For the second year in a row, men’s hockey defeated top-ranked Quinnipiac at Lynah. Last year, Ben Berard’s two goals and Ian Shane’s 33 saves led Cornell to a 2-1 win over the Bobcats. This year, Shane put up a 21 save shutout and four different Cornell skaters scored in a 4-0 win.
Quinnipiac (18-2-3, 12-1 ECAC) entered Lynah with the best scoring defense and the second best scoring offense in the country. The four goals that Cornell (11-6-1, 8-3 ECAC) scored on Friday night were the most the Bobcats had allowed since Oct. 22, when they suffered their only other loss of the season against Maine.
Berard got the scoring started with just over six minutes left in the first period when he tipped junior defenseman Sebastian Dirven’s slapshot past Quinnipiac’s Yaniv Perets. The tally extended Berard’s goal streak to four games.
Cornell extended its lead in the second period when freshman forward Dalton Bancroft converted a feed from senior defenseman Sam Malinski on a Cornell power play. The goal was Bancroft’s first since his hat-trick at Madison Square Garden in November.
Cornell went on its only other power play of the game later in the second period, but did not convert. The Red killed all three of Quinnipiac’s power plays.
The Red grabbed a commanding lead when sophomore forward Jack O’Leary buried a backhand shot on a rebound for Cornell’s third goal of the night in the third period.
Cornell capitalized on a miscue after Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold pulled Perets for freshman Chase Clark with 13 minutes left in the game. Less than a minute after entering the game, Clark left the crease to play a puck but misjudged the bounce off of the boards. The puck squirted out in front of the crease and sophomore forward Ondrej Psenicka deposited it in the open net to give Cornell a 4-0 lead.
The Red preserved the shutout down the stretch of the game. Shane’s 21 save shutout was his third shutout of the season and the fifth of his career. It was the second time Shane had shutout the Bobcats after doing so on the road last February.
Cornell will look for a weekend sweep on Saturday night against Princeton.