by Jane McNally/CHN Reporter (@JaneMcNally_)
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. When Princeton’s Joshua Karnish stuffed home a puck from just atop the crease in the third period, it killed Cornell.
Not because it led 1-0 in the game. Not because it gave Princeton a 3-2 lead with 7:55 left in the ECAC Tournament semifinal. Not even because it wound up being the game-winner, sending Princeton to its first title game in eight years.
It was how the play unfolded.
“That third goal, I mean, that’s not who we are,” Cornell coach Casey Jones said. “We usually defend hard, and it was really simple for them to get around there.”
Cornell’s star freshman blueliner, Xavier Veilleux, couldn’t keep Karnish away from the doorstep, and the goal punctuated what was a near-perfect effort from the Tigers. Princeton, en route to its first win in Lake Placid since clinching that 2018 title, played with unrelenting speed, stingy forechecking and sold out to block shots, particularly down the stretch.
In essence, it played a whole lot like Cornell plays when it’s at its best.
But Friday was all Princeton.
“We play our best hockey when we’re simple. We had an underdog mentality all year with our youth, and in the last couple [games], I don’t know if we lost that,” Jones said. “All of a sudden, we read about ourselves and have that impression of ourselves, that we’re really good now. I think tonight will tell them that in college hockey, you can lose any game, any night.”
If any team was an underdog Friday night, it was Princeton. A fourth-seed compared to third-seeded Cornell, way out of at-large bid contention for the NCAA Tournament and a gritty group of Tigers looking to spoil the Big Red’s hope of a three-peat.
And that they did.
“I thought Princeton came out of the gates really hot. I don’t know if we weren’t expecting it, or if we thought it was gonna be an easy game or what,” Cornell captain Ryan Walsh said. “I take a big part of that responsibility. It’s my job to get the guys ready and balance that as a leader.”
Walsh scored a power-play goal in the second period that, at the time, tied the game up at 2-2 and resuscitated Cornell after an almost lifeless second period. At one point in the middle period, Princeton had a 10-1 lead in shots on goal and was dominating faceoffs at a similar rate.
But that power play exhibited what Cornell can be when it establishes the zone and is at its best. On Friday night, zone time was hard to come by, and 5-on-5 play was controlled by the Tigers.
“The problem is, we never had sustained offensive zone time,” Jones said. “They did a good job, but we weren’t connected tonight. We didn’t have three guys near pucks. If one guy was going hard, two guys were watching.”
On a typical night, the Red will play with speed and relentless energy — “youthful” energy, as Jones called it. It is a philosophy that brings Cornell success. But Princeton — complete with nine seniors, seven juniors and a coach they are willing to run through a brick wall for — had an answer for just about everything.
Especially Cornell’s push. Because despite all of the Big Red’s struggles, they were only down by a single score when Jones elected to pull goaltender Alexis Cournoyer with 1:34 remaining, and they didn’t go down without a fight.
But Princeton blocked shots. Lots of them, two in the final minutes, seven in the third period and 11 in the game in all.
“They had urgency. We lacked it,” Jones said. “I told the guys (that) I thought we lacked it last Friday. I don’t know if tonight was nerves or what, but I’ll take ownership for that. We didn’t look ready to play. We chased the game a little bit.”
Last Friday’s result was a 3-1 loss to archrival Harvard in the first game of the ECAC quarterfinals. Cornell survived that scare and compiled a pair of wins to punch its ticket to Lake Placid, but it is now the second time in a week that Cornell has looked, frankly, rattled.
The game was no fluke on Princeton’s part — the Tigers are a well-oiled machine, anchored by veteran leadership and a Coach of the Year finalist in Ben Syer. Syer, of course, spent over a decade in Ithaca as an associate coach under Mike Schafer. Syer knows how to win, he knows how to prepare and he certainly knows Cornell hockey.
“Cornell is a tremendous team,” Syer said. “They’re deep, they’re good, there’s a reason why they’re going to the Tournament. And I just thought our guys were really resilient here tonight in battle from start to finish. And it wasn’t always pretty, but a lot of key blocked shots and guys playing for each other at the end.”
Things just didn’t seem to be working in Cornell’s favor, even in metrics they typically dominate. Cornell had a slight 32-31 edge in faceoff wins, but that only came to be after a third period in which it won 14 of 21. The Big Red struggled to get pucks on net, mustering 23 in comparison to Princeton’s 24. According to Walsh postgame, the team’s shot goal was 35.
“We got nowhere close to it,” he lamented.
For Cornell, its season is not over. The Big Red had an NCAA Tournament bid locked up heading into the weekend, though they will now agonize over where the Committee might put them as a No. 3 seed.
There is much to contemplate, particularly how the group can rally back to the identity that has brought it so much success.
“We have another life, so we’re fortunate,” Jones said. “But we’ll have to find that urgency and the way we need to play [in order] to play Cornell hockey.”