“We gotta get a sweep,” said head coach Mike Schafer ’86.
It doesn’t get much more straightforward than that.
Men’s hockey is set to travel to the Capital District this weekend for its final series of the regular season. Cornell will take on Union on Friday before wrapping up the regular season at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on Saturday.
Cornell has won three of its last four games in regulation, amassing nine out of a possible 12 points. Still, it has barely budged in the ECAC standings.
Atop the ECAC, Quinnipiac (46 points) and Clarkson (42 points) have clinched first-round byes. The battle for the final two top-four spots in the conference is just that — a battle.
Four points separate four teams fighting tooth and nail for two spots. Colgate and Union each have 37 points while Cornell and Dartmouth round out the group with 33. If the season ended on Friday morning, Cornell would be the No. 6 seed and host St. Lawrence — the No. 11 seed — at Lynah Rink next weekend.
The season does not end on Friday morning, however. Union plays both Colgate and Cornell this weekend, setting up perhaps the most dramatic finale possible.
“We need to beat Union on Friday night. That's our job,” Schafer said. “We obviously lost to them [in Ithaca]. … I think we gave up a whole lot, but there [are] a lot of guys that were missing out of that lineup. We're a little bit of a different team,”
The numbers are not in Cornell’s favor. With it being given a less than one percent chance of securing the No. 3 seed, No. 4 is the most feasible goal. Still, the Red’s chances of securing that spot are just 14 percent. But despite Cornell technically trailing behind Dartmouth in the standings, the Big Green is listed as having just a 13 percent chance of the No. 4 seed.
Here’s why: Dartmouth plays Yale and Brown this weekend, two teams with no stake in the top-four battle. Six points would undoubtedly help the Big Green get closer to the top-four, but those matchups don’t have quite as much stake in the game.
Queue Cornell — the opportunity to play Union, a team ahead of it in the standings, is a golden one. If the Red wins on Friday, it stays in the running for a first-round bye. If Cornell loses, the best it can finish is fifth.
“[It’s a] really big game,” said senior forward Sullivan Mack. “[We’re] expecting a battle.”
But after Friday’s games, there’s a chance that the Red’s slim path to the No. 4 seed can widen. If on Friday Cornell beats Union in regulation, RPI beats Colgate and Brown beats Dartmouth, Cornell’s chances of the No. 4 seed increase from 14 percent to 64 percent.
Of course, that is contingent on three “upsets” on paper. However, Dartmouth has only won two of its last seven games, while Colgate has dropped three of its last four. RPI is fresh off a decent weekend split that included a hard-fought 2-1 win over Dartmouth, while Brown has won eight of its last 12 games.
The numbers are chaotic and improbable. But not impossible. The numbers don’t even guarantee a bye — only make a small chance a little less small.
The Red, first, must take care of its own business.
“We need to come out and just take care of our own matters and not scoreboard watch. Not do anything else but focus on Union on Friday and then get ready to play RPI on Saturday,” Schafer said.
Other results aside, Friday’s game at Union is a tall task. Led by Brandon Buhr’s hat trick, the Garnet Chargers handed the Red a decisive 4-1 loss at Lynah Rink on Feb. 8. Union’s lethal power play delivered the game-winning goal, something Cornell has learned from and takes with it into the weekend.
“The thing I was most impressed with was their power play. I think that just winning the special teams battle is really important,” Mack said. “They compete hard, so we [have] to match that and exceed it when we can.”
Cornell was sporting a relatively depleted lineup the last time it faced the Garnet Chargers, as freshman forward Charlie Major and junior forward Sean Donaldson missed that game and have since returned. Sophomore forward Jonathan Castagna got hurt in the third period of that contest, and is a possibility to return this weekend, although Schafer and his staff do not want to rush his return and risk further injury ahead of the playoffs.
“We're a little bit of a different team, and just need to come [out] and play hard,” Schafer said. “And it's funny, [to] not worry about what the end result is and how we get to where we want to get to. We just have to play Union, and that's it.”
Cornell takes on Union at 7 p.m. Friday in Schenectady, New York, before heading to Troy at 7 p.m. Saturday to face RPI. All action this weekend will be streamed live on ESPN+.
Jane McNally is a senior editor on the 143rd editorial board and was the sports editor on the 142nd editorial board. She is a member of the class of 2026 in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. You can follow her on X @JaneMcNally_ and reach her at jmcnally@cornellsun.com.
