ITHACA, N.Y. — Last season’s Mr. January has been named this season’s Mr. February.
ECAC Hockey announced Tuesday that Cornell sophomore Matthew Galajda has been named the league’s Goalie of the Month, marking the second time in his short collegiate career he’s won the honor.
After returning to the team’s starting goaltender role in the latter stages of January, Galajda continued to build on that momentum in February. He had a pair of early shutouts – Feb. 1 at Union and Feb. 8 vs. Clarkson – and he backstopped the Big Red to a 4-2-2 record for the month. That’s helped keep Cornell in contention for an NCAA tournament bid regardless of the outcome in the upcoming ECAC Hockey playoffs. Galajda led the league with a 1.61 goals against average for the month.
The Big Red saw a similar trend from Galajda last year – just one month later. He was not only named the ECAC Hockey Goalie of the Month in January 2018, he was also named the Hockey Commissioners’ Association Goaltender of the Month.
Cornell wrapped up its regular season on Saturday with a 17-8-4 record and earned a share of the Cleary Cup – given annually to the league’s top team in the regular season – for a second straight year and the 10th time in program history. The Big Red is currently ranked 10th in both the USCHO.com and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine polls as it enjoys a bye through the first round of the ECAC Hockey playoffs.
The Big Red will be back in action March 15-17 for a best-of-three ECAC Hockey quarterfinal series at Lynah Rink against an opponent yet to be determined.
