The No. 8 men’s hockey team will be competing against every ECAC team within the next five weeks, beginning with this weekend. The Red will face the St. Lawrence Saints tonight at 7 p.m., followed by the Clarkson Golden Knights 24 hours later, both at Lynah Rink. With the home advantage, the Red hopes to come back from its last game’s loss to North Dakota and gain two conference wins.
The Red hopes to revive its offensive streak from earlier this season and take more pucks to the back of the net as it goes against St. Lawrence’s goalie Kain Tisi, who is on his second week of being named ECAC goaltender of the week with an average .930 save percentage, proving himself a force to be reckoned with. The only netminder Tisi ranks behind, ironically, is Red senior Ben Scrivens, who has a .932 save percentage.
Taking on Clarkson (5-16-3, 1-9-2) the following night, Cornell will attempt to improve its home series record in which it already leads 8-1 for the last nine games played in Ithaca. While St. Lawrence has seemed to be doing better over its past few games, Clarkson seems to have hit a slump as it is in last place in league standings with only one win under its belt since the start of December. The last game Clarkson is coming from is a 2-3 loss to Brown last weekend, and the Golden Knights will have faced the Colgate Raiders (9-9-5, 6-4-1) on Friday night before playing Cornell. The last game between the Golden Knights and the Raiders ended in a 2-6 loss for the Knights.
The game will be an interesting matchup between Cornell and Clarkson because of an age-old history in which the two teams first battled each other to a 0-0 tie in the 1922-23 campaign. The fact that the Red is the only team in the ECAC to be leading in its series with Clarkson heightens the excitement that is coming with this game, which could explain why tickets to the game sold out yesterday.
Going into this weekend ready to pick up some conference wins after a split previous weekend, the Red will try to use its strengths to its advantage, such as its strong penalty-kill and unforgiving defense. Additionally, it will attempt to bring back its earlier powerplay and offensive domination in order to find success against its ECAC opponents.
Original Author: Reena Gilani