The moment the whistle blew with 4:32 remaining, Lynah Rink was deafening.
Not with cheers, nor any type of applause, because No. 11 men’s hockey had not scored. Instead, boos were raining down as junior defenseman Hoyt Stanley entered the penalty box. It was hard to hear yourself think amid the clamor of a sold-out crowd in Ithaca.
In the crease for Cornell, though, it was quiet. Steady. While his teammates protested the official’s call or pushed and shoved the Clarkson skaters around them, senior goaltender Remington Keopple’s mind was blank — in a good way.
“There was a calmness to [Keopple] tonight,” said head coach Casey Jones ’90. “There was a sense. When that happens in your goal, he's really calm, and when things are on him, I think you get a pretty confident group in front of him.”
Because Keopple — as well as the penalty-killers in front of him — was the reason Cornell was able to eke out a 2-1 win over Clarkson on Saturday. When Stanley was dealt a major penalty and game misconduct with less than five minutes remaining, Keopple and the kill stood tall to withstand a relentless Clarkson attack.
“He was in the zone,” Jones said. “You could see him picking pucks up through traffic. … He had a really good blocker save through traffic. That pad save certainly comes to mind as a game-changer.”
The save Jones referenced? No goaltender made a better stop. With just 55 seconds left, a shot fought through traffic, deflected and was denied by Keopple’s blocker while his weight was shifting in an entirely opposite direction.
It was just another day at the office for the senior.
“I was pretty calm,” Keopple said about the late penalty kill. “I don't know if I caught it in the corner of my eye, but it's just reflexes — I stuck my blocker out and got it, somehow. But I think that was a little bit of luck.”
If that was, in fact, luck, then Keopple had all the luck in the world on Saturday night. He was stellar in his final regular-season game as a Cornellian, making 20 saves on a night he and his fellow classmates will remember for the ages. All five seniors were honored in a postgame celebration.
Keopple’s shutout bid was ended in the third period, when Clarkson’s captain, Tristan Sarsland, converted on the power play to halve a 2-0 Cornell lead. He took a minute to get back up on his feet after that one, as Clarkson swung the momentum in its favor with 9:57 left in the game.
“We put ourselves in those positions … they're both penalties,” Jones said of both the penalty preceding Clarkson’s goal and Stanley’s five-minute major. “It's a situation that — thank God — it didn't cost us, because I thought we were working hard and [on] senior night, you want to send them out on a good note.”
Penalties were a theme on Saturday — much like they were in Cornell’s last time out against Clarkson (15-16-3, 9-10-3 ECAC) on Dec. 5, when it was whistled nine times. On Saturday, the Red picked up seven penalties, a number that will need to dwindle down if the Red wants to make a deep run in the postseason.
“We’ve got to stay disciplined in that type of environment where it’s chippy,” Jones said. "[With] stuff going on after the whistles, we got to be composed. From here on out, you can't beat yourself. That's the most important thing going forward. If someone beats us, someone beats us, but we can't put ourselves in a position and beat ourselves.”
Clarkson converted on just one of its five power plays — Sarsland’s strike in the third period — despite a strong showing from Cornell’s kill. In all, the Red blocked 16 shots in the game as opposed to Clarkson’s five, and even fended off a Golden Knight two-man advantage.
“They had a lot of shots on the penalty kill, but not many got to the net,” Keopple said. “They were eating pucks left and right. So it made my job pretty easy.”
Cornell was whistled three times in the first period for infractions, including the Golden Knights’ two-man advantage late in the opening period. Hemmed in the defensive zone, Walsh made a couple of brilliant plays to break up passes and make clears to keep things scoreless heading into the first intermission.
“The five-on-three was huge,” Jones said. “I thought we blocked a lot of shots tonight, too. So we did a good job of limiting that.”
The teams combined for just eight shots in the second period, with Cornell mustering five of them. That didn’t include a disallowed goal from Fisher, who had what would’ve been his first goal donning a Cornell sweater wiped due to offsides 4:38 into the period.
But one of the Red’s five shots in period two came off the stick of freshman forward Caton Ryan on the power play, and it sailed past Soderwall to break the deadlock. A Clarkson skater had been nabbed for holding at 11:41 of the period before Ryan notched his 11th goal of the year 1:45 into the power play.
Things began to slip with penalties dealt left and right in the frame, but Cornell stayed the course.
“Good teams always find a way,” Ryan said. “We got a great job done tonight.”
Cornell built itself some breathing room when junior defenseman Hoyt Stanley — in a similar fashion to Fisher preceding his disallowed goal — cut to the net to stuff one home for the 2-0 lead 5:20 into the third period.
But then came survival mode. Cornell tried and tried, but Clarkson had an answer for almost everything. It was five minutes after Stanley’s tally that Sarsland got on the board, and Cornell desperately sought to hang on — namely, to win for its five fourth-years.
“The seniors are everything, right?” Ryan said. “We wanted to win for them especially.”
It was fitting that Keopple, a senior, stole the show down the stretch with his penalty-killing heroics to earn the narrow win for him and his classmates on senior night.
“[Keopple]’s worked hard all year,” Jones said. “When he's played this year, he's been really good. He showed again tonight.”
The victory sounds the end of Cornell’s regular season, concluding with 20 wins in 29 games. For a team with 12 freshmen and 14 new players, that’s a figure Jones will take.
“We’re pretty proud to get 20 wins in the regular season,” Jones said. “We've had ups and downs a little bit. We've had lessons that we've learned along the way. They've responded to everything so far. That's playoff hockey, right there.”
The Red’s next task is the ECAC tournament, where it will look to defend its two consecutive Whitelaw Cups. Cornell, by finishing third in the conference, has secured an opening-round bye, and will return to action at Lynah Rink for the quarterfinal round on March 13 and 14.
Jane McNally is a senior editor on the 143rd editorial board and was the sports editor on the 142nd editorial board. She is a member of the Class of 2026 in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. You can follow her on X @JaneMcNally_ and reach her at jmcnally@cornellsun.com.
