This story has been updated.
Ten years ago, men’s hockey dueled Harvard in a quarterfinal series at Lynah Rink. Cornell cruised to two easy victories, outscoring the Crimson 8-1 across both games.
History has a way of repeating itself, but not always. Friday’s game, a 4-3 win for Cornell, was anything but easy.
In what was bound to be a memorable game from the start, the on-ice product didn’t disappoint.
Cornell jumped out to a 4-0 lead, but saw it dwindle away as Harvard regained its footing. Junior goaltender Ian Shane was outstanding for the entire 60 minutes, making clutch saves left and right, including four in the final minute of the game.
“[It was a] good first 30 minutes,” said head coach Mike Schafer ’86. “[We] know we can be better than we were tonight.”
Friday’s contest marked the Red’s first win over the Crimson at Lynah Rink in over six years.
“[It’s] a little bit of a weight off the shoulders,” Shane said. “To get the [win] at home, it’s pretty special. I want to do it again tomorrow.”
While the Red hammered the offensive gas pedal early, perhaps more impressive was its defensive structure, anchored by Shane. The Ivy League Player of the Year and All-ECAC first team selection made 22 saves, including a handful of stops on point-blank opportunities, en route to the victory.
“He had a couple big saves right at the end. He was strong tonight,” Schafer said.
It was a picture-esque start from Cornell, easily mitigating Harvard’s speed with its unrelenting forecheck. While Harvard got the first two shots of the contest, the Red retaliated and outshot the Crimson 10-4 in the opening frame, but trailed 25-23 in the game overall.
Harvard goaltender Aku Koskenvuo was riding a shutout of Princeton the week prior, but a second shutout bid was spoiled on the very first shot he faced.
As chants of “Harvard sucks” engulfed the arena, junior forward Jack O’Leary collected a loose puck around Koskenvuo’s crease and buried it home. O’Leary now has goals in back-to-back games after a seven-game drought.
With Lynah just about ready to explode, Cornell didn’t let up. The Red were dictating the pace of play, breaking up Crimson passes and firing on all cylinders.
“It was really fun. … The Lynah Faithful make it so much fun,” Shane said. “It’s unbelievable to get one Harvard home game a year, but to have the chance at three is a dream come true.”
Cornell’s aggressive start was rewarded once again when junior forward Sullivan Mack cleaned up his own rebound to double the Cornell lead with 7:36 to go in the first.
Before the first-period horn, Cornell tacked on one more –– with just 38 seconds left in the period, freshman forward Ryan Walsh snuck a wrister beneath the glove of Koskenvuo. Walsh’s wingers, sophomore forward Dalton Bancroft and junior forward Ondrej Psenicka, notched the assists on the third Cornell goal that sucked the wind out of Harvard’s sails.
Cornell earned a 5-on-3 advantage not long into the second period. The Red’s power play looked pristine, moving the puck well on the outside and slicing pucks through the Harvard killers.
One abnormal bounce proved to be costly for the Crimson –– sophomore forward Nick DeSantis, trying to connect with a teammate across the zone, sauced a puck that ultimately ricocheted off of the defenseman’s stick and right past Koskenvuo, giving the Red a 4-0 lead.
From there, though, a fire was lit beneath the Crimson. Harvard outshot Cornell 12-5 in the second period, ultimately cashing in after a successful penalty kill later in the period. Joe Miller buried a rebound past Shane to cut into Cornell’s lead, prompting a boatload of boos from the Lynah Faithful.
“We didn’t play the way we wanted to play for 60 [minutes],” Schafer said. “We had the opportunity to make it a 5-0 game, and we didn’t. … We need to stay out of the box against these guys.”
Five minutes into the third, Harvard quieted the sold-out crowd when Casey Severo, centering Harvard’s top line, snuck the puck through the legs of Shane to halve the deficit.
“I think we shot ourselves in the foot and [we got] a little bit complacent for the last 40 minutes,” Shane said.
Harvard made it a one-goal game with less than seven minutes to go in the game, as Miller pulled off an eye-opening move and deked his way through the Cornell defense, tucking it past Shane to finish it off.
Lynah Rink held its breath for the final five minutes as Cornell held on for dear life. Each Shane save seemed to prompt an even larger relieved cheer from the crowd.
“I just wanted to keep doing my job,” Shane said. “I knew the guys were going to limit their chances in front of me and [I] just wanted to be there in case anything got through.”
Harvard pulled Koskenvuo with just under two minutes to go, and Harvard was unrelenting. Shane was forced to make four saves –– each more impressive than the last –– in the final minute of the game.
As the horn sounded on the game, post-whistle scrums ensued as a result of the long-brewing tensions between the rivals.
Cornell is now one win away from advancing to Lake Placid for the ECAC semifinals.
“We grew a little bit from our [2022] Colgate experience [during] my freshman year, where we got the first win and then we ran into a little bit of a plateau,” Shane said, citing the 2022 ECAC quarterfinal round where Colgate upset Cornell in the best-of-three. “I think tomorrow we just [have] to come out with even bigger fire and play a full 60 minutes the way that we played the first 20 minutes tonight and not really think too far ahead.”
“Just stay in the moment,” Schafer said, relaying the message he told his team after the win.
The Red will look to sweep Harvard tomorrow night, as game two is slated for 7 p.m at Lynah Rink.