For the second consecutive season, the Big Red wound up in an overtime contest at Dartmouth.
And for the second consecutive year, the Big Red emerged with a thrilling extra-time victory.
With 1:22 left in the overtime period and Cornell on the power play, Jillian Saulnier took a slap shot from the right point that got past Dartmouth’s, Lindsay Holdcroft, boosting the visiting Big Red to a 2-1 victory against the Big Green in Thompson Arena on Friday night.
No. 2 Cornell (9-1, 7-0 ECAC Hockey) remained perfect on the season in league play while the Big Green (4-2-1, 3-2) missed out on a chance to take at least one point from the conference’s top team. Besides scoring the game-winning goal, Saulnier also assisted on freshman Taylor Woods‘ score in the second period that tied the game after Dartmouth took a 1-0 lead in the first period.
Lauren Slebodnick, playing her first contest since Nov. 2 against Princeton, made 29 saves in more than 60 minutes for the victory.
The Big Red has now defeated Dartmouth in two consecutive contests dating back to last year’s game in Thompson Arena that was decided by an Erin Barley-Maloney goal in overtime. The team is 7-0 in conference play for the first time since 2010 and is 9-1 for the third consecutive season. Cornell has scored at least one goal 92 straight contests .
Early on, though, the Big Green defense was holding strong, and its offense got one on the board first.
Dartmouth got the first goal of the night as Laura Stacey beat Slebodnick late in the first period on an unassisted tally.
Cornell got the game tied in the second period when Woods converted on a power play goal. Taking passes from Saulnier andBrianne Jenner, Woods finished the play past Holdcroft to make it a 1-1 game just 5:24 into the second.
The game made it to overtime thanks to clutch penalty killing by the Big Red. Saulnier took an elbowing penalty with 1:49 left in the contest, but Cornell was able to kill off the penalty and send the game to the extra period, also killing off the last 11 seconds of the elbowing call in overtime.
The first three minutes of overtime were fairly even, with both teams getting multiple chances. But when Jenna Hobeika took a tripping penalty with 1:38 left in overtime, the Big Red struck. Cornell won the intial faceoff, and a shot by Lauriane Rougeau went wide. But the team recollected the puck, and Laura Fortino got it over to Saulnier on the right point. The sophomore fired on net and beat Holdcroft, giving Cornell its third consecutive overtime win.
