A four-goal second period helped break open a scoreless game and aid the No. 10-ranked Cornell men’s hockey team to a 7-1 victory over Brown, ensuring the Big Red leaves southern New England with a weekend sweep.
Cornell’s seven goals were the most by the Big Red in a game away from Lynah Rink since blanking Princeton, 7-0, on Nov. 8, 2003 at Hobey Baker Memorial Rink.
Four Big Red players posted multi-point nights on Saturday as the Big Red had 12 players register at least one point. Senior forward Gabriel Seger had a team-high three points, highlighted by his second multi-goal game in as many weekends. Junior forward Kyle Penney, freshman forward Jonathan Castagna, and defenseman George Fegaras each logged a goal and an assist.
All four players who had multi-point nights lit the lamp in the middle frame for Cornell before Seger and freshmen Luke Devlin and Ryan Walsh scored over the final 7:29 to solidify the victory for the Big Red (4-0-0, 2-0-0 ECAC Hockey).
Junior goaltender Ian Shane stopped 15 shots between the pipes for Cornell.
Ryan St. Louis recorded the lone goal for Brown, who is now 2-2-0 overall and 2-1-0 in ECAC Hockey play following the setback. Tyler Shea made his first collegiate start for the Bears in goal, stopping 26 Big Red shots.
Following a scoreless first period, Cornell recorded four of the combined five second-period goals to give the Big Red a 4-1 lead after 40 minutes of play.
Castagna ignited the Big Red’s scoring when he deposited his first collegiate tally 1:45 into the stanza. Seger and Penney later chipped in goals 41 seconds apart to increase Cornell’s lead to three.
St. Louis trimmed the Big Red lead to two when he registered a power-play goal just shy of the halfway point of the game. St. Louis’ goal snapped Cornell’s streak of successful penalty kills at 11.
Fegaras gave Cornell its three-goal lead back when he lasered a wrist shot from the top of the slot seconds after a Big Red power play had expired for the first goal of his collegiate career.
Seger sparked the Big Red’s trio of goals over the final seven-plus minutes when he backhanded a shot on a breakaway chance created from a pass by freshman forward Jake Kraft. Devlin and Walsh scored 78 seconds apart to guide Cornell to its largest margin of victory in a road game since shutting out Brown, 6-0, on Nov. 14, 2009.
GAME NOTES
• Saturday marked the 138th meeting between the Ivy League rivals. Cornell improved its record to 86-44-8 over Brown, while Mike Schafer ’86‘s mark against the Bears now stands at 44-8-6 (.810). The Big Red is now unbeaten in 21 of its last 23 against the Bears, posting an 18-2-3 ledger during the span.
• Cornell’s 4-0-0 start is its 19th in program history, and of the 19 four-win starts, 10 have come under Schafer’s tutelage.
• The Big Red has allowed just three goals in its first four games, matching the fewest the program has allowed in its first four games in its modern era, dating back to the 1957-58 season. The other squads to accomplish the feat were in 1965-66, 2002-03, and 2008-09.
• Seger, Penney, and freshman defenseman Ben Robertson (one assist) extended their season-opening point streaks to four games, marking the first time at least three Cornell players have opened a season with four-game point streaks since 2019-20 (Morgan Barron, Max Andreev, Yanni Kaldis, and Sam Malinski).
• With his second-period goal, Seger has scored in each of his last three games to match his personal long for consecutive games with a goal, which he previously accomplished last season from Jan. 6 to Jan. 14.
• Cornell’s four-goal second period was its highest scoring output in a game away from Lynah Rink since logging four goals in the third period of the Big Red’s 5-1 win over Union on Feb. 12, 2022.
UP NEXT
Cornell will return to Lynah Rink to face Dartmouth and Harvard in the program’s lone pair of home games in November. Puck drop for both contests is slated for 7 p.m. Game action will be broadcast on ESPN+ and over the airwaves on WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM, whcuradio.com).
Kyle leads sports coverage and hosts the Concrete Jungle podcast. Have a lead or question? Send it to [email protected].