by Jane McNally/CHN Reporter
Aiden Long scored his first three college goals this past weekend. (photo: Ned Dykes)
Things have been relatively quiet in Ithaca.
It’s a stark contrast to last season — between the impending retirement of Mike Schafer, to the multitude of injuries, to the lofty expectations and the noise around what it meant when Cornell didn’t meet them right off the bat.
And then there were the playoffs, the last-second goals, improbable comebacks, a storming run straight to the NCAA Regional final, ending up on the doorstep of the Frozen Four for a third straight year. And then the offseason, the passing of the torch, transfer portal commotion and NHL contracts.
But now, fresh off a sweep of Nebraska-Omaha — the Big Red’s third sweep of an NCHC opponent at home in as many seasons — Cornell is beginning to make some noise again, in a different way.
“We’re just scratching the surface,” said head coach Casey Jones.
Looking at the various boxscores of Cornell’s recent games, there are some recognizable names. Captain Ryan Walsh, a Boston Bruins prospect, is continuing to lead the way as the Big Red’s top-line center, commanding the faceoff dot at a 55.4 percent rate and leading the team with 14 points. Fellow junior Jonathan Castagna is right behind him with 13 points and a team-leading seven goals.
But the Big Red are also getting contributions from many new faces — six of the top-10 point-scorers are freshmen, including current ECAC Rookie of the Week Aiden Long, Caton Ryan and Gio DiGiulian. Cornell is also getting contributions from its freshman goaltender, Alexis Cournoyer, a QMJHL import who has garnered a majority of starts in net.
Following the 2024-25 season, Cornell was experiencing a change practically everywhere you looked — it lost 10 seniors (including its starting goaltender) to graduation, second-leading goalscorer Dalton Bancroft to the NHL, one of its top defensemen in Ben Robertson to the transfer portal, not to mention an almost entirely different coaching staff was ushered in.
Cornell did not begin the season on an undefeated tear like Ivy League foe Dartmouth, nor did it suffer through any gruesome losses as it adjusted to the new-look roster and staff.
At 9-4 overall and 6-2 in conference play, the Big Red has been quietly consistent, and it’s working.
“There was a culture in place here that Mike [Schafer] and the coaching staff have had in terms of older guys embracing the new guys coming through the door,” Jones said. “We spent a lot of our preseason getting to know each other, like a ton. Because that’s what’s important.”
Though so much has changed on paper for the Big Red, little has in its approach. Cornell’s brooding defense, pesky forecheck and dominance at the faceoff dot remain untouched, no matter what personnel are at play.
Jones, who was on the road recruiting for large portions of last season serving as an associate head coach under Schafer, continuously emphasizes this approach.
“If you talk about who your program is in the recruiting process, they know how we’re going to play. They know what our expectations are. They know how hard we’re going to work. Those young guys choose your program,” Jones said. “You’re getting the right guys here and you’re really transparent as to, ‘Hey, this is how hard we work. This is what we get after. This is who we are. It’s how we play.’”
Hard work is a cornerstone of Cornell’s mantra, and a good way to describe the Big Red’s weekend — though Omaha had played multiple games since Cornell had gone on break in early December, the Big Red survived a pair of turbulent games to secure a sweep. It was not perfect — Cornell came out to early 3-0 and 2-0 leads on Friday and Saturday respectively, and saw both dwindle away. But leaning on its marquee depth, Cornell used two exciting third periods to pull away from the Mavericks and remain perfect at Lynah Rink so far this season.
For what Cornell lost, it appears it gained it all back and then some — seven of the Big Red’s nine goals this weekend came off the sticks of freshmen.
“Then you get the right people,” Jones said. “And you know, some guys you lose might be for the right reasons. They might not be the person that fits into our culture, fits into our program. And that’s a big part of the long history of Cornell. As you get the right people here, you get good people, hard-working people.”
With the exclusion of Cournoyer, Cornell did not do any last-minute altering of its incoming class of recruits after the rule change granting CHL players NCAA eligibility. A majority of its youngsters are products of the USHL and BCHL, with just a handful of them drafted or on NHL club radars.
But they all fit into the system Cornell has in place, which seems to hold strong no matter how much change or turnover there is. 11 of the Big Red’s 12 freshmen have gotten into games, including all 10 skaters, and seven of those 10 skaters have registered points.
“We want to lean on teams. … We have depth. We want to use it to our advantage, and kind of come at teams in waves,” Jones said. “We’ve talked about it all year long. We do it at times. You can see it coming. We just got to get that 60 minutes of consistency night in and night out. That’s what every team is pushing for, and we’re still striving to get there.”
An area Cornell has looked to improve upon is its offense — last season, Cornell averaged three goals per game on the dot, and has largely leaned on its defense in low-scoring affairs to secure wins. Jones wants to see that number crawl up closer to four.
“I want us to have an attacking mentality: bringing pucks to the net, getting shots on net,” Jones stressed before the Omaha series. “I think you have to have a little bit of shot volume to start to generate second chance opportunities. But we need to have people down around the net. That’s probably been the biggest weakness for us [in the] first half.”
But on Friday, right out the gate, Cornell’s first goal came off a one-timer and a heavy screen. Its second goal was the result of a scrum in the crease that was cleaned up by one of many Cornell players down low.
It seems that Cornell’s young core is soaking up the information it’s dealt, and the results are starting to come. Long was the most recent of his classmates to collect his first NCAA goals. It seems that a new Cornell freshman hits that milestone every weekend.
“We just kind of trust in the process,” Long said after Friday night’s 6-4 win. “We know we have a really skilled team and guys that are going to score goals, so as long as we keep doing the right things, we know they’ll go in.”
Consistency will be key for this youthful Cornell squad, especially with imperative ECAC matches forthcoming against Quinnipiac, Princeton, Harvard and Dartmouth in late January. It will also need to rely on veterans like Walsh, who tacked on two helpers in Friday night’s win despite arriving Ithaca earlier that day from Davos, Switzerland, where he represented the U.S. Collegiate Selects at the Spengler Cup.
But if history is any indication (Cornell carried 10 freshmen in its run to the NCAA regional final in 2024), it’s hard to count the Big Red out of anything.
“The freshmen get here, the older guys take care of them, show them the ropes. Talk about the habits. Talk about what it takes to be a Cornell hockey player. And I thought our older guys did a phenomenal job,” Jones said. “Now it’s the time of year we need the accountability to be consistent, because it’s really easy to do it early. … Now, the hard work gets in place. Now [it’s the] dog days of January and February here, where it’s a grind.”