Much will be made of Ben Scrivens’ record-setting run to the ECAC Hockey crown, as well it should — Cornell’s senior goaltender, and league goalie of the year, deserves all that attention and more. <\/p>\n
But what will likely go under-appreciated in the glow of the Big Red’s 20th conference championship was the team’s ability to draw penalties from a patently clean team, and also convert on those power plays for the decisive goals of the tournament.<\/p>\n
At first, Union coach Nate Leaman pegged his team’s good penalties versus bad ones at, “about 50-50. I would say about half.” But later in the interview, he said, “The goaltender interference? That’s not us. The penalty to start the third? That was a bad penalty. The too many men? One man came, two men jumped.” <\/p>\n
He eventually admitted without persuasion that he couldn’t remember too many “good” penalties that his team had taken.<\/p>\n
Cornell took five penalties in the conference’s final game of the year, but compelled eight out of Union. That’s Union, whose Dutchmen’s season average was a mere 10.4 minutes per game.<\/p>\n
“It’s no secret, a championship team has got to have good goaltending and good special teams,” said Cornell coach Mike Schafer. “[Our guys] were getting pretty frustrated coming back to the bench” after numerous power plays went for nought, he said, “but that second goal was a thing of beauty.<\/p>\n
“They kept moving it around, moving it around, showed a lot of patience, had good opportunities, and finally were able to get that second goal, which was huge.”<\/p>\n
Cornell and Scrivens became the first team\/goalie to record consecutive shutouts in the ECAC Hockey championship weekend. The clean sheet brings Scrivens’ career mark up to five in league playoff games, which is also a record. <\/p>\n
Continuing on a theme, the senior netminder’s one goal in four playoff games this year also sets a mark, and his 230:30 shutout streak establishes a conference bar as well. <\/p>\n
Schafer ties current St. Lawrence coach Joe Marsh with five league titles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When you compile the reasons for Cornell’s ECAC Hockey championship, don’t forget the power play. Brian Sullivan reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":140328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n