First, two goals were scored in the final 1:31 of the game.
Then, an overtime goal was disallowed.
And, to cap it all off, a shootout went seven rounds.
Men’s hockey (16-5-6, 11-5-4 ECAC) clawed back from a 2-0 deficit in the final minute of the game to ultimately knot with St. Lawrence (10-17-5, 9-8-3 ECAC), but the 2-2 tie was so much more beneath the surface — a character comeback staged by the Red was the difference between getting zero points and getting two.
Cornell entered the contest with a chip on its shoulder, facing the possibility of being swept for the first time since Nov. 17 and 18 against Quinnipiac and Princeton.
On the other hand, after being shut down by Colgate the night before, St. Lawrence had much to prove, gasping for air in the tight race for the final two ECAC tournament first-round byes.
The Saints’ desperation was evident from the get-go — right out of the gate, the Saints were rattling off shots left and right. Junior goaltender Ian Shane was busy in the opening frame, making 13 stops.
The first power play chance for either team came around seven minutes in, when St. Lawrence’s Ty Naaykens was nabbed for tripping. The Red mustered just one shot on goal, attributable to the high-pressure defense instilled by the Saints’ penalty killers.
A major theme of the game ended up being just that — St. Lawrence’s defense was suffocating, keeping Cornell attackers to the outsides and blocking a myriad of shots. The Saints’ skaters blocked 19 shots in the game, almost 30 percent of the shots the Red attempted.
A Cornell penalty in the latter half of the period was ultimately costly. The St. Lawrence man-advantage unit was lethal — in the dwindling moments of the power play, the Saints beat Shane on a hard wrist shot to the far side of the net, marking the third-straight contest where Cornell surrendered the game’s first goal.
Another unsuccessful Cornell power play and a missed breakaway chance by sophomore forward Dalton Bancroft closed the curtain on the opening frame.
Cornell’s woes persisted early in the second, when an undisciplined tripping penalty by junior forward Ondrej Psenicka was taken, putting the Saints back on the power play.
Despite converting at a 16.4 percent clip entering Saturday night’s contest, St. Lawrence looked stellar on the man-advantage. To boot, Cornell’s penalty kill appeared disorganized, struggling to clear the puck from its defensive zone and allowing the Saints elongated offensive shifts.
This time, Drake Burgin found the back of the net, doubling St. Lawrence’s lead and digging the Red into an even deeper hole.
Cornell looked uninspired from then on — battling for points and good positioning in the Pairwise, the Red couldn’t solve the stifling St. Lawrence defense. And when it did, Cornell’s shots were often met with the shinpads of the Saints’ skaters. St. Lawrence’s ability to block shots propelled it to a 2-0 lead heading into the final period, leading the Red in shots on goal by a 24-18 margin.
The majority of the third period saw much of the same. Cornell continued its dullness on the man-advantage, finishing the game 0/5 on the power play. Though Cornell upped its shot total in the third from 18 through 40 minutes to 32 through 60, St. Lawrence’s Ben Kraws had an answer to almost everything.
Keyword: almost.
After Cornell took another penalty with around five minutes left in the game, things seemed bleak. But the Red’s first kill of the night came at the perfect time, the team energized as Shane was pulled for the extra attacker with around two minutes to go.
A shot from the blue line was deflected masterfully by Psenicka to cut the deficit to 2-1. With 1:31 left, Cornell had time and space to work with as Shane once again skated to the bench. St. Lawrence’s feverish attempts to clear the puck from its defensive zone were no match for Cornell’s drive, as the Red contained possession in the waning seconds.
Time had dwindled all the way down to seven seconds remaining when Cornell finally found the equalizer — it was senior forward Gabriel Seger, beating Kraws on a clean wrist shot to silence Appleton Arena and launch the game into overtime.
The nail-biting nature of the game didn’t conclude there when, after freshman forward Jonathan Castagna was robbed by Kraws with the paddle, Bancroft subsequently took a costly penalty in overtime. The Saints dominated in its offensive zone on the man-advantage as the Red struggled to keep up.
The arena erupted when St. Lawrence’s Justin Paul buried what appeared to be the game-winning goal as Bancroft left the penalty box. Unbeknownst to the Saints, head coach Mike Schafer ’86 had been repeatedly calling for the referee’s attention, citing a missed offsides call prior to the goal.
Sure enough, Schafer’s eye was correct and the goal was disallowed. The 2-2 score held to force a shootout, but not before Shane flourished — the netminder made eight stops in the five-minute overtime period alone to keep the Red in the game.
Chaos ensued even after 65 minutes were up. The shootout between the Red and the Saints spanned seven rounds as opposed to the usual three, prompting multiple Cornell skaters’ first appearances in the shootout this season.
Bancroft, freshman forward Ryan Walsh and freshman defenseman Ben Robertson all converted for the Red through six rounds. St. Lawrence matched the Red’s numbers through six.
In the seventh round, Shane made a stellar pad stop to give Cornell the chance to win. Junior defenseman Hank Kempf was called to the ice, the game on his stick as he approached the net with speed.
Kempf fired it through Kraws’ five-hole to clinch the shootout victory and extra ECAC point, a triumphant end to what had been a rollercoaster of a hockey game.
The Red takes three out of a possible six points from its final road trip of the regular season — an overtime loss and a tie. Colgate garnered identical results in its games this weekend, leaving Cornell’s four-point lead over the third-place Raiders intact.
Out-of-town results also bumped Cornell up one slot in Pairwise, as the Red are now in a tie for 15th — barely toeing the cutoff line.
Cornell returns to Lynah Rink next weekend for its final regular season games. The Red will take on Union on Friday, March 1 before celebrating its seniors on Saturday, March 2 against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Puck drop for both games is slated for 7 p.m.