MARQUETTE, Mich. – The special teams were just special enough for the Cornell men’s hockey team on Saturday night.
After entering the weekend last in the country in combined special teams percentage, the Big Red used three power-play goals by Alec McCrea, Morgan Barron and Michael Regush to take control and eventually ride out a 3-2 victory over Northern Michigan on Saturday night at Berry Events Center.
“It’s a good road win with some of the guys we have out,” said Mike Schafer ’86, the Jay R. Bloom ’77 Head Coach of Men’s Hockey at Cornell. “We had a pretty shorthanded lineup tonight.”
Specifically, two of the teams top-four defensemen didn’t dress. That meant huge minutes for McCrea, senior Matt Nuttle, junior Yanni Kaldis and sophomore Cody Haiskanen. Two more forwards that started the game departed early due to injury.
The victory completed a weekend sweep in non-league play and is the fourth straight for Cornell (4-2), which was ranked 17th in the nation in the most recent USCHO.com poll. The Big Red has never trailed in those four games, and it handed Northern Michigan (3-7) its first sweep at home since Dec. 9-10, 2016.
All five of the game’s goals came on the power play, with Cornell’s three-goal performance on the man advantage marking the program’s first since Feb. 4, 2017 against Rensselaer – a span of 51 games.
McCrea’s goal came late in a power-play chance in just the game’s sixth minute. Max Andreev made a nice play to gain the NMU zone and draw defenders to the middle before dishing back to Brenden Locke. He quickly set up McCrea for a shot from the top of the left circle, which found a way through the legs of goaltender Atte Tolvanen.
About 10 minutes later, Cornell found itself on its first two-man advantage of the season. It took just 12 seconds for Kaldis to tee up Barron for a rocket from the top of the right circle that led to his team-leading fourth goal of the year.
But while a two-goal lead for visitors was established, so too was the parade to the penalty box. The Big Red missed a golden opportunity to blow the game open early in the second period when it failed to connect on a five-minute power play after a major penalty. Northern Michigan then got on the board with Troy Loggins’ one-timed blast past Matthew Galajda’s blocker with 3:21 left in the second to cut the hosts’ deficit to 2-1.
“That five-minute power play killed us,” Schafer said. “We were lackadaisical, and I think we didn’t get possession in zone for the entire five minutes. It was a waste of time and energy.”
Regush then scored for a third straight game to restore Cornell’s two-goal lead. It came on a rebound kicked out after Mitch Vanderlaan’s shot from the left circle. It also proved to be the winner after Loggins’ second goal of the night led to anxious moments down the stretch for the Big Red.
But Galajda made 24 saves to earn the win, the last coming on Joseph Nardi’s shot on a six-on-four chance in the waning seconds.
“It shows what happens when you let your foot off gas,” Schafer said. “The third period was a grind; even the second period was. They really started coming, and we didn’t respond great. It’s a learning lesson.”
The Big Red returns home for a pivotal ECAC Hockey weekend in which it hosts Quinnipiac on Friday and defending league champion Princeton on Saturday.
