ITHACA, N.Y. — Junior forward Jake Kraft recorded a goal and two assists, one of four players with multi-point nights, to lead the No. 19-ranked Cornell men's hockey team to a 5-4 exhibition victory over the U.S. National Team Development Program Under-18 Team on Saturday night at Lynah Rink.

Junior forward Ryan Walsh and sophomore forward Charlie Major each added a goal and an assist for Cornell, which outshot the visitors 37-19. Junior defenseman George Fegaras chipped in a pair of assists for the Big Red.

"We did some good things, but not a very good team game for us," said Casey Jones '90, the Jay R. Bloom '77 Head Coach of Cornell Men's Ice Hockey. "I thought we were a bit selfish, extended shifts, didn't manage pucks. We have to snap in a little bit in terms of defensive responsibilities."

Victor Plante opened the scoring for the NTDP 4:44 into the contest, which featured Jamie Glance registering a secondary assist. Glance finished as the lone multi-point scorer for the Under-18 squad, notching a goal and an assist.

Junior forward Luke Devlin tied the game for Cornell nearly four minutes after Plante's opening tally. After coincidental roughing penalties forced Cornell and the NTDP to play 4-on-4 for two minutes, Walsh gave the Big Red its first lead of the night only to be countered by AJ Garcia 31 seconds later, sending the teams into the first intermission tied at 2-2.

Cornell netted three unanswered goals in the second period to take a 5-2 lead. Kraft restored the Big Red's advantage early before Major doubled Cornell's lead with a power-play goal past the halfway point. Freshman forward Caton Ryan netted the eventual game-winner at 17:19.

The NTDP's attempted comeback was spearheaded by Sammy Nelson's goal with one-tenth of a second remaining in the second, which cut the NTDP's deficit to 5-3. Cornell held on for the victory despite Glance's extra-attacker goal with 25 seconds left that made it a one-goal game.

"I was happy we got pushed a little bit at the end," Jones said. "I really liked ourselves for the first 14-15 minutes of the third. We played our style of hockey, that's how we have to play. They got that one goal and get a little bit of a look at how we have to defend down the stretch."

Senior goaltender Remington Keopple earned the win in relief, stopping five of seven shots over the final 29:28. Freshman netminder Alexis Cournoyer started and made 10 saves on 12 shots in the first 30:32.

Brady Knowling made 32 saves for the NTDP, which fell to 1-9-1-1 on the year.

GAME NOTES
• Saturday marked the 12th all-time meeting between Cornell and the U.S. NTDP Under-18 Team. The Big Red improved its record in the series to 10-1-1 and has won each of the last seven contests.

• Cornell played its 79th official exhibition game in program history, improving the Big Red to 64-9-6 (.848) all-time in exhibitions and scrimmages.

• With the win, Cornell extended its preseason unbeaten streak to 30 games (28-0-2, .967), including a 14-game win streak since tying uOttawa 2-2 on Oct. 15, 2017. During the current win streak, the Big Red has outscored opponents 77-22, averaging a victory margin of 3.93 goals per game.

• Eight of the 28 wins during the unbeaten streak have come by two goals or less, including three of the last five. Two of those three close contests featured the U.S. NTDP Under-18 Team as the opponents, both of which have come by 5-4 decisions.

• The Big Red has scored at least four goals in each of its last 10 exhibitions, averaging 5.5 goals per game during that span.

UP NEXT
Cornell officially begin its 109th season of men's hockey next weekend with a two-game series against No. 13 UMass (5-2-0, 0-1-0 Hockey East) at the Mullins Center in Amherst, Mass. Puck drop is scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday and 6 p.m. Saturday, with both games streaming live on ESPN+.

The Big Red and Minutemen will be playing each other for the third straight season, the first such streak in the series history. Cornell and UMass previously met in single games in 1922-23 (4-0 Cornell) and 1923-24 (3-2 UMass), both on Beebe Lake in Ithaca, and played again in 2007-08 (scoreless tie in Ithaca) and 2008-09 (5-2 Cornell in Amherst).

Cornell enters the weekend series unbeaten in its last two meetings against UMass (1-0-1), posting a shootout victory after a 2-2 tie in the Adirondack Winter Invitational semifinals on Dec. 29, 2023, in Lake Placid, N.Y., and a 4-1 win in the Desert Hockey Classic semifinals on Jan. 3, 2025, in Tempe, Ariz.