@CORNELL 5, St. Lawrence 0 | @CORNELL 5, Clarkson 1

As I said last week, four-point weekends are great fun and extremely productive. So, its a great weekend for our players when we finish the regular season on a nine-game win streak (23-2-4, 18-2-2 ECAC), which is the longest in Division I hockey. On Friday night, we took care of business over a scrappy St. Lawrence team. With the victory and Clarkson tying at Colgate, we clinched the Cleary Cup for a third straight year; a first in program history. The players were extremely happy in the locker room but you still had that feeling that they knew they weren’t finished!

We scored first against the Saints, just 1:49 into the game. Sophomore forward Max Andreev took freshman forward Jack Malone’s feed and had a point-blank shot that was initially saved but the rebound jumped in off Max’s skate. The visitors battled back for the rest of the period with the shots-on-goal even at 7-all.

We took control in the second period. Sophomore forward Michael Regush scored his 10th goal of the year on a wraparound at 5:35, becoming just the fifth player at Cornell to score double-digit goals in both his freshman and sophomore seasons since the turn of the century. (I guess I didn’t play in this century!) Just 88 seconds later, sophomore defenseman Joe Leahy made the score 3-0 with a shot from the point. St. Lawrence had a couple of excellent scoring chances in the second period but junior goaltender Matthew Galajda was stellar in the goal.

In the third period, we scored a pair of power-play goals. At 8:13, freshman defenseman Sam Malinski tallied his fifth goal of the season and with 1:37 remaining, freshman forward Matt Stienburg, last week’s ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week, converted a rebound for his fifth goal to round out the scoring. Neither Matt nor Joe get much time on the power play but this night they did an excellent job executing what we practice.

Galajda made 19 saves for his third consecutive shutout and is now tied with Ben Scrivens ’10 for career shutouts with 19. Matt’s shutout streak is now 197 minutes, 21 seconds since February 15th, when he allowed a goal during the third period at Rensselaer. The St. Lawrence goaltender made 26 saves. We were 2-for-5 on the power play and the Saints were 0-for-2.

With a Colgate/Clarkson tie on Friday night that secured the Cleary Cup, you would think the Saturday night contest would not be as important but the team still considered it a big game. They came out hard, played with intensity, and started playing “playoff hockey” before a sold out Lynah Rink on Senior Night.

Clarkson scored first with a power-play goal at 5:25 of the opening period, ending Matty’s shutout streak at 202:50, which is the second-longest of his collegiate career and the sixth-longest in program history. It was the Golden Knights last score as we ran off five consecutive goals.

The first period was played at a ferocious pace and was enjoyed by the packed house. Still in the first period, we took the lead for good with a pair of power-play goals at 8:39 and 14:44. The first score came off the stick of freshman forward Ben Berard who went on to enjoy a career night with a hat trick, our second of the year. Ben didn’t play on Friday night because we thought he wasn’t working hard enough and we took him out of the lineup. He responded exactly how you would want a good player to respond! He worked hard, he was around the net, he created good scoring chances. The second power-play goal of the period was scored by junior forward Tristan Mullin who leads the team with seven power-play goals. We closed out the month of February with 21 first-period goals over nine games … by far the most in the country.

After a scoreless second period with plenty of shooting (we led 14-10 on shots-on-goal), Berard scored at 8:05 of the third period, converting a rebound of a shot by junior defenseman Cody Haiskanen to make it 3-1. Regush gave us a 4-1 margin with 3:59 remaining.

A major penalty put us on the power play for the last 2:57 of the game. We took advantage of this opportunity to use some players who normally wouldn’t see any ice time in this type of situation. We did leave Ben on the ice with the chance of getting his hat trick. We put him right in front of the Clarkson goal, and it worked. Freshman defenseman Travis Mitchell send a perfect goal-mouth pass to Ben and he did the rest for a 5-1 victory. The score ended up looking one-sided but it was a hard competitive game.

Galajda made 25 saves, including 10 in the second period, while the Clarkson net-minder stopped 31 shots. We were 3-for-7 on the power play and they were 1-for-5.

The power play against Clarkson showed a lot of poise and we didn’t rush things. They waited and we were more patient on the extra man, which we didn’t do very well on the power play on Friday night. We came out on Saturday with our heads up and just moved pucks and found lanes that were going to open things up. And that’s hard against Clarkson. They’re a really good penalty-killing hockey team.

By winning the regular season title, we get a bye for the first round of the playoffs. Now the real fun begins! ECAC quarterfinals will be played right here at Lynah Rink in a best-of-three series on March 13-15. Buy your tickets early because the Lynah Faithful will be in full force.

Mike Schafer

ITHACA, N.Y. — Boasting the #1 Men’s and Women’s Hockey teams in the national polls, tickets for a variety of late-season and post-season games at Lynah Rink are either on sale now or will be shortly.

The #1-ranked Cornell Women’s Hockey team will enter the ECAC Hockey Championship playoffs as the top overall seed after navigating the 22-game ECAC schedule without a loss for the first time in program history. The Big Red will host a best-of-three quarterfinal series against eighth-seeded St. Lawrence this weekend [February 28/29], with games at 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday afternoons. Tickets for those games are on sale now here. If necessary, Game 3 would be played 3 p.m. Sunday – and tickets for that game would go on sale immediately after the completion of Saturday’s game.

Meanwhile, the #1 ranked Big Red Men’s team will be looking to wrap up their third straight Cleary Cup this weekend during the final games of the ECAC Hockey regular-season. Cornell hosts St. Lawrence at 7 p.m. Friday and (#7) Clarkson at 7 p.m. on Saturday/Senior Night. Tickets for those games, which will start after the women’s team’s playoff games finish, are on sale now through the ticket office.

Regardless of results this weekend, the Cornell men’s team has secured a bye through the first round of the ECAC Hockey Championships. Cornell will host a best-of-three quarterfinal series at Lynah Rink against an opponent to be determined depending on the results of this weekend games. Game 1 is scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday, March 13 and game 2 at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 14. Tickets for those games will go on sale at 9 a.m. Tuesday, March 3. As is the case with the women’s quarterfinal series, tickets for an if-necessary Game 3 would go on sale immediately following the completion of Game 2. The winner-take-all third game would be played at 4 p.m. Sunday, March 15.

If the Big Red’s women’s team defeats St. Lawrence in the quarterfinal series this weekend, Cornell would earn the right to host ECAC Hockey’s Championship semi-finals and championship game the following weekend [March 7/8] . More information on that event will be available after the St. Lawrence series, if applicable.

For more information on ticket information, contact the Cornell Athletic Ticketing Office or call (607) 255-4247.

@CORNELL 5, Union 2 | @CORNELL 4, Rensselaer 2

Anytime you pick up four points on a weekend, it’s a good weekend! With the pair of victories, we extended our win streak to five with two weekends remaining in the regular season. We are tied with Clarkson for first place in the ECAC with 30 points. Our national ranking in both polls remains #2 and #3 in the PAIRWISE comparisons.

We got off to a good start on both nights but from then on the games were completely different. On Friday night, we just weren’t alert on the bench.

We jumped on Union just 2:30 into the game with a goal through traffic by senior defenseman Yanni Kaldis. About 8 minutes later on the power play, junior forward Morgan Barron, scored on his patented one-timer for his 12th goal of the season. After 20 minutes of play, we had out-shot Union 13-1.

A poor second period followed with shots-on-goal 8-5 in our favor. Kaldis scored a power-play goal with 3 minutes before the second intermission. This was our eighth power-play goal in the last four games. After such a good start, it was disappointing that we diverted from the game plan instead of continuing to play simple hockey. Union scored a power-play goat at 18:56 of the second period even though they only had six shots on goal through 40 minutes.

In the third period, we helped them with a number of penalties but our penalty-kill unit showed marked improvement, killing two separate 5-on-3 advantages for the Dutchmen. It was the first game this season that we had to kill a 5-on-3 penalty and we did an awesome job when short-handed. The trio of Barron, Kaldis and junior defenseman Cody Haiskanen blocked a total of six shots during those penalties. With 9:53 to play, Union scored off a rush to make it 3-2 and a hockey game. With 6:13 remaining, the visitors appeared to tie the game, sweeping in a rebound from inside the crease. Upon video review, the goal was overturned because a Union player had made contact with junior goaltender Matthew Galajda before the shot.

Union pulled its goaltender with a couple minutes remaining and we scored two empty-net goals by Barron and freshman forward Jack Malone at 19:36 and 19:41.

Galajda didn’t see much action with nine saves, while the Union goaltender stopped 21 shots. We were 2-for-3 on the power play and the visitors were 1-for-6. We had a pair of two-goal scorers for the first time since March 2018.

The next night against Rensselaer, we again got off to a quick start and didn’t let up as opposed to Friday evening. We didn’t give up that many scoring chances throughout the course of the game and I thought our energy was good.

We opened the scoring at 3:30 of the first period. Senior Noah Bauld swept in a rebound off a shot by sophomore defenseman Joe Leahy. Junior defenseman Alex Green doubled the lead just 18 seconds later for his seventh goal of the season and it gave us a 2-0 lead inside of 4 minutes! On a power play, Kaldis made the score 3-0 with 2:57 remaining in the first period. We ended the period with 15 shots-on-goal compared to 4 for RPI. For his weekend efforts, Yanni was named ECAC Player of the Week. He works so hard at all aspects of the game and will be missed next year.

In the second period, RPI scored the lone goal; the teams were even with 10 shots-on-goal each.

Just 1:40 into the third period, the Engineers scored an even-strength goal on a deflected shot to make it a 3-2 game. They made it a game but our play in the last 40 minutes was much better than the previous evening. RPI is a good hockey team and you have to keep your guard up at all times. We stayed up on our gaps, back-checked hard and just played a more solid game.

Our final goal went into an empty net with 25 seconds remaining. Junior forward Brenden Locke scored his eighth goal of the year with junior forward Tristan Mullin picking up his 10th assist of the year. For Locke, it was his third point of the night.

Galajda was called upon for only 18 saves including nine in the second period. The RPI net-minder stopped 28 shots. We were 1-for-3 on the power play and the visitors were 0-for-1.

The pair of wins clinches a bye for the first round of the playoffs. We will host the best-of-three quarterfinal series March 13-15 against an opponent to-be-determined.

We make our final regular-season road trip this coming weekend to Yale on Friday and Brown on Saturday. There’s always plenty of room for Big Red rooters and we’d appreciate your support this coming weekend.

Mike Schafer