
•  The Big Red enters the weekend in fourth place in the standings, which is aligned with the final spot to earn the highly coveted bye. At 29 points, Cornell is two ahead of surging Colgate (unbeaten in its last six). The teams have an identical schedule to finish out the regular season.

Deep Up The Middle:

•  The Big Red currently ranks 12th in the country with a 52.7% 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%. The top five players taking draws for Cornell are all 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 in October 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.
•  While Cornell has enjoyed great success in overtime this season (4-0-4), the proverbial buck stops there. The Big Red is 0-4 in shootouts.

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 495 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 St. Lawrence:

•  The defending ECAC Hockey champions have slipped to 7-15-6 and have not had a regulation win in their last six games — but, similar to the Big Red in its recent struggles — all of the games have been very close. In the case of St. Lawrence, each of the last six games (1-3-2) have been decided by one goal or fewer.
•  Most recently, the Saints were spilled Friday at home by Quinnipiac, 3-1, then suffered a 3-2 loss the next night against Princeton. SLU did not lead at any point in either game.
•  Offense has been at the forefront of the Saints' struggles, with their team average of 1.82 goals per game ranked 55th out of 59 teams in the nation. Senior forward Kaden Pickering (#18, 6-8–14; 2 PPG) leads the team in scoring and is tied with sophomore forward Justin Paul (#14, 6-6–12) for the goal-scoring lead. Paul scored on the power play in the Saints' first game against Cornell this season back on Dec. 3.
•  Pickering typically plays on the right wing of a line centered by fellow senior co-captain, David Jankowski (#10, 2-9–11), with junior Cameron Buhl (#21, 3-4–7) on the opposite wing.
•  One of St. Lawrence's strengths is its penalty kill, which ranks 15th nationally (84.7%) overall and is tops in ECAC Hockey league games at 93.2%.
•  Senior Emil Zetterquist (#1, 7-12-6, 2.80, .897) has started 25 of 28 games in goal.
•  Brent Brekke — who was an assistant coach under Schafer at Cornell from 1999-2008 — is in his third season as the head coach at St. Lawrence.

The Series With St. Lawrence:

•  In a series that began during the 1926-27 campaign, Cornell holds a 67-45-8 all-time lead against St. Lawrence. 
•  The Big Red enters Friday on an nine-game winning streak and an 15-4-1 record over the last 20 in the series. That includes a 4-1 victory in the season's first game, which came Dec. 3 in Canton — highlighted by Matt Stienburg's natural hat trick over a span of 16:55 in the third period. Nate McDonald made 19 saves to earn the victory.
•  Forward Max Andreev had a goal and two assists to lead the charge in Cornell's 5-0 victory over St. Lawrence in the visitors' last visit to Lynah Rink on Feb. 28, 2020.

About Clarkson:

•  The Golden Knights enter Friday's game at Colgate as one of the nation's hottest teams, 8-0-2 with two shootout victories in their last 10 games. The run is headlined by their most recent result — a 3-1 win at home on Saturday over league-leading Quinnipiac. That has helped Clarkson move up to 15th in both the Pairwise and both national polls.
•  A fifth-round draft pick of the Nashville Predators, sophomore Ethan Haider (#47, 11-7-5, 2.31, .912, 3 SO) was the team's exclusive starting goaltender up until a 5-1 loss on Jan. 8 at New Hampshire. The Golden Knights have been unbeaten since then, with Haider splitting time with sophomore Jacob Mucitelli (#42, 6-0-1, 1.25, .946, 2 SO).
•  Clarkson's top three scorers typically play on the same together. Junior center Mathieu Gosselin (#13, 8-21–29; team-best plus-16), who has points in eight of his last 10 games, is flanked by leading goal-scorer Anthony Romano (#29, 14-11–25) on his right and sophomore Alex Campbell (#11, 13-15–28) on his left.
•  With four apiece, Romano and Campbell are tied with graduate student Luke Santerno (#39, 10-5–15), named ECAC Hockey Player of the Week on Monday, for the most power-play goals on the team. At 23.3%, Clarkson enters the weekend with the most efficient power play in ECAC Hockey games.
•  Only four freshmen have seen the ice all season for Clarkson, which includes a 36-second cameo from goaltender Brady Parker last Friday. 
•  Casey Jones '90 is in his 11th season as the head coach at Clarkson after serving as the associate head coach at Cornell from 2008-11.

The Series With Clarkson:

•  The Big Red owns a 68-56-20 record against the Golden Knights, including an eventful 4-4 tie on Dec. 4 in Potsdam. Max Andreev scored twice, and Sam Malinski had a goal and an assist for Cornell — but a four-goal lead evaporated over the final 5:17 of the third period, including three extra-attackers goals. Clarkson would go on to win the shootout.
•  Clarkson's last visit to Ithaca proved to be among the most memorable moments of the Big Red's storied 2019-20 season. Cornell scored five unanswered goals for a 5-1 victory that capped the regular season with Ben Berard punctuating the night by completing a hat trick with 9.4 seconds left.
•  That game left the Big Red cruising into the postseason on a nine-game winning streak and atop both major national polls — but it also proved to be the team's final game before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that washed out the postseason.
•  Cornell is 13-7-7 against Clarkson since Casey Jones '90 became head coach.

Looking Ahead:

•  The Big Red wraps up its regular season with a road trip to take on Quinnipiac on Friday, Feb. 25 and Princeton on Saturday, Feb. 26.