ECAC Hockey Names Cornell’s Mitch Vanderlaan Player of the Week
ITHACA, N.Y. — ECAC Hockey announced Tuesday that Cornell sophomore forward Mitch Vanderlaan has been named the league’s Player of the Week after he recorded three goals in the Big Red’s Saturday win at Yale.
Vanderlaan became the first player from Cornell to record a hat trick in a span of 185 games, dating back to Tyler Roeszler’s three goals against Colgate on Jan. 22, 2011. He is also now the Big Red’s first player to record five goals in the first five games of a season since Blake Gallagher did so during the 2009-2010 season.
Vanderlaan opened the scoring against the Bulldogs in the game’s fourth minute, taking a pass from freshman forward Noah Bauld and snapping a shot into the net off the far post. His second goal made the score 3-0 early in the second period when he found space in the slot and took a pass from Patrick McCarron, blasting a slap shot over the glove of Yale goalie Patrick Spano. Vanderlaan then completed the hat trick later in the frame, crashing the net to poke in a rebound off a two-on-two rush created by Anthony Angello and Yanni Kaldis.
This is the second ECAC Hockey weekly honor garnered by the Big Red this season, after Kaldis was named the rookie of the week on Nov. 8. Vanderlaan is Cornell’s first league player of the week since Mitch Gillam fetched the honor Nov. 24, 2015 after consecutive shutouts against Yale and Brown.
Cornell will become the last Division I team in the nation to play its first home games this weekend when it hosts defending ECAC Hockey champion Quinnipiac at 7 p.m. Friday and Ivy League rival Princeton at 7 p.m. Saturday. Both games will be broadcast on Ivy League Digital Network, while Friday’s game against the #4/6 Bobcats will also be simulcast on ESPN3.
