CORNELL 3, @Harvard 1 | @Dartmouth 2, CORNELL 1

The winning streak is over. Now it’s back to playing Big Red hockey and starting another streak. Our play in the two games this weekend was quite different. Early in the season our power play was No. 1 in the country, but now we haven’t had an extra-man goal in five games (0-19). We’ve always been great killing penalties but we need to improve that too.

At Harvard, we played the No.1 scoring team in the nation and held them to one goal. This season we typically have a slow first period but we flipped the switch in this one. Shots on goal in the first period were 17-4 in our favor and the score was 2-0 after 20 minutes of play. This was the ninth time this season we scored the first goal of the game.

At the 5:28 mark, senior forward Jeff Malott scored his third goal of the season. Malott fired a shot on goal and the rebound came out. Jeff whirled around to blindly throw a backhand shot under the Harvard goalie to put us up 1-0. With 54 seconds to go in the period, junior forward Brenden Locke tallied his fifth goal this year. Some hard work around the net by junior Tristan Mullin led to the puck bouncing to the top of the crease where Locke slammed it past the goaltender.

Freshman defenseman Travis Mitchell scored his second collegiate goal at 5:07 into the second period to make it 3-0. Travis had a great night vs. Harvard. At this point, we had a 22-4 lead in shots on goal. Harvard took a timeout after Mitchell’s goal to regroup and it seemed to work. The Crimson scored their only goal two minutes later on a power play. After their timeout, they started doing things differently and it took a while for us to adjust. I think we wanted a fourth goal rather than pay attention to their changes. I thought we got going again in the third and started to control some things. We had some long shifts in our own zone but I thought we kept them on the perimeter and back on the blue line.

Junior goaltender Matthew Galajda had his usual strong game stopping 23 shots, including 15 in the third period. The Harvard goalie made 29 saves. We were 0-for 4 on the power play and they were 1-for-2.

The 10th straight win was the first time since the great national championship team went all the way with 29 straight. I believe our success can be attributed to our depth in practice. We’ve got guys chomping at the bit to get into the game lineup. At the same time, they are great kids. There’s no moping by anyone. They know we are off to a great start and they continue to try to improve, which in turn, makes us more consistent and our team better.

All that changed the next night at Dartmouth in our last game of the fall semester. We were held scoreless in the second period for the first time this season. We entered the third period trailing for the first time this year and we had 40 shot on goal for the first time. We also had five more power plays than an opponent for the first time this season. This added up to our first loss of the season!

I just don’t think we were as sharp as we’ve been as a group. Even though we had a lot of scoring chances during the game, Dartmouth did the job on special teams to beat us. From in net to our blue line, to our forwards, we didn’t have the edge to overcome a night where we couldn’t capitalize on our chances.

We had an excellent opportunity to take a lead inside the first minute on a shorthanded breakaway by Malott, but the goalie made the save. Ninety seconds later, Dartmouth took a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal. We answered when junior forward Morgan Barron scored his team-leading seventh goal with 23 second remaining in the period. Mitchell carried the puck to the middle before taking a shot that hit traffic in the slot. The puck bounced into the right circle where Barron pounced on it and buried a shot under the crossbar.

The Big Green came out flying for the second period and scored just 45 seconds into playing time. No more goals were scored during the rest of the game. It was the first time we have been out-scored in the middle period this season.

In the third period, we out shot Dartmouth, 21-5 but couldn’t put the puck in the net. We hit a lot of goal posts, missed a breakaway, and had a 3-on-1 where we didn’t even take a shot. That’s just a symptom of not being fully prepared and was a big mistake on our part at Dartmouth. We had five of the game’s six power plays and got off 10 shots on target over those stretches but came up empty each time.

Galajda had an easy night with 15 saves with just two in the first period. Their goalie stopped 39 shots! We were 0-for-5 on the power play and Dartmouth was 1-for-1.

I’m really disappointed we finished the first semester with a loss but just the same, I am very proud of our players. But we’ll park it, get to work and try to do some of the things necessary to get better as a hockey team.

We remain in sole possession of first place in ECAC Hockey, as Colgate beat Harvard on Saturday evening. The Ivy League has a three-way tie between Cornell, Dartmouth and Harvard, all with 4-1 records.

We’re off for four weeks for final exams and a holiday break. Late in December, we will get together to prepare for the Fortress Invitational in Las Vegas. The tournament starts Friday afternoon, January 3rd with Providence against Army West Point. We play the second game at 8 p.m. (Pacific Time) against an excellent team from Ohio State and either Providence or Army West Point the following day.

This is an excellent opportunity for our West Coast alumni/fans to see our hockey team. I know there are Alumni gatherings being planned. Hope to see a large Big Red contingent in Las Vegas.

To all, we wish you Happy Holidays, and may 2020 be filled with joy and happiness for all.

Mike Schafer

CORNELL 4, @Clarkson 2 | CORNELL 6, @St Lawrence 1

What a great weekend! When they told me this was our first North Country sweep since 2005, I couldn’t believe it, but I have always known that this is an extremely tough road trip. You can’t let your guard down either night.

We have tremendous team depth right now. Three different players scored their first goals of the season on Friday night at Clarkson. Junior goaltender Matthew Galajda was rock-solid. When we needed him, he made some big saves on partial breakaways when we turned pucks over.

There was no scoring in the first period even though Clarkson out-shot us by 15-8. Both teams had some great chances and both goalies were up to the task. Late in the second period, in a span of 7 minutes each team scored two goals. Freshman defenseman Travis Mitchell opened the scoring with his first collegiate goal at 11:25. Less than 3 minutes later, senior forward Jeff Malott snapped a close-in shot past the goaltender’s glove to make it 2-0. Two minutes later, Clarkson recorded a power-play goal and tied the score at 18:05. So, once again we went into the locker room tied. The penalty kill isn’t to our standard right now but at the same time you have to tip your hat to a great play made by Clarkson to generate their goal.

Talking about playing our game was the theme of the night and we came out for the third period calm and played with much more poise. The winning goal came on our first power play at 10:26 of the third period. Junior defenseman Alex Green fired a one-timer that was blocked by a defender, but Green was able to regain possession and bumped the puck to junior forward Cam Donaldson in the slot. His long backhand pass to the right circle set up a one-timer from freshman forward Ben Berard. The shot was saved but it left Donaldson alone on the back post to flip the rebound into the wide side of the vacated net. Sophomore forward Michael Regush made it 4-2 with an empty-net goal with 1:27 remaining in the game.

Galajda was a stalwart with 29 saves and our guys played well in front of him. The Clarkson goalie stopped 27 shots. We were 1-for-1 on the power play, and Clarkson was 1-for-2. This was a hard-fought game and I thought our guys responded every step of the way. I like the balance on our team right now because guys can step up and are successful.

It’s just a short bus-ride for our next opponent in the North Country. You hardly have time to catch your breath. We played St. Lawrence in the SUNY Canton Ice Arena because the Saints are renovating their building. Playing back-to-back games against these two teams on their home ice is not just another day at the office. You need to be ready to skate and stay in the moment. We did that in the second and third periods, but not the first. That was a good lesson for us.

Our first goal came just 3:36 into the first period. Freshman defenseman Sam Malinski angled a pass off the right boards to Donaldson. On a 2-on-1 break, Donaldson skated into the circle before dishing it off to junior forward Morgan Barron coming down the slot. Barron’s shot went into the wide side of the net for his sixth goal of the season. St. Lawrence tallied a power-play goal at 14:03 of the first period to tie the score and we went into the first intermission 1-1.

We didn’t even talk about adjustments between the first and second periods. We needed to get to work and play with some pace and get back that intensity that we had the previous night at Clarkson. We came out fast to start the second period, recorded the first 14 shots on goal and won 18 of 25 faceoffs. We were the aggressor and applied tremendous pressure on the home team. At 13:00 of the second period, junior defenseman Alex Green scored on the power play converting a shot from the slot over the goaltender’s glove. That was a big goal by Alex on the power play. It just got us going, and was good to see.

We didn’t have consistency line to line but we got it going with four lines rolling in the second period. I was happy to see our guys put the pedal to the metal. Two more goals were scored with senior defenseman Yanni Kaldis getting the first one at 14:56 and sophomore forward Liam Motley on a break-away at 16:01. We went into the locker room leading 4-1 at the second intermission.

It didn’t take long to make it 6-1. Senior forward Kyle Betts tacked on a power-play goal at 56 seconds of the third period. Junior forward Brenden Locke made it 6-1, 27 seconds later. Locke’s goal gave us 10 different goal-scorers for our 10 goals on the weekend! Galajda needed to make only 15 saves, while the St. Lawrence goaltender stopped 29 shots. We were 2-for-5 on the power play and they were 1-for-2. Going into the weekend, we led the nation with a 42.3% success rate on the power play and we now have scored a least one extra-man tally in each of our six games for the first time since 2009-10.

We have moved up to No. 2 in the USCHO poll. Saturday night’s game was a good lesson for us because every opponent is gong to be a tough game. At St. Lawrence, it was tough getting started, but once we realized how we need to play every night, the ball got rolling. We’re back home this coming weekend. Quinnipiac comes to Lynah Rink on Friday night and Princeton on Saturday evening.
Hope to see you at these two home games.