Even after Syracuse dropped its series opener to Mercyhurst 8-4 on Jan. 6, Graham Thomas felt the Orange played some of its best hockey all season.

Then SU turned in an even better performance the following day, tying the No. 5 Lakers to give the program its first-ever point against its conference rival after losing 15 straight games to Mercyhurst. The tie led the SU associate coach to call last weekend’s performance Syracuse’s most impressive this season.

‘We’ve been playing really well as of late, even though the win column isn’t really coming out of it,’ Thomas said. ‘But we’ve been playing really well. We’re playing better as a team, we’re really buying in and everyone’s playing their systems well.’

The Orange (8-13-2, 0-2-2 College Hockey America) takes on No. 3 Cornell (15-2-0) Tuesday for the second time this season, looking to capitalize on momentum coming off the landmark tie. The matchup with the Big Red also marks the fifth time this year SU has faced a ranked team. With conference play heating up, the experience against top-ranked opponents is vital to the program’s success the rest of the way.

But for Syracuse, it’s not just about getting the experience. After grabbing its second conference point, the team is playing at the highest level all season and at an entirely different level than it was Nov. 1 when it fell 9-2 to Cornell in Ithaca.

Instrumental to that change is Kallie Billadeau.

In SU’s early November loss, when Cornell was ranked No. 2 in the country, the goaltender played the entire game despite allowing two goals in the first period and three more in the second frame. Billadeau made 50 saves in one night —nearly as many as she had this past weekend in two games against Mercyhurst.

Soon after the Cornell game, Billadeau began to find her confidence.

Since allowing six goals to Ohio State just a few weeks later, the sophomore hasn’t suffered any of the net-minding disasters that plagued her early in the season. She hasn’t allowed more than three goals in each of her starts since then and is also splitting time with Jenesica Drinkwater during the stretch.

And that culminated with her allowing just one goal against Mercyhurst in one of the program’s biggest performances, something she looks to carry into Tuesday’s matchup with Cornell.

‘My intensity was a lot higher than it was in the past, so carrying that intensity into practice this week (was important),’ Billadeau said. ‘We had a long week off, so I think we’ve done that.’

Billadeau will be challenged by a Big Red offense that fired 59 shots the last time the teams met. The defense will be tasked with slowing down a potent power-play unit that went 3-of-8 on that night.

SU knows that if Billadeau or fellow goaltender Drinkwater faces that many shots Tuesday, Syracuse won’t have an opportunity to upset the No. 3 team in the country. When the Cornell skaters have the pucks on their sticks they are always threats to score, so controlling the time on attack will become crucial for Syracuse. 

‘Most important, we need to keep our feet moving and move the puck and not get nervous,’ SU forward Shiann Darkangelo said. ‘Just play our game.’

Of course, SU did catch a hot Cornell team that entered the game 3-0. The Big Red had scored nine goals in back-to-back games and had yet to be held to fewer than six goals all season.

But in its next game, Cornell suffered its first loss of the season at the hands of Dartmouth. And the Big Red hasn’t played as well as that three-game stretch all season, while the Orange has found itself constantly improving.

After one of the marquee moments in the team’s history on Jan. 7, SU has a chance for another one Tuesday if it can knock off Cornell. With its confidence rising, Syracuse feels it has a chance to do exactly that.

‘We’re young and we’re developing, and the future looks bright,’ Thomas said. ‘ … We’re going in as underdogs, and we kind of want to relish that and see if we can pull something out and pull out an upset.’

dbwilson@syr.edu