After a tumultuous opening to conference play, No. 6 men’s hockey will get little rest before departing for perhaps its most grueling test of its season –– the infamous Dartmouth-Harvard road trip.
“We’re going to play against two very good teams, and the last thing you want to do is get in your own head about having the longest [bus] rides in between the two games,” said sophomore forward Jonathan Castagna. “No matter where we’re going, it’s always a lot of fun. So you try to take that more to heart than the circumstances of travel.”
After embarking on a long ride up to Hanover, New Hampshire, Cornell (3-0-1, 1-0-1 ECAC) will have no easy feat ahead of them. No. 17 Dartmouth is the battle on deck for Friday night, and it should be nothing short of that.
“They’re playing well. They only graduated a couple guys from a team that we barely beat in the ECAC semifinals last year,” said head coach Mike Schafer ’86.
The Big Green (4-0-0, 3-0-0 ECAC) will undoubtedly seek revenge after Cornell’s improbable comeback in Lake Placid on Mar. 22, 2024. Dartmouth was up 3-1 going into the third period before the Red scored five unanswered in the final 20 minutes to claim a 6-3 victory. The win sent the Red to the ECAC title game, which it went on to win.
A key cog in Dartmouth’s run to Lake Placid last season was its goaltender, Cooper Black, who stands at 6’8” and amassed a .910 save percentage in his sophomore season. Black signed a two-year contract with the NHL’s Florida Panthers after last season’s end, allowing Emmett Croteau –– a sophomore transfer from Clarkson –– and sophomore Roan Clarke to battle for a spot between the pipes.
So far, both goaltenders have started two games each –– all Big Green wins. Clarke and Croteau have posted a staggering .941 combined save percentage. Donning green and yellow as a member of Clarkson in 2023-2024, Croteau played 28:55 and allowed five goals in a 7-2 loss to Cornell on Feb. 3, 2024.
The Big Green are also missing a crucial piece of its offense in third-year forward Luke Haymes, who has been out with an injury and hasn’t yet played in a game. Haymes was a member of the 2023-2024 All-ECAC First Team, tallying 18 goals and 36 points as a sophomore.
“We need to go up and we need to play a certain way against Dartmouth,” Schafer said. “We made some adjustments last year, and in Lake Placid it didn’t work out for us early on, but then we got going in the second half of the game.”
Dartmouth is off to its best start in recent memory –– its 4-0 start is the program’s first since the 1957-1958 season. It knocked off then-No. 15 Quinnipiac last Friday before handling Princeton 5-1 on Saturday.
“We’re expecting a close game,” Castagna said. “It’s never a blowout when we play these guys, let alone anyone in our league.”
There has always been parity in the ECAC, and the most recent edition of the U.S. College Hockey Online poll has begun to recognize it. Four ECAC teams were ranked in Tuesday’s poll. Aside from Cornell and Dartmouth at No. 6 and No. 17 respectively, Quinnipiac and Harvard rounded out the field at No. 19 and No. 20.
“Now having [Dartmouth] ranked and a couple other teams ranked in our league is really cool, and it’s an exciting year for us to be able to play in a league that’s got such high standards for this year,” Castagna said.
The Red will drive further east after Friday’s game to take on archrival No. 20 Harvard (2-1-0, 2-1-0 ECAC), which has earned its first national ranking since early last season. Harvard also topped Princeton and Quinnipiac over the weekend.
“All four games we played against them last year [were] close,” Schafer said. “So they’ll probably be better, but we’ll be better. We’re a better hockey team, and for us right now, it’s just about getting through these injuries.”
The injury bug has swept through the Cornell roster, as the Red has most notably missed sophomore defenseman George Fegaras all season. Senior forward Ondrej Psenicka — who was injured in the series against North Dakota two weeks ago and missed the recent bouts with Yale and Brown — is questionable entering this weekend’s games.
In net for the Crimson has been Aku Koskenvuo, who has posted a .931 save percentage so far this season. Last year, the Red scored four on Koskenvuo in game one of the ECAC semifinals, forcing Harvard to yank him from that game and the series-clinching game two.
The Red will make its return to Bright-Landry Hockey Center — tabbed as “Lynah East” by many hockey fans — for the first time since its 2-0 shutout win over Harvard on Jan. 27, 2024. Cornell is preparing for a contentious matchup not to be taken lightly.
“It’s always fun to play them. Whether it’s home or away, we get a lot of fans there in their place, [and] their fans bring the heat as well,” Castagna said. “I’m expecting a really fun one against them. That rivalry is something that you look forward to all year.”