ITHACA, N.Y. — Freshman forward
Brad Gardiner and junior forward
Parker Murray scored 5:49 apart in the second period, and the No. 13 Cornell men's ice hockey team pulled away for a 4-1 exhibition victory over Waterloo on Saturday night at Lynah Rink.
The Big Red extended its unbeaten streak in exhibitions to 31 games (29-0-2) and has won each of its last 15. Cornell, which outshot Waterloo 50-25 before a crowd of 2,971, now has two weeks to prepare before opening its regular season against Sacred Heart (2-2-0) in a two-game series at Lynah Rink on Oct. 30-31.
"We needed to play a game against someone else," said
Casey Jones '90, the Jay R. Bloom '77 Head Coach of Cornell Men's Ice Hockey. "We'll get some good video out of tonight. Learn a little bit about ourselves, where we have to go."
The game was scoreless after the first 20 minutes despite an 18-7 shot advantage for the Big Red. Ten of those 18 shots came during a five-minute power play after Waterloo's Brayden Velliaris was assessed a major penalty and a game misconduct for facemasking, but Waterloo goaltender Tyler Hodges turned aside everything he saw.
Cornell broke through on the power play at 11:07 of the second, when Gardiner buried the rebound of a shot by junior defenseman
Luke Ashton. Freshman defenseman
Ryland Randle picked up the secondary assist.
Murray doubled the lead with 3:04 left in the period. Randle's shot from the blue line hit traffic in front, Hodges stopped a rebound attempt by sophomore forward
Aiden Long and Murray pounced on the loose puck at the edge of the crease for the eventual game-winner.
Waterloo responded 95 seconds later. Ashton sent the puck around the boards, where Caden Kelly scooped it up and quickly found Kyle Morey, who fed Braeden O'Keefe in the mid-slot for a one-timer past sophomore goaltender
Mathis Rousseau. Cornell still outshot Waterloo 18-7 for the second straight period.
The Big Red needed just 57 seconds of the third to restore its two-goal cushion. Senior forward
Ryan Walsh had a shot blocked in the mid-slot, recovered and slid a backhand pass to junior forward
Charlie Major, who one-timed it home for a 3-1 lead. Sophomore defenseman
Xavier Veilleux started the sequence with a pass from the right circle.
Walsh added an insurance goal on the power play at 16:17, just 33 seconds after leaving the penalty box from his own hooking minor, with Veilleux and senior defenseman
George Fegaras assisting. The captain finished with a goal and an assist while winning 14 of 22 faceoffs. Randle and Veilleux each had two assists, giving Cornell three multi-point players.
Cornell went 2-for-4 on the power play, with 18 of its 50 shots coming on the man advantage, and killed all six of Waterloo's power plays.
Jones was less pleased with how often Cornell needed its penalty kill.
"We can't be taking six penalties," Jones said. "You're looking for three or less. You're playing with fire if you're going to be undisciplined. We had a mental error on one of the penalties, and then we had a lot of stick penalties. We've got to clean that stuff up. That's why you play an exhibition game."
Rousseau played all 60 minutes in goal for Cornell and made 24 saves. Hodges stopped 46 shots for Waterloo.
"I thought [Mathis] was good," Jones said. "Second period, I thought we gave up some really good chances, some odd-man rushes that he kind of swallowed up, so good confidence there."
