This story has been updated.
The weekend prior, No. 6 men’s hockey defeated top-10 North Dakota seemingly with ease, trailing only once over two games and for just a few minutes.
The offense poured on against a stout defensive team, and the Red was perfect on the penalty kill against the nation’s top power play unit at the time.
Then Yale came to town, kicking off conference play for the Red and giving Cornell its first true test of its grit. And its first taste of disappointment.
A nail-biter of a game ended in disappointment for the Red, falling in a shootout to Yale and walking away with just one point. Cornell mustered 33 shots on goal but was largely stifled by Yale goaltender Jack Stark.
“I’m really disappointed with the leadership on our team,” said head coach Mike Schafer ’86.
Both of Yale’s goals came on the power play, as the Bulldogs cashed in on two out of their three man-up opportunities. The Red outshot the Bulldogs 15-1 in the final 25 minutes of the game but couldn’t find the back of the net.
The game started in triumphant fashion. Off the opening faceoff, junior forward Dalton Bancroft was fed the puck and emerged one-on-one against Yale goaltender Jack Stark. Bancroft swiftly fired the puck under the glove of Stark for the game’s first goal just eight seconds after the opening faceoff.
The score marks the fastest goal to start a game in the Schafer era, and two seconds shy of the fastest in Cornell hockey history.
“I think we scored early and I think we thought it was going to be easy, but it wasn’t,” Schafer said. “It was a frustrating night.”
Cornell dominated possession in the opening frame but failed to get much going offensively after the early goal. And after a perfect weekend on the penalty kill against North Dakota last week, Cornell allowed a power play goal on its first opportunity.
Yale’s lone goal of the frame came after junior forward Sean Donaldson was sent to the box for contact to the head. Yale’s Zach Wagnon displayed good patience before dishing a puck to Donovan Frias, who banked it in at the far post past senior goaltender Ian Shane.
Frias wasn’t marked by one of the Cornell penalty killers, as Schafer said postgame that both defenseman “fell asleep” on the first kill.
Around eight minutes into the period, a couple of Cornell penalties in succession dug it into a hole and led to Yale’s go-ahead score. A slashing penalty on sophomore forward Tyler Catalano followed by a holding-the-stick call on sophomore forward Jonathan Castagna led to 1:05 of 5-on-3 time for the Bulldogs.
“[The decision-making] on the 5-on-3 [was] just flat out brutal,” Schafer said.
Frias notched his second of the game on a play that closely mimicked Yale’s first tally, cleaning up a rebound at the back post after a pass from Wagnon. Cornell challenged the goal for offsides on the zone entry, but the challenge was unsuccessful and the goal stood.
“He’s offsides. You can see it on the video clear that the guy is across the line before the puck was in [the zone],” Schafer said.
The Bulldogs looked threatening up a goal, holding pressure in Cornell’s defensive zone and testing Shane in rapid succession. The Red struggled to match the pace of the Bulldogs for nearly five minutes after Frias’ goal and overall struggled to find much rhythm offensively throughout the game.
One shot was ultimately the difference –– senior defenseman Hank Kempf fired a wrist shot from the point that was masterfully deflected by senior forward Jack O’Leary, beating Stark and knotting the game up. Despite succumbing to Yale’s stellar second-period play, the teams entered the locker room all tied up once again.
Cornell came out much stronger in the final frame, cranking two shots off the pipe and side of the net while Stark was out of position. Misfiring a point-blank shot from the slot was Donaldson, emblematic of the haste the Red was playing with looking to take the lead.
Schafer opted not to review a couple of close chances for the Red in the third period due to the loss of his challenge earlier in the game.
“[It was] frustrating in the fact that I thought we had three [goals] in the back of the net,” Schafer said. “I didn’t want to challenge it. … If I challenge the next one where the puck is in the net [and it doesn’t go our way] we take a penalty.”
Quickly, Cornell ran away with the shot on goal differential, opening the period with five shots on goal in the first eight minutes of the third, leading by a margin as large as 30-9.
A scrum midway through the periods dealt matching hitting after the whistle penalties to sophomore defenseman Ben Robertson and Yale’s Ronan O’Donnell, but neither team was able to find the back of the net in the 4-on-4.
Cornell garnered multiple high-danger chances in the third, but none went its way. The Red’s offensive pressure limited any threats offensively from the Bulldogs, as Yale did not register a shot in the third period.
On the other hand, Cornell fired 12 shots in the final period, all of which were swallowed up by Stark. A scoreless period later, the teams readied for 3-on-3 overtime.
Shane opened up overtime with his first save in nearly 30 minutes of gameplay. Freshman forward Charlie Major followed it up with a prime chance of his own, approaching Stark with speed and forcing a nifty save. Yale dominated possession in the five-minute overtime period, forcing Cornell on its heels and stuck in its defensive zone.
Yale’s possession game successfully kept Cornell off the board, but the Bulldogs weren’t able to beat Shane either in the five minutes, prompting a shootout to decide a winner.
“I didn’t like it last year, I don’t like it this year,” Schafers said of the shootout. “We outshoot a team 33-10 and then it goes into a skills competition.”
It took one Yale goal in the shootout and three Cornell misses to ice the game for the Red. Though the final decision counts as a tie, the result deals Cornell a setback to start ECAC play.
The Red will look to earn its first conference win as it hosts Brown tomorrow night at 7 p.m. at Lynah Rink.