Twice men’s hockey was down on Friday night, and twice it crawled back.
But that wasn’t enough.
Cornell (16-5-5, 11-5-3 ECAC) blew a late third-period lead after coming from behind twice earlier in the game, ultimately falling in overtime, 4-3, at the hands of Clarkson (16-14-1, 10-8-1 ECAC).
The tough, game-tying goal with 26 seconds left by the Golden Knights came after two straight minor penalties taken by Cornell in the final 6:30 of the contest, capping off a game riddled with discipline issues on both sides.
The loss ends Cornell’s unbeaten streak at 14 games and its road unbeaten streak at 10. Cornell dropped down to 16th in PairWise –– a precarious position to be in regarding an at-large NCAA tournament bid.
The single point acquired in the overtime loss, however, clinches Cornell a first-round bye for the ECAC tournament. Cornell will skip the first round and will host a home quarterfinal series on March 15-17.
After two relatively disciplined contests against Yale and Brown last week, Clarkson’s penalty-riddled influence consumed Cornell early on Friday –– freshman forward Jonathan Castagna was nabbed for boarding 1:40 into the game, which was consequently reviewed and deemed a major penalty by the referees.
The ensuing kill embodied a major theme of the opening frame –– the Red fended off the Clarkson power play unit, blocking shots and intercepting passes en route to a successful kill. Castagna was sent back to the box a few minutes later for holding, but Cornell was up for the task once again. Junior goaltender Ian Shane made a couple of show-stopping saves, including a flashy glove save that robbed a Clarkson skater point-blank.
Both teams showcased strong defensive skills in the first period, starkly different from Cornell’s 7-2 dismantling of Clarkson on Feb. 3 at Lynah Rink. The two goaltenders dueled during the first 20 minutes, as Clarkson’s Austen Roden stopped nine Cornell shots while Shane batted away eight.
Cornell had a late opportunity to get on the board when Clarkson was nabbed for a tripping penalty. Though Cornell generated some prime chances –– including a shot by freshman forward Jake Kraft that rattled off the pipe with 25 seconds left in the period –– the game remained scoreless heading into the first intermission.
All of Cornell’s recent power play struggles were forgotten after Friday, as the Red’s man-advantage margin was an exception ⅔. Sophomore forward Dalton Bancroft’s two power-play tallies mark Cornell’s first game with multiple extra-man goals since Dec. 30 against Arizona State.
It wasn’t until the second period that the offense picked up, as both teams began to take more risks in their attacking zones. The Golden Knights outshot the Red in the middle frame by a 7-5 margin.
Eight minutes into the period, following a strong offensive zone shift by Cornell, Clarkson ultimately cashed in first. Ryan Taylor ripped a hard, one-timer slapshot past Shane to give the Golden Knights the lead, marking the second straight contest where Cornell surrendered the game’s first goal.
However, the Red retaliated quickly. Just 1:46 after Clarkson’s tally, Cornell stormed back to tie the game. Junior forward Kyle Penney drove hard to the crease, collecting his own rebound and tucking it past Clarkson’s Austen Roden for the game-tying goal.
While Cornell continued to fight hard to get a lead of its own, Clarkson capitalized with just over three minutes to go on a bizarre deflection.
Facing a daunting situation of trailing after 40 minutes, Cornell was gifted a chance when a Clarkson penalty late in the second put the Red back on the power play.
Bancroft, perhaps Cornell’s most lethal player over the second half, was the hero. Bancroft wristed a hard shot that beat Roden cleanly with 25 seconds left in the frame, squashing Clarkson’s momentum heading into the final period.
Without missing a beat, an early Clarkson minor penalty in the third gave Cornell its third man-advantage opportunity.
And, just like he did in the waning seconds of the second period, Bancroft lit the lamp on the power play. Usually positioned on the left circle for one-timers, Bancroft drove to the net and collected a loose puck in the crease to give Cornell its first lead of the game just 2:25 into the third.
That lead would hold for much of the third, as Cornell suppressed any substantial counterattacks from the Golden Knights. Shane, whose catalog of saves on Friday included an outstanding, point-blank glove save late in the third, came up big when needed in the final frame.
It was with 6:30 left in the third that the Red began to unwind, taking two consecutive minor penalties to give Clarkson momentum in its offensive zone. The Golden Knights pulled Roden for the extra attacker and found the back of the net with just 26 seconds left in regulation.
Clarkson carried that momentum into the overtime period, where it dominated possession over the Red and eventually notched the game-winner. A blatant giveaway by a Cornell defenseman in the Clarkson offensive zone allowed Matthieu Gosselin to fire an uncontested shot past Shane, snapping Cornell’s unbeaten streak and dealing it a severe blow in the rankings.
The collapse was partially attributed to Cornell’s dip in the faceoff dot. With seven minutes left in the third period and up until the game-winner, Clarkson won all but one faceoff taken –– an uncharacteristic slump by Cornell, which entered Friday’s game as the fourth-best faceoff team in the nation with a 54.6 percent conversion rate.
On the outside looking into at-large bid contention for the NCAA tournament, the Red faces high stakes heading into its final three matchups.
Cornell will look to rebound quickly, as it takes on St. Lawrence at 7 p.m. Saturday night at Appleton Arena in Canton, NY.