Yet another imperative weekend looms for men’s hockey, looking at a daunting path to a top-four seed in the ECAC playoffs with eight games left on its ECAC slate.
But as Cornell looks to secure two victories and six pivotal points, the team is appreciating the small victories.
For instance — having a full lineup with 12 forwards.
“We still haven't got a full [roster], but this is the first time I think we can actually play four lines without having to dress a defenseman as a forward,” said head coach Mike Schafer ’86. “So that's been a long haul, 21 games into the season.”
After a weekend that saw Cornell dress eight forwards/nine defensemen against St. Lawrence on Friday and nine forwards/ten defensemen on Saturday at Clarkson, the Red will return a few crucial faces. Senior forwards Kyle Penney and Ondrej Psenicka are slated to return to the lineup after missing last weekend, along with the return of junior forward Sean Donaldson, who has missed the last few weekends due to injury.
“I think that has taken a little bit of a mental toll on our guys, going in and knowing that we're always playing short handed,” Schafer said. “I think you can do it for a short span, but at the same time, I think it will make our guys mentally tougher down the stretch.”
Some other lineup staples remain out — namely, freshman forward Charlie Major, who is progressing, according to Schafer. Sophomore forward Luke Devlin and junior forward Winter Wallace remain sidelined, both who have missed the entirety of the 2024-2025 season thus far.
In desperate need for points to climb the ECAC standings, Cornell (8-7-6, 5-5-4 ECAC) will host Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (10-14-2, 5-9-0 ECAC) on Friday, Feb. 7 and Union (15-9-2, 8-5-1 ECAC) on Saturday, Feb. 8 at Lynah Rink.
While the Red will be able to dress 12 healthy forwards for the first time in what feels like ages, it will lose a big piece behind the bench — Schafer will miss this weekend’s games in order to attend his son’s wedding.
That will allow associate head coach Casey Jones ’90 to take the reins and call the shifts. It should be a much easier task than last weekend, when Jones was forced to manage an eight-forward line against St. Lawrence as Schafer served a one-game suspension issued by the ECAC.
“We're pretty proud of our guys [and] how we played with the roster, with having limited numbers and all that,” Jones said. “We get some more bodies back here this week, [so] we can play a little bit more like Cornell hockey.”
RPI, after a string of four straight losses, arrives in Ithaca fueled off a 5-2 win over Yale. The Engineers haven’t historically fared well on Cornell’s home ice, having won just two of its last ten games played at Lynah. In its last four games against RPI at home –– all wins –– Cornell has outscored the Engineers by a 21-7 margin, albeit slightly skewed from an 11-3 win on Nov. 13, 2021.
Union, on the other hand, poses a more formidable task for the Red. Occupying third place in the ECAC, the Garnet Chargers boast the league’s second-best power play percentage, performing at a 23.9 percent clip.
“We will focus on what [we] think their strengths are [and] what needs to be done, but it's a little bit more about us and what we have to do to get kind of back here and get going in the right direction,” Jones said.
As Cornell looks to focus on itself, a massive area for improvement as the regular season races to a close is the power play. Cornell’s 10.9 percent success rate on the man-advantage ranks third-worst in the entire country.
After a dull 0/4 performance against St. Lawrence last Friday, the Red followed it up by going 0/4 once again on Saturday, but the power play generated many more chances and seemed to be connecting well against the Golden Knights.
When asked about a solution to recent power play woes Schafer had a clear answer: “Getting one in the back of the net.”
The Cornell penalty kill has climbed back up to above 80 percent after a slow start. The coaching staff believes the power play could reflect a similar rise.
“On the flip side of it, [the] PK has gotten confidence. It's executing. [The] power play just needs to get it in the back of the net,” Schafer said. “There was a little bit of a different life on the bench when they went out for that power play in the third period against Clarkson [last Saturday], and you could sense the guys [were] sitting up a little bit more and anticipating that we're going to score.”
Puck drop for both games is slated for 7 p.m. at Lynah Rink. All action will be streamed live on ESPN+.
