On Thursday, ECAC announced that Cornell forward Matt Stienburg has been named the league’s Player of the Month for December.
Stienburg continued his hot start to the season by making the most of the Big Red’s only two games of the calendar’s final month, which came in the form of the annual trip to ECAC Hockey’s North Country programs. Stienburg recorded his second four-point game of the season on Dec. 3, when he posted the team’s third hat trick over a span of just seven games to go with an assist.
The next night at Clarkson, Stienburg assisted on Cornell’s second of four goals to push his scoring streak to 10 games. (It would eventually go as far as 11 games — the program’s longest since the 1990-91 season). With the assist against the Golden Knights, Stienburg became the first Big Red player to rack up 18 points in the first 11 games of a season since eventual NHLer Matt Moulson ’06 having done it to start the 2003-04 campaign. Stienburg entered 2022 as the nation’s leader in points per game (1.64).
The league’s monthly honor for the top player has now gone to Cornell in each of the last two months, with Stienburg joining Max Andreev after his dominant performance in November.
Kyle leads sports coverage and hosts the Concrete Jungle podcast. Have a lead or question? Send it to [email protected].