After securing six points last weekend, No. 19 men’s hockey will close out its four-game homestand with a pair of upstate New York foes.
Friday’s matchup will pose one of the Red’s most daunting tests yet — No. 20 Union, which just recently debuted in the USCHO.com poll for the first time this season.
“Having a four-game home stand here, you just want to take one game at a time,” said head coach Casey Jones ’90. “We’ve got a game on Friday that’s really important for us. It's who I think is one of the better teams in the league [and] a chance to get them at home.”
Cornell will take the ice for its final two games at Lynah Rink until the new year.
“We just talked about, you know, if you're going to be a good team, you better take care of home ice,”Jones said. “You want to make sure that you have success on your home ice and win as many games as possible.”
The Red will face Union on Friday night before concluding its homestand with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Major Day-to-Day
Sophomore forward Charlie Major missed both games against Brown and Yale last weekend with an injury Jones deemed as “day-to-day.” He could return to the lineup this weekend.
“Nothing's long term here,” Jones said. “I think he's trending in the right direction here. … Fingers crossed. He’s an important player for us.”
Major battled injury for a portion of his freshman season, missing eight games in 2024-2025. Prior to his injury this season, he was playing on a line with freshman forward Aiden Long centered by junior forward Jonathan Castagna.
Due to Major missing last weekend’s games, Jones made a couple of tweaks in the lines — one being the placing of freshman forward Caton Ryan onto the left wing of a line with freshman forward Gio DiGiulian and senior forward Nick DeSantis. Ryan replaced junior forward Luke Devlin, who was moved up to create a brooding physical third line with junior forward Tyler Catalano and senior forward Winter Wallace.
Both of those lines — technically the third and fourth lines — were noticeable against Brown and Yale. But should Major slot back into the lineup, more tweaking will be done.
“I think we're still looking for lines that get on the ice and have consistency with their shifts and offensive chances,” Jones said. “We’re still in the infancy stages of finding chemistry with lines and who plays better on a big physical line versus a skill line, a skating line. So I'm sure we'll have a couple of changes this weekend.”
Ice Updates
An issue with the Lynah Rink ice caused a 62-minute delay against Yale on Saturday. The third period did not start until after 9:30 p.m. after extensive maintenance — including two runs of the zamboni and the use of a fire extinguisher.
Jones said that the ice “got thin” in some areas, namely the spot where the “ECAC Hockey” logo sits beside the left blue line. The logo, which is not painted but pressed onto the ice, was coming up to the surface.
Extra precaution has been taken throughout the week to ensure that a lengthy game delay doesn’t happen again, including extra flooding of the ice and cancellation of non hockey-related activities, like physical education classes.
Both the men’s and women’s varsity teams have been practicing at Lynah Rink this week with little issue, and Jones said he noticed a “significant difference” in the ice after Tuesday evening’s practice.
“I think it's just a really good decision by the administration — it's tough for [women’s hockey head coach] Doug [Derraugh]'s team and my team to take a break in terms of our development,” Jones said. “So just restricting some other people on the ice [is] probably a great idea for us. … Things are going in the right direction, for sure.”
Scouting the Opponents
Union (8-2-1, 2-2-0 ECAC) heads to Ithaca red-hot — the Garnet Chargers are coming off a sweep of two Hockey East terms, outscoring the University of Massachusetts-Lowell and Vermont by a 13-1 margin.
“We hope to continue to be good on the defensive side of the puck,” Jones said. “We're playing a really good offensive team in Union here this Friday. They’ll put a ton of pressure on us.”
Jones will spot a familiar face on the opposing bench — Union head coach Josh Hauge was on Jones’ staff at Clarkson for seven seasons, including the last three as an associate coach under Jones.
“I watched them play, and Josh is doing a good job with that program,” Jones said. “They have good speed, they get good depth in their lines, and they get up and go. So it'd be be a fun game to play in.”
Union’s top scorer is Brandon Buhr, whose 10 goals are good for fourth-most in the nation. Buhr is also a familiar face for Jones — Buhr was originally recruited by Jones to Clarkson and played in 10 games for the Golden Knights in 2022-2023. He eventually left alongside Hauge when Hauge took the head coaching position at Union.
Union’s offensive flair is what has been most notable, but the Garnet Chargers have also gotten solid goaltending from Cameron Korpi, a sophomore transfer from the University of Michigan. Korpi’s .927 save percentage ranks top-10 in the NCAA.
The final opponent to play at Lynah Rink in 2025 is RPI, whose results thus far have been very up and down. The Engineers are led by a brand new head coach in Eric Lang — who made the switch from American International College after the college announced it would be moving down to Division II.
Lang certainly created change at RPI. The Engineers have a total of 19 newcomers — 10 freshmen, nine transfers and two graduate students. RPI is led by its freshman goaltender, Nate Krawchuck, and its leading scorer, Filip Sitar — a Slovenian sophomore transfer from the University of Connecticut.
“They're going to come hard, right? That's [Lang’s] MO as a coach,” Jones said. “I coached against him when he was at AIC — they'll play the right way, they'll play hard.”
The Engineers’ record is deceiving due to its tough schedule. Ranked matchups against Boston College (then-No. 9), Providence (then-No. 14) and a two-game series with Minnesota State (then-No. 20) are four of RPI’s nine losses — but the Engineers do boast wins against the newly ranked Union, Clarkson (on the road) and Hockey East opponent Lowell.
“It's a tough league, and it's tough to win on the road, so you want to win at home,” Jones said. “And the old adage is that winning at home and splitting the road puts you in a really good place. … It’s gonna be a challenge this weekend, for sure.”
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.
