PROVIDENCE —
Brown’s penalty kill did its part, killing off all five of No. 4 Cornell’s power-play opportunities on Saturday night at Meehan Auditorium. However, the sheer talent and size advantage possessed by the Big Red (14-2-1, 8-1-1) proved to be too much as Cornell fought its way to a 3-1 victory and secured three of a possible four points on the weekend.
“We did a lot of things well tonight,” said Brown coach Brendan Whittet. “They’re a really good hockey team. Mike {Schafer} has been doing this a long time, and he’s excellent at getting results. We obviously made a couple mistakes in our own end that we’d love to have back, but I thought we definitely hung in there.”
The Bears (5-10-3, 4-8-0) killed off back-to-back penalties to begin the game, as Josh McArdle went off at 8:56 for boarding and again at 13:25 for cross-checking. During Cornell’s second power-play opportunity, Brown goaltender Luke Kania made the save of the game, robbing Cam Donaldson with the glove on a two-on-one to keep the game scoreless with 5:10 remaining in the period.
Whittet praised his penalty killers for their resilience following the contest.
“The penalty kill has been good all year,” said Whittet. “If you watched it, you might say to yourself ‘Jeez, they’re giving up a lot of shots.’ But the shots that we give up are from the outside, and our goalie sees a lot of them, so I think we’re done a good job at eliminating those grade A’s and limiting cross-pucks. The last couple games we’ve seen a little bit of a dip, but I think our penalty kill has definitely been a strength, and it showed tonight going five-for-five.”
Less than a minute after the big save by Kania, however, at 16:36, Anthony Angello came in on a miniature breakaway for the Big Red. Kania stuffed Angello on the original shot, but the puck bounced right onto the tape of Mitch Vanderlaan, who deposited it home into a wide-open net to give Cornell a 1-0 lead.
At 19:26, Max Gottlieb gave Brown the response they needed when the junior defenseman fired a wrist shot from the point through traffic that went bar-down to knot the score at one. The play was reviewed, but the call on the ice was confirmed and the game entered the first intermission tied at one.
Just 10 seconds into the second period, Cornell’s Alex Green was sent off for tripping. Brown’s power play set up shop in the Big Red end and worked the puck around wonderfully, which created a surplus of grade-A chances. However, Cornell’s big set of penalty killers, Bo Starrett, Alec McCrea, Brendan Smith, and Mitch Vanderlaan, did an incredible job as the group blocked shot after shot and held off the relentless power play push by the Bears to keep the game tied at one.
“I thought we did a good job tonight,” said Cornell coach Mike Schafer. “We did good at getting odd-man opportunities, and we had a couple big penalty kills. We had a couple of two-on-ones that I thought we should have been able to cash in on, but sometimes the other team’s goalie makes big saves like we saw here tonight. All the credit to Brown, they played hard and made us earn every bit.”
Killing off the penalty at the beginning of the second period was a big momentum boost for Cornell, and it showed just minutes later with a strong cycle in the Brown end finished off with a goal by Anthony Angello, who tipped home a shot from the point by Green at 4:43 to give the Big Red a 2-1 lead.
With 3:31 to play in the period, Brown’s Alec Mehr was sent off for slashing, and Cornell was awarded a golden opportunity to go ahead by multiple goals heading into the third period. Like they had already done three times before throughout the game, the Bears killed off the Big Red’s man advantage, partially thanks to a big blocker save by Kania on New York Rangers draft pick Trevor Yates as time was winding down, and the game entered intermission with Cornell ahead 2-1.
“After the second period, we talked about making the most of our opportunities,” said Schafer. “We really emphasized that and sticking to the basic fundamentals these guys have grown up hearing every time they step on the ice. I know some of that sounds a bit cliché, but I think it got {through} to them and it showed with our effort in the third.”
Exactly eight minutes into the third period, Cornell delivered a bit of a dagger when defenseman Matt Nuttle crashed the net on a net-mouth scramble and smacked home a loose puck on his backhand to double the Big Red’s lead to 3-1. The goal came just seconds after Big Red goaltender Matthew Galajda robbed Tyler Bird on a breakaway that would have tied the game.
Still down a pair with 2:40 to play, Brown opted to pull Kania from the net for an extra attacker. The Bears set up in the Cornell end and moved the puck around extremely well, almost too well. With 59 seconds to play, Brown was assessed a two-minute bench minor for too many men on the ice after skating with seven attackers for about six or seven seconds in the attacking end. Brown pulled Kania out of the net during the final 59 seconds and skated at five-on-five, but it was not enough as the Big Red iced the puck at will and got out of Providence with a 3-1 victory.
