ITHACA, N.Y. — A newly formed line delivered the perfect exclamation point to the Cornell men’s hockey team’s four-game homestand sweep as juniors Luke Devlin and Ryan Walsh and sophomore Charlie Major combined for nine points in their debut as a unit, powering the No. 19-ranked Big Red to a 6-1 rout of RPI on Saturday night at Lynah Rink.
Walsh distributed a career-high four assists, Major contributed a goal and two assists, and Devlin notched his first multi-goal game at Cornell as the Big Red improved to 6-2-0 overall and 5-1-0 in ECAC Hockey play.
Devlin praised his new linemates after the game, noting the immediate chemistry the trio displayed.
“I thought we clicked really well tonight. We worked off each other really well,” Devlin said. “They make your life really easy. For me, I don’t have to do too much, just have to make sure I’m working hard and keeping up with them. Then they make a lot of great plays.”
Cornell opened the scoring just 3:54 into the first period when junior forward Jake Kraft found the back of the net. Devlin extended the lead to 2-0 at 7:23 of the opening frame before RPI’s Matthew Buckley cut the deficit to 2-1 late in the period.
The Big Red seized control in the second period, scoring twice to build a commanding 4-1 advantage. Devlin netted his second goal just one minute into the frame, then junior Jonathan Castagna converted on the power play at 17:13.
The power-play tally extended Cornell’s streak of scoring with the man advantage to four games and came on crisp puck movement. Freshman defenseman Xavier Veilleux started the sequence from the point, feeding Walsh at the left hashmark of the left faceoff circle. Walsh delivered a tape-to-tape pass to Castagna, who one-timed the puck past RPI goaltender Nate Krawchuk from the right hashmark.
“We’re just executing what we planned before the game,” Castagna said, crediting the power play’s recent success to a focused approach. “We knew what we had to do. A focus of ours is getting more pucks to the net. Really focusing on just attacking all the time and we’ve been pretty successful at that. As long as we keep that up, we’ll see continued success.”
Major pushed the lead to 5-1 at 4:48 of the third period before Castagna sealed the victory with a short-handed goal with 6.2 seconds remaining. Sophomore defenseman Luke Ashton collected the puck and sent a long outlet pass to Castagna, who drew a slashing penalty on the play, and backhanded a shot into the top right corner.
Freshman goaltender Alexis Cournoyer continued his impressive start to his collegiate career, stopping 23 of 24 shots to improve to 6-1-0 on the season.
