Team Notes: North Country Excursion
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The No. 2 Yale
men's hockey team (19-4, 13-3 ECAC), coming off a pair of
conference wins that clinched home ice for the playoffs, is on the
road this weekend for the North Country set against St. Lawrence
(8-14-5, 4-10-1) and Clarkson (12-13-2, 6-8-1), a pair of 7 p.m.
starts at Appleton and Cheel Arenas.
VS. ST. LAWRENCE
Yale and St. Lawrence split last year and the Blue has a 3-2-1
advantage over the last six meetings. The Saints have a 53-26-8
overall lead. Kenny
Agostino had two goals as Yale beat St. Lawrence 4-1on
Jan. 22 at the Whale. Ryan
Rondeau stopped 28 of 29 shots and his defensive mates
blanked a solid Saints' offense for just over 58 minutes. Rondeau,
who made a dozen saves in the first, stopped all four SLU
advantages and knocked aside numerous grade-A chances to prevent
the visitors from taking the game's first goal. The Blue outshot
SLU 36-29 and kept freshman goalie Matt Weninger (32 saves) very
busy. He prevented the Elis from hitting the net on six of seven
power plays and picked a number of pucks headed for the corners out
of the air. In addition to Agostino, Mike
Matczak and Brian
O'Neill tallied while Chris
Cahill and Brendan
Mason each had two assists.
VS. CLARKSON
The Elis have played Clarkson 103 times since 1929-30 and the
Knights own a 68-31-4 lead. Yale has taken the last three meetings.
Kenny Agostino's goal with 11:16 left in the third broke open a 2-2
game and sent Yale to a 5-2 win on Jan. 21 at Ingalls. On a night
when the Bulldog power play went 0-for-7, the home team still got
two goals from Chris Cahill (3 points) and scores from Brian
O'Neill and Denny
Kearney. Kevin
Peel pitched in two assists while Ryan Rondeau stopped 21
of 23 shots. Rondeau and the Yale penalty-kill were successful on
seven of eight attempts. The senior goalie stopped all 10 shots in
the second period, when the Elis needed him the most. Yale outshot
Clarkson 33-23 during one of the most physical games of the season.
The Knights' netminder Paul Karpowich made 28 saves and was the
primary reason the game was so close most of the way.
YALE IN DIVISION I
Scoring:
4.35 GPG (1st)
Defense:
2.13 GPG (7h)
Penalty Kill: 81.2
(36th)
Power Play: 24.6 (3rd)
Penalty Minutes: 15.6 (16th)
Scoring Margin: 2.22 (1st)
LAST WEEKEND
Yale swept its home conference set at Ingalls, outscoring
opponents 5-2 while having a 77-61 advantage in shots. The Elis
went 1-for-5 on the power play and killed off all five penalties.
Five different Bulldogs hit the net and Broc
Little was the only skater to have multiple points. Ryan
Rondeau stopped 59 of 61 shots and registered his third SHO of the
season.
SAINTS
SLU beat Colgate and lost to Cornell last week and is 1-4-1 over
its last six. Three of the Saints' biggest wins this year came
against New Hampshire, Vermont and Cornell.
KNIGHTS
Clarkson, coming off losses last weekend at Cornell and Colgate,
has dropped four straight heading into Friday's game with Brown.
The Knights had a four-game win streak earlier this year and have
wins over RPI and Princeton and a sweep of rival St. Lawrence.
HOT DOGS
The Bulldogs are certainly spreading it out; eight different
players have scored Yale's last eight goals. F Kenny Agostino has
eight tallies in his last 11 games… F Brian O'Neill has
points in seven of eight… F Denny Kearney has points in
three of four… D Jimmy
Martin has points five of six, while fellow blueliner
Kevin Peel has them in five of eight.
PAIRWISE
The NCAA's power ranking system used to compare teams for
tournament time is called Pairwise. It uses four criteria: record
against common opponents, head-to-head competition, record against
other teams under consideration and the RPI ranking. Yale is
currently first with 29 points followed by Minnesota-Duluth, North
Dakota, Boston College and New Hampshire (all with 26).
RANKED TEAMS
Yale is 3-2 vs. ranked teams this year. The Elis beat Union and
RPI in December and Dartmouth last weekend at home while falling to
the Dutchmen and Engineers on the road.
BOUNCING BACK
The Blue bounced back from a pair of road losses to sweep at home
last weekend. Yale had gone 57 conference regular season games
(Feb. 2008) since falling twice in a row.
PLAYOFFS
The Elis have clinched a home ECAC Hockey playoff series in March,
but the weekend has yet to be determined. The top four seeds have a
bye for the first round and host quarterfinal series on March
11-13. The fifth through 12-place teams play March 4-6, with the
top four getting home ice.
LEAGUE WITHIN A CONFERENCE
Six members of ECAC Hockey compete for the Ivy League's Hobey
Baker Trophy, which is all that is on the line in this race. Yale
is first with 14 points, but Dartmouth (11), Brown (6), Princeton
(6) and Cornell (5) are all within range. The Blue and Green have
played eight of their 10 Ancient Eight games.
MILLER TIME
Sophomore F Andrew
Miller (57 gp, 11-51-62), voted "best passer" by his
teammates, is No. 6in the nation with .96 assists per game. More
impressive is that 15 of his 22 assists are primary ones. He is
also hitting the net when it counts this season; four of his six
goals have been winners, which ranks fifth in Division I. Miller
(Bloomfield Hills, Mich.), who is 22nd in the nation with 1.22
points per contest, registered the most (34) points by a Yale
rookie since Tom Walsh set the bar with 41 in 1984-85. The speedy
forward was the 2008-09 USA Junior Player of the Year and 2007
Michigan High School Mr. Hockey. Last winter, he was second among
conference rookies with one point per game, which also put him
fourth in the country for newcomers. He ranked eighth in Division I
last year with .85 assists per outing.
CAPTAIN AHAB BEWARE
The Whale (Ingalls Rink) has been a tough place for visitors this
season, Moby Dick would be proud. Yale, 14-0 at Ingalls and the
only Division I team perfect at home, has never won that many games
in a season at New Haven. Yale,, which has never been perfect at
Ingalls in a year, last went unbeaten at New Haven in 1928--29. The
Bulldogs aren't biting any legs off, but they are 37-9-2 over the
last three seasons at the Whale. Yale has sold out its last nine
straight games.
NET GAIN
A year after four goalies shared the Yale net, Ryan Rondeau
(Carvel, AB) has started 21 of the 23 games and has been named ECAC
Hockey MLX Skates Goalie of the Week three times. Last weekend,
Rondeau stopped 59 of 61 shots including all 34 (season-high) by
Harvard to register his third shutout of the year and earn the
conference award. Rondeau, who had a 141:29 scoreless streak and
consecutive shutouts (first time for a Yalie since 1998) in
December, is 18-3 this year. He ranks fourth in GAA (1.92) and
seventh in SP (.929) in Division I. Rondeau's career-high is 40
saves at Princeton in 2009. The senior, who owns a 24-7-1 career
record, has been in net for seven wins over ranked teams including
a 3-2 decision with North Dakota at the 2010 NCAA Northeast
Regional semifinal.
GOLD STANDARD
Hobey Baker candidate Denny Kearney (Hanover, NH) is third on the
team with 11 goals and 27 points. His assist total (16) includes 12
that were primary helpers, while he ranks 30th in the country with
1.17 points per game. Kearney notched eight of those over the first
two games (Brown, Dartmouth on Oct. 29-30) and was ECAC Hockey's
Player of the Week. That included his first collegiate hat trick
(natural) and a game-winner during the most prolific weekend of his
collegiate career. In addition, all four assists were primary ones.
Kearney (125 gp, 40-77-117), who was voted by his teammates as the
"best dresser" and "most talkative" among the Bulldogs, is Yale's
active career assist leader (7th best at Yale) and is 11th in
points and third in career games played. He may not be the best
athlete in his family. His sister, Hannah Kearney, won an Olympic
gold medal in mogul skiing at the 2010 Games and is the top ranked
American in that event.
LOTS OF LITTLE
Yale senior forward Broc Little (Rindge, N.H.), a Hobey Baker
candidate, leads the team with 14 goals and 29 points. He is 13th
in the nation with .61 goals per game and 19th with 1.26 points.
Little, sixth on Yale's career goals list, had his third career hat
trick (3-1-4) against Holy Cross on Jan. 2. Nine of his 15 assists
have been primary ones. He was named one of the 20 candidates for
the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award in hockey, which honors
student-athletes who excel both on and off the ice. Little (118 gp,
67-61-128), who has 10 more points than games played, led the
2009-10 Bulldogs with 27 goals, a Yale record for juniors, while
leading all of Division I in goals per game (.79). He was second on
the team with 41 points and garnered numerous post-season honors,
including RBK Second-Team All-America, first-team All-ECAC, All-Ivy
and All-New England. Little, a political science major, has shown
the same dedication in the classroom with a 3.1 GPA and three-time
ECAC Hockey All-Academic Team status.
VOTE HOBEY
Senior Yale hockey forwards Broc Little (Rindge, N.H.) and Denny
Kearney (Hanover, N.H.) have been nominated for the 2011 Hobey
Baker Memorial Award. The first phase of the process includes fan
voting. Go to hobeybakeraward.com and make your choice once every
24 hours. The results of the fan voting will impact the final
selection process.
BENCH LEADER
Keith Allain '80, Yale's Malcolm G. Chace Head Coach of Hockey, is
91-53-12 as a head coach, including 9-7 in the post season. Only
two other Yale hockey head coaches have more wins, and none have
reached the 90-win mark faster than Allain. The former Yale goalie
has led the Blue to three Ivy League titles, two ECAC regular
season championships and a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances.
Allain, who played and worked for Tim Taylor at Yale, earned the
2008-09 Tim Taylor Award as the ECAC Hockey Coach of the Year by
leading the Elis to the best season in the program's history. A
school-record 24 wins, Yale's first ECAC Tournament Championship
and a school-best No. 5 national ranking in late March were a few
reasons why he was selected. College Hockey News named him 2008-09
national coach of the year. This is Allain's 12th overall year at
Yale; he spent four as a student-athlete goalie and three as an
assistant coach in the 1980s. Allain, a former NHL (17 years) and
Olympics (1992, 2006) assistant, was named the 11th head coach of
the Yale men's ice hockey program on April 15, 2006. Allain is the
second Yale graduate to take the position and the first since
Holcomb York '17 led the Bulldogs from 1930 to 1938 (Lawrence M.
Noble '27 coached the Elis from 1928 to 1930). The starting goalie
on four Bulldog squads, Allain recorded the second-most (31) wins
for a Yale netminder and ranks third at the school with 2,337
career saves. He owns four of the top 10 Yale single-game save
totals, including 55 stops in a 7-3 loss at Minnesota on Dec. 28,
1978.
WORLD JUNIORS
Keith Allain served as head coach of the 2011 U.S. National Junior
Team and led the squad to a bronze medal at the International Ice
Hockey Federation World Junior Championship in Buffalo, N.Y. The
U.S., which won all but its semifinal game, defeated Sweden to take
the bronze on Jan. 5. Allain, who helped the U.S. National
Junior Team win a second straight medal at the IIHF World Junior
Championship for the first time, owns a 13-4-2 overall record as a
head coach in the event, giving him the top winning percentage
(.736) of any U.S. head coach to have served on multiple teams.
Allain was joined on the U.S. team by Yale's hockey strength &
conditioning coach Joe Maher. Kyle Wallack, Yale's fifth-year
assistant who is in his first season as associate head coach,
served as Yale's head coach in Allain's absence.
CAPTAIN MARTIN
Captain Jimmy Martin (St. Louis, Mo.) is a defensive defenseman
who has turned himself into a player with offensive potential. He
has points in five of his last six games. His four goals this year
are a career-high. He now has eight goals and 48 career points
which rank ninth at Yale (tied with Peter Allen '93). Martin, who
attended three different high schools in three states before coming
to New Haven, is a political science major who helped the Des
Moines Buccaneers make it to the 2007 USHL final four.
BACKSTOP BACKDROP
A pair of experienced sophomores joins Ryan Rondeau in the net
mix. Jeff
Malcolm (12 gp, 4.02, .837, 6-4-0) made 16 saves in the
7-4 win over Brown on Oct. 29 before stopping 25 shots in a 4-3
loss at Air Force. The Lethbridge, AB, native has allowed eight
goals, including six on the power play and two with a 5-on-3
advantage. Alta Loma, Calif., resident Nick
Maricic (16 gp, 2.89, .888, 7-4-2) played the last period
against Holy Cross (5 saves) and some of the third at RPI. Maricic
has not had a start this winter.
ENGINE NO. 9
Junior F Brian O'Neill (90gp, 40-59-99), who has points in seven
of the last eight games, is second on the team with 12 goals and 28
points. He ranks 28th nationally with .52 goals per game. O'Neill
began 2010-11 with a 3-2-5 weekend in the two wins including a
career-best 2-1-3 and the GWG against Dartmouth on Oct. 30. Last
winter he led the Elis with 29 assists and 45 points while ranking
seventh in the country with 1.32 PPG. One of his best plays of
2009-10 was a pass he put on Sean Backman's stick in OT that set up
the winner at Cornell. He also had the tying goal in the OT draw at
the Badger Showdown title game against Wisconsin. O'Neill (Yardley,
Pa.), who was voted "most humorous" by his teammates, made the
2008-09 CHN (national) and ECAC Hockey All-Rookie teams after going
12-14-26 in 2008-09.
BLUE LINE
Three seniors, two juniors and a sophomore comprise the typical
Yale defensive lineup this season. These six players, who have nine
goals between them in 2010-11, have a combined 498 career games
played. Two seniors with 25 points combined, Jimmy Martin and Mike
Matczak (Sewell, N.J.), have combined for six goals.
CAHILL
Chris Cahill (North Andover, Mass.) entered the season with 16
goals in three collegiate seasons. He already has 11 this winter,
including four different two-goal games and a trio of three-point
outings. Cahill, 29th in Division I with 1.18 points per game, was
named ECAC Hockey Player of the Week on Dec. 6 after leading
(3-1-4) Yale to a pair of wins over nationally ranked teams with
three goals and four points. The senior forward is third on the
team in goals with career numbers of 27 goals and 67 points in 113
games.
HOTTEST BULLDOG
Yale freshman forward Kenny Agostino, named HCA National Rookie of
the Month for January (8-4-12), is the first Yale freshman to
receive that award. He was ECAC Hockey MLX Skates Rookie of the
Week on Jan. 23 (3 goals vs. Clarkson/SLU), becoming the only
Bulldog to earn conference rookie honors this season. Agostino, the
hottest hand on the team, has eight goals over his last 11 games.
His transition from first half of rookie season to second has been
tremendous. The former Delbarton School star had a goal and three
assists before the holiday break, and has eight goals and four
assists since. The leading scorer (9-7-16) among Yale freshmen, he
ranks ninth nationally among rookies with .89 points per
game. Agostino became the first Yale newcomer in 30 years to
record five points in one game on Jan. 2. He notched three goals
and two assists against Holy Cross and became the school's first
freshman to tally five points since former Olympian and NHL star
Bob Brooke '83 established the school rookie record against
Dartmouth in 1980.
FROSH
The class of 2014 includes four forwards and one defenseman. All
five competed in the Northeast during 2009-10. Three of the new
Elis played in the juniors (Eastern, North Atlantic) last winter
while two came to Yale from New England prep schools. F Clinton
Bourbonais (Colchester, Conn.), F Kenny Agostino
(Flanders, N.J.) and F Jesse
Root (Pittsburgh, Pa.) have all found the net this season.
D Gus
Young (Dedham, Mass.), who has been fighting injuries, has
an assist in two games played, while F Brad
Peltz (Mount Kisco, N.Y.) is looking for his first regular
season action. Agostino (2), Root and Peltz combined for four of
Yale's five goals in the win over the Russian Red Stars. Agostino
tied a school rookie record with five (3-2) points against Holy
Cross.
100 GOALS
The Bulldogs have 100 goals and are No. 1 in the nation with a
4.35 average after 23 games. They scored 10 against the Crusaders
and had seven goals twice, six once and five on seven occasions
this year. Yale led the nation in scoring in 2009-10 and hit the
100 mark in game No. 25.
GEOGRAPHIC BALANCE
The Yale roster includes players from 12 different states and
three provinces. Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New
Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania are represented twice each while
six hail from Alberta, including a Calgary pair.
FROM WHENCE THEY CAME
Northeast prep schools and the United States Hockey League each
contributed nine players to the Bulldog roster. Six former British
Columbia Hockey League skaters are at Yale while the Atlantic
Junior Hockey League has a pair. One Eli played in the Eastern
Junior Hockey League and another came from a private school.
SHOOTERS
The Bulldogs have outshot 21 of 23 opponents (by 226 combined)
this year after having the advantage in 26 of the 34 games last
year. Vermont (32-30) and Union (34-30) are the only squads to
outshoot the Blue this season.
STREAK
After opening the season with five straight wins, the Blue
stumbled on Nov. 14 at Air Force before bouncing back with a road
win at Cornell on Nov. 19. That was the first of 10 straight wins
that carried through to the Jan. 15 victory over Brown at Ingalls.
Division I's longest win streak this year came to an end the next
day at Brown.
A CLASS OF ITS OWN
The Class of 2011 became the winningest in Yale men's hockey
history after beating Holy Cross on Jan. 2. The current seniors
have amassed 78 victories, surpassing the total reached by the
Class of 2010. In addition, the Class of 2011, which is the first
from this school to be undefeated (3-0-1) at Cornell, is the first
at Yale to have four winning seasons since the Class of 1954.
SCORING SPREAD
Eight members of the senior class have accounted for 47 goals. The
juniors (6) have hit the net 29 times. Yale sophomores (4) have
tallied 11 goals, while the freshmen (4) have added 13. Bulldog
defensemen have hit the net nine times.
SHORTY
Yale had four shorthanded goals last year and led the nation with
nine the year before. The Bulldogs' first goal of 2010-11 was
shorthanded by Broc Little, the school's career leader with seven,
but the team has not done that since.
BULLDOG BITES
The Blue opens 2011-12 with the Ivy Shootout at Dartmouth
(pairings TBA) before playing other non-league games against
Connecticut (home, Nov. 19), Sacred Heart (Harbor Yard, Nov. 22),
Boston College (home, Nov. 26) and UMass (away, Dec. 7)…
Yale has not had a player with a multiple-goal outing since Kenny
Agostino had two against SLU on Jan. 22 … The Blue has
outscored opponents 37-18 in third periods… Yale has 103
more shots on goal than the opposition in second periods.
UP NEXT
The Blue has an atypical ECAC weekend with an 8 p.m. (Comcast New
England/CPTV) game on Friday at Quinnipiac followed by a Sunday 1
p.m. (ESPNU) contest at Princeton.
BULLDOGS IN THE PROS
This season, for the first time ever, two former Yale players
skated on the same National Hockey League team. Chris Higgins '05
and Joe Callahan '05 have been on the Florida Panthers' roster at
times. They played in the same game twice in November. In other
alumni news, Mark Arcobello '10 was named MVP of last week's ECHL
All-Star Game after netting three goals. Thirteen former Yale
players are skating professionally this winter: Sean Backman '10
(Texas Stars, AHL, 36 GP, 5-10-15 ), Ryan Donald '10 (Reading
Royals, ECHL), Mark Arcobello '10 (Stockton Thunder, ECHL), Alec
Richards '09 (Rockford Icehogs, AHL, 61 GA, 2 SO, 2.64, 9-13-1,
.906), Brennan Turner '09 (Gwinnett Gladiators, ECHL), David
Meckler '09 (Manchester Monarchs, AHL), Matt Cohen '07 (Hamburg
Freezers, DEL), Brad Mills '07 (New Jersey Devils, NHL; Albany
Devils, AHL), Chris Higgins '05 (Florida Panthers, NHL, 36 GP,
8-9-17), Joe Callahan '05 (Florida Panthers, NHL; Rochester
Americans, AHL), Stacey Bauman '03 (Tulsa Oilers, CHL), Jeff
Hamilton '01 (HIFK Helsinki, FNL), Ray Giroux '98 (Chelyabinsk
Traktor, KHL).
YALE HOCKEY BROADCASTS
The pay-per-view Yale home hockey "TV" broadcasts on
yalebulldogs.com are a Yale Athletic Department production that
employs students to produce, shoot and broadcast most of the
action. Sam Dorward '13 is the producer and Joel Oblizalo '12 does
the camera work. Evan Ellis '11 handles most of the calls for the
Elis as well as an interview with Coach Allain.
ON 'TV'
The Dec. 5 game against Union aired live on ESPNU, the first of
two Yale games on ESPNU this season. The Feb. 20 game at Princeton
is also on ESPNU. The YES Network aired the Feb. 5 Dartmouth game.
The Elis have also been on CBS College Sports (at Cornell) and Time
Warner Cable (at Colgate, Union and RPI).
WYBC
The Yale student radio station formerly found on AM-1340 and on
wybc.com, is only available via internet this season. WYBC does
most of the home contests and a pre-game interview with Coach
Allain.
INGALLS RENOVATIONS
Yale hockey celebrated the re-dedication of Ingalls Rink (3,500
capacity) on Jan. 16, 2010, with ceremonies on and off the ice. The
rink built in 1958 has been modernized in many ways while adding
13,000 square feet of varsity operational space. The additions
include locker rooms and space for strength & conditioning
(including skating treadmill), student-athlete study area, medical
& training, officials, video, coaches, equipment, reception
(Schley Room) and more. There are new historical displays and
concession stands and bathrooms for the building nicknamed the Yale
Whale because of its humpback-shaped roof.
NCAAS BACK AT BRIDGEPORT
Yale and Fairfield hosted the 2009 East Regional in Bridgeport at
Webster Bank's Arena at Harbor Yard, and the Bulldogs were one of
the four teams to participate. The 2011 and 2012 East Regionals are
also slated for the Yard. This coming NCAA tourney is March 25-26.
Game times on the 25th are 3 and 6:30 with a 6:30 p.m. championship
contest on the 26th.
IN THE POLLS
Yale moved up one spot to No. 2 in the uscho.com poll and remained
in the second spot in the USA Today/American Hockey Magazine
Poll. The Blue received one of the 34 first-place votes in
the USA Today list. Boston College had 32 and Minnesota-Duluth had
the other. The Eagles had 47 of 50 votes from uscho.com; Yale, UMD
and New Hampshire had one each.
CONFERENCE RACE
Yale, winners of the last two conference regular season titles,
has a one-point lead over second-place Union and a five-point
advantage over third-place RPI.
PRONUNCIATIONS
Bourbonais Buhr-bun-aye
Dueck
Do-ick
Jaskowiak jas-ko-WEE-ack
Kearney car-KNEE
Laganiere La-ga-NEE-ay
Maricic mara-SITCH
Matczak mat-ZACK
Ziegler
ZEE-gler
filed by Steve Conn, Yale Sports Publicity Director
