After taking a short trip down Whitney Avenue and pulling off the upset against No. 8 Yale in two games, the Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team (16-16-4 overall, 9-11-2 ECAC Hockey) will now head up to Ithaca, New York this weekend to take on the No. 1 Cornell Big Red (23-4-2 overall, 17-3-2 ECAC Hockey) in the ECAC Hockey Quarterfinals.
Defeating Cornell will be no easy task, as the Big Red are currently the No. 2 team in the nation (according to the uscho.com poll). Head coach Mike Schafer’s men are 13-2 at home and have come away with at least 1 point in all but 3 games since December 1.
If Quinnipiac wants to punch their ticket to Lake Placid and become the lowest seed to make the ECAC Hockey semifinals since No. 12 Colgate did it in 2011, the Bobcats will have to find ways to put the puck past the best defense in the country.
This is a historic season for the Big Red defense. Although they lost junior co-captain and defensemen Mitch Vanderlaan for the final six games of the regular season, Cornell has still only conceded 44 goals in 29 games. ECAC Hockey foe Clarkson is second in the nation in this category. They have given up 65 goals all season. 21 goals separate Cornell’s defense from the rest of the pack.
The leader of this stout defense is freshman netminder Matthew Galadja. The Ivy League Rookie of the Year sports the best goals-against-average (1.49) and has the most shutouts (8) in the entire country. This includes his string of 3 consecutive shutouts in late January against ECAC Hockey opposition. Not only that, the former BCHL goaltender ranks second in the country in goalie winning percentage and third in save percentage. Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold referred to Galadja as, “one of the best goalies in the country, if not the best” at media day on Monday. Pecknold knows his team will need to take their chances however they come if they want to keep skating past this weekend.
One player the Bobcats will need to step up this weekend is Odeen Tufto, like he has been all year. In a series where you come in needing to pull the upset, it takes your best players to swing the momentum in your favor. The freshman phenom is that player for Quinnipiac.
The Chaska, Minnesota native has the most points out of all freshman in college hockey. His 9 goals and 32 assists have shot him up to 2nd in assists and 3rd in points among all players in the conference. The ECAC Hockey rookie of the month for February also tallied his 15th multipoint game of the season in game 2 against Yale. That took him past Boston University standout and current NHL star Jack Eichel for the most multi-point games by a freshman in the last six seasons. Tufto has also only been held off the scoresheet in consecutive games once all year (ironically the first game of that stretch was against Cornell on November 3). Defensemen Chase Priskie has one goal each in his last four games and senior Tanner MacMaster has five assists in his last four, but the Big Red will be taking a huge step towards the ECAC Hockey Semifinals if they can find a way to slow down Tufto.
Although these teams are separated in the ECAC Hockey standings by 16 points, their battles on the ice this season have said otherwise. Cornell has checked off both matchups in the win column, but only by one goal both times. The Ivy League school won 2-1 in Hamden and 1-0 in Ithaca.
An enticing ECAC Hockey Quarterfinal battle awaits this weekend at Lynah Rink in New York. Make sure to follow @QBSN on Twitter, as Jonathan Banks will be in Ithaca to provide live in-game updates on Twitter and post-game content to follow each contest.
