Team Notes: Elis Head to Boston, Hanover
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The Yale men's hockey
team has an opportunity to take a leap in the ECAC Hockey standings
with a key road trip to Boston and Hanover this weekend. The
Bulldogs are at Bright Hockey Center to face Harvard (4-6-8, 3-4-6)
on Friday for a 7:40 p.m. faceoff that airs live on NBC Sports
Network (DirecTV 603, Dish Network 151, most cable companies).
Saturday night at 7:00 the Blue is at Thompson Arena to take on
Dartmouth (8-8-2, 5-5-1). Yale, currently tied for ninth place in
the ECAC standings with Dartmouth, is a point from sixth and two
shy of the fourth spot.
YALE-HARVARD
They've played 230 times including games in Boston, Buffalo,
Detroit, Philadelphia, New York City, Brooklyn, Lake Placid and New
Haven. The first meeting was Feb. 26, 1900, in New York, a 5-4 Yale
victory. The Elis won both games last year, 4-2 at Boston and 1-0
at New Haven. Yale has taken three consecutive and four of the last
five, but Harvard leads the overall series, 135-77-18. Kenny
Agostino and Chad
Ziegler were among the four Bulldogs who scored at
Boston last January as the Blue had a 39-31 edge in shots. Yale may
have taken two of the last three meetings at Bright Hockey Center,
but the Crimson has dominated (29-4-3) its rival at home since that
building opened.
YALE-DARTMOUTH
Dartmouth won the first encounter on Jan. 16, 1907. The Bulldogs
and Big Green are heading into the 199th meeting with Yale leading
102-84-12. The Elis have taken the last six including a 2-1 win in
a non-conference matchup earlier this year at Thompson Arena. Jeff
Malcolm stopped 29 of 30 shots and got goals from Chad
Ziegler and Antoine
Laganiere in late October.
POWER OUTAGE AT INGALLS
The Yale power play, which had been ranked as high as No. 2 in the
nation this month, was blanked on nine chances as the Bulldogs fell
to No. 12 Union (3-1) and RPI (2-1) at New Haven last weekend.
Senior forward Kevin
Limbert and classmate defenseman Kevin
Peel had the home team's goals. Junior Nick
Maricic made 33 saves against the Dutchmen, while
classmate Jeff Malcolm stopped 16 RPI shots the next night.
SHOTS
A night after attempting 66 shots with just 30 reaching the target
against Union, Yale attempted 90 shots against RPI and got 46 of
them on goal. The Bulldogs were outshot 36-30 on Friday but had a
46-18 advantage on Saturday. This season, the Elis have outshot
opponents 10 times and are 5-3-2 in those contests.
CANTABS
Harvard, with the nation's best (33 percent) power play, is 0-3-5
in its last eight games and is coming off a pair of impressive 2-2
ties at Colgate and Cornell.
BIG GREEN
Dartmouth is coming off a 4-3 loss at Cornell and a 5-4 win at
Colgate, both in OT. The Big Green, which scored seven times last
weekend but is tied with Brown for the fewest goals scored by ECAC
teams, got a goal from Doug Jones midway through the extra session
at Hamilton to take two points back to Hanover.
PENALTY SHOT
It has been four seasons since a Bulldog missed one of these.
Kenny Agostino had his penalty shot against Union stopped by a good
leg save. It was the last Yale missed PS since Broc Little '11 came
up short on Dec. 30, 2008, against Minnesota State.
RANKS
Yale ranks 10th in scoring offense (3.26) and 36th in defense
(2.84) in division I. The Bulldog penalty-kill is sixth (87.5) in
the country, and the Elis are the 11th least penalized team. The
Elis' power play unit is seventh (23.6).
MALCOLM IN MIDDLE
Junior Jeff Malcolm started every game this season until last
Friday against Union and has all eight wins. He had a shutout
streak of three (Colgate, RPI, Union) games and 226:39 minutes
(parts of 5 games) in November and was named ECAC Hockey Goalie of
the Week after stopping all 72 shots in wins at No. 8 Union and RPI
on Nov. 11-12. The three straight SHOs tied the school record set
by Ryan Rondeau '11 last winter. His scoreless streak fell short of
the 240:53 by Rondeau. His career record is 14-12-2 with a 2.83 GAA
and three shutouts.
MILLER TIME
Junior F Andrew
Miller (88 gp, 21-80-101) went over the 100-point mark
for his career last weekend with two assists. He currently ranks
fifth in Division I with 1.0 assists per game and is 20th in points
(1.22). He is one of college hockey's premier offensive
catalysts. Miller, not known for his goal scoring, leads the team
with 18 helpers and is 5th on the school's career list. He is best
at creating space, setting up teammates and winning draws. Miller,
a 2010-11 first-team All-ECAC pick, was voted "best passer" by his
teammates the last two seasons while he had 12-33-45 in 2010-11. He
was No. 4 in the nation with .97 assists per game (tops in ECAC).
More impressive is that 22 of his 33 assists were primary ones. His
team-high 33 helpers (2nd best at Yale and five behind Mark
Kaufmann '93) were a sophomore school record while 45 points were
second on the team. He probably had his best offensive weekend as a
collegian on Feb. 25-26 when he hit the net three times against
Colgate/Cornell combined. Miller (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.), was
12th in the nation with 1.29 points per contest and registered the
most (34 as a freshman) 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.
In 2009-10 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 that year with .85 assists per
outing.
CAPTAIN O'NEILL
Yale's captain, Brian
O'Neill (122 gp, 60-79-139), leads the squad with 12
goals and 22 points. He is 10th on Yale's career goals chart and
sixth in points. O'Neill ranks 12th (.63) in goals per game and
24th (1.16) in points in the nation this year. He was a 2010-11
first-team All-ECAC selection and has led the team in scoring the
last two seasons. O'Neill had a career-high four goals (most by a
Bulldog since 2003) this year against Bentley. His four tallies
against the Falcons on Jan. 1, 2012, were on consecutive scores.
That eclipsed his hat trick at Clarkson on Feb. 12, 2011. He ranked
15th nationally with 1.29 points per game last year. He began
2010-11 with a 3-2-5 weekend in the two wins including 2-1-3 and
the GWG against Dartmouth on Oct. 30. The year before, he led the
Elis with 29 assists and 45 points while ranking seventh in the
country with 1.32 PPG. O'Neill (Yardley, Pa.) made the 2008-09 CHN
and ECAC Hockey All-Rookie teams after going 12-14-26.
NET MIX
Junior Nick Maricic (Alta Loma, Calif.) got his first start of the
year on Jan. 20 against Union and stopped 33 shots in the 3-1 loss.
Maricic owns a 2.90 career GAA and an .888 SP. Freshman Connor
Wilson (Cary, NC) is looking for his first opportunity.
He stopped 11 of 12 shots in one period of work against the
exhibition against the Russian Red Stars on Dec. 28.
BLUE LINE
There are seven defensemen on the Yale roster: two seniors, a
junior, a sophomore and three freshmen. Newcomer Tommy
Fallen ( Plymouth, Minn.) leads the Yale blueliners with
three goals and 14 points (.74 points, 22nd among Division I
defensemen). Senior Kevin Peel (Onoway, Alb.) is second with three
goals and seven points, followed by Matt
Killian (Basking Ridge, NJ) with 1-4-5. Senior Nick
Jaskowiak (Bloomington, Minn.), junior Colin
Dueck (Calgary, Alb.) and sophomore Gus
Young (Dedham, Mass.) are the other regulars on
defense.
AGOSTINO
Yale sophomore forward Kenny Agostino (Flanders, NJ), who came
within a step of making the U.S. National Junior Team this winter,
is the top scoring Eli sophomore with 6-9-15. His best game this
year was 2-2-4 vs. UConn. Agostino became the first Yale newcomer
in 30 years to record five points in one game on Jan. 2, 2011. 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. Yale's rookie of the year last
winter after scoring 11 goals and 25 points, Agostino was the HCA
National Rookie of the Month for January (8-4-12), the first
Bulldog to receive that award. He was ECAC Hockey Rookie of the
Week on Jan. 23 (3 goals vs. Clarkson/SLU), becoming the only
Bulldog to earn conference rookie honors in 2010-11. The former
Delbarton School star had a goal and three assists before the
holiday break, and 10 goals and 11 assists after. He ranked 11th
nationally among rookies with .86 points per game.
ROLLER COASTER CAREER
Senior forward Dan Otto battled injuries for three years that
prevented from playing in a regular season game, until this season.
He finally cracked the lineup on opening night and played in the
first 12 games. Otto lifted his team's spirits to new heights when
he scored two goals in a November win at Union. However, on Dec. 8
at UMass, Otto suffered season-ending concussion that has likely
ended his career. The Lake Zurich, Ill., native has been around the
rink to support his teammates and hopes to finish school next
December.
ROLLER COASTER SEASON
Yale's highs in 2011-12 included four straight wins, three
straight shutouts and multiple weeks as a top 10 ranked team. Some
of the lows have not been experienced in a number of years. Last
weekend was the first time Yale had been swept at home in the ECAC
since January 2008. The current three-game skid is the most since
that season, while the two goals scored by the Elis combined last
weekend were the fewest by a Bulldog team for an ECAC set since
February of 2005.
BULLDOG BITES
Last Sunday at Ingalls, the team did a "skate with the players"
event for kids who wanted to get on the ice with the Bulldogs...
Nick Maricic's start last Friday was his first since Feb. 27, 2010,
at Quinnipiac... Yale is 7-1-1 when leading after 40 minutes and
1-5-1 when trailing heading into the third... The Elis have scored
the first goal in eight of 19 games... The Blue has outscored
opponents in the first and third periods but has been outscored by
two in second frames... Yale has outshot opponents in every period
this year... This Friday marks the second national TV appearance
for Yale hockey this season; CBS Sports Network aired the Nov. 4
game with Cornell at New Haven. The Elis are on NBC again on Feb.
17 when Dartmouth comes to Ingalls.
BEHIND THE BENCH
Assistant coach Dan Muse is in his third season season under Keith
Allain. He joined the Bulldog staff when C.J. Marottolo left to
take the top job at Sacred Heart. Former University of New
Hampshire star Eric Lind has been with Allain every season at Yale.
There is one new face on the Yale bench this season, Dennis "Red"
Gendron, who replaced Kyle Wallack as the Bulldogs' associate head
coach. Gendron, an assistant at the University of Massachusetts the
last six seasons and a former University of Maine coach from 1990
to 1993, helped the Black Bears win a 1993 NCAA Championship.
LOOKING AHEAD
The Bulldogs are back at the Whale next weekend to host St.
Lawrence and Clarkson in a pair of 7 p.m. games, the second to last
home regular-season set.
ACCOMPLISHED LEADERS
The current Yale roster is comprised of leaders and scholars. Here
are some examples.
22 were captains of hockey teams before coming to New
Haven
13 captained another sports team
17 won a scholar-athlete award
14 graduated in top 10 percent of their senior class
SURVEY SAYS
The Yale players were surveyed about each other, and here are the
results:
Best Passer:
Andrew Miller (Jr, F)
Fastest on Skates: Brian
O'Neill (Sr, F)
Hardest Shot:
Antoine Laganiere (Jr, F)
Best Forechecker: Chad
Ziegler (Sr, F)
Strongest:
Josh
Balch (Jr, F)
Most Likely to become a coach: Josh Balch
Best Singer:
Colin Dueck (Jr, D)
Most Unique Hobby: Brian
O'Neill (model airplanes)
Best Sense of Humor: Charles
Brockett (Sr, F)
Biggest Appetite: Charles
Brockett
Best Dresser:
Andrew Miller
Want your sister to date: Anthony
Day (Fr, F)
GEOGRAPHIC BALANCE
The Yale roster includes players from 13 different states and
three provinces. New York and Minnesota are represented by three
players from each state while Alberta brings in four players.
FROM WHENCE THEY CAME
The United States Hockey League contributed 10 players to the
Bulldog roster. There are four from the British Columbia Hockey
League, one from the Atlantic Junior Hockey League and another from
the Eastern Junior Hockey League. Ten Yale student-athletes came
directly from prep schools.
BULLDOGS IN THE PROS
There are 23 former Yale hockey players skating professionally,
including eight from the class of 2011. Here are the Bulldog pros,
youngest to oldest:
Chris Cahill '11 (Cincinnati Cyclones, ECHL)
Denny Kearney '11 (Trenton Titans, ECHL)
Broc Little '11 (HockeyAllsvenskan, VIK Västerås HK,
Sweden)
Jimmy Martin '11 (Florida Everblades, ECHL)
Brendon Mason '11 (Nybro Vikings, Sweden)
Mike Matczak '11 (Kalamazoo Wings, ECHL)
Ryan Rondeau '11 (Laredo Buck, CHL)
Ken Trentowski '11 (Brooklyn Aviators, FHL)
Sean Backman '10 (Bridgeport Sound Tigers, AHL)
Ryan Donald '10 (Florida Everblades, ECHL)
Mark Arcobello '10 (Oklahoma City Barons, AHL)
Billy Blase '10 (Neuilly-sur-Marne, France)
Tom Dignard (Belfast Giants, EIHL)
Alec Richards '09 (Rockford Icehogs, AHL)
Brennan Turner '09 (Dundee Stars, EIHL)
David Meckler '09 (Manchester Monarchs, AHL)
Blair Yaworski '08 (Utah Grizzlies, ECHL)
Jean-Francois Boucher (Saint-George COOL-FM, LNAH)
Matt Cohen '07 (Fife Flyers, EIHL)
Brad Mills '07 (New Jersey Devils, NHL)
Chris Higgins '05 (Vancouver Canucks, NHL)
Joe Callahan '05 (Hamilton Bulldogs, AHL)
Ray Giroux '98 (ChelyabinskTraktor, KL)
CURRENT NHL CONNECTIONS
Three players on the current Yale roster have been drafted by NHL
teams: Gus Young (Colorado, 7th, 184, 2009); Kenny Agostino
(Pittsburgh, 5th, 140, 2010); Brad
Peltz (Ottawa, 7th, 190, 2009).
9 GRADS
It's not fair to compare recent Yale teams to the 2011-12
Bulldogs, who lost nine standout class of 2011 players. Eight of
the graduates are skating professionally. The current squad isn't
lacking talent, but nobody re-loads with equal force after losing
nine seniors from a championship team. There are seven seniors
seeing regular duty, though one of them seeks his first varsity
letter. Four of the five sophomores and five of the six juniors
have been in almost every game while five freshmen have been needed
to fill the largest void.
YALE'S LAST 3
The Yale men have left a mark on Division I over the last three
seasons under Keith Allain '80, the Malcolm G. Chace Head Coach of
Hockey. The combined statistics from 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11
make the last three years the best in the history of the sport in
New Haven and among the best in the nation over that span.
The Numbers From 2008-11
Accomplishments
Overall Record:
73-25-6 (.729)
Top Winning Percentage
in Division I
ECAC Record:
47-14-5 (.749)
Two-time Division I
Scoring Leader (2009-10, 2010-11)
Scoring:
405 goals, 104 games (3.89)
Led nation in scoring defense 2010-11
All-Americans:
4
2 ECAC Hockey
Tournament Championships (2009, 2011)
All-ECAC:
8
2 ECAC Hockey Regular
Season Titles (2008-09, 2009-10)
All-Ivy League:
10
3 NCAA Tournament
Appearances
YALE HOCKEY BROADCASTS
Pay-per-view broadcasts of Yale hockey regular season home games
are available on yalebulldogs.com. The Yale Athletic Department
production is almost entirely student run: Sam Dorward '13 is the
producer; Tom Stokes '12 and Patrick Ouziel '13 are the
cameramen; Evan Ellis '12, the Voice of Yale Hockey, and Max
Valenstein '13 are the broadcasters.
HARBOR YARD
Yale and Fairfield hosted the 2009 and 2011 NCAA East Regional
Tournaments in Bridgeport at Webster Bank's Arena at Harbor Yard,
and the Bulldogs participated in both. The 2012 East Regional is
slated for the Yard, which has hosted numerous NCAA events.
INGALLS
Yale hockey celebrated the re-dedication of Ingalls Rink (3,500
capacity) on Jan. 16, 2010. The rink built in 1958 has been
modernized while adding 13,000 square feet of 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 and more. There are new historical displays,
concession stands and bathrooms for the building nicknamed the
"Whale" because of its humpback-shaped roof.
WHALE OF A TIME
The Whale (Ingalls Rink) has been a tough place for visitors in
recent years. Yale, which enjoyed its first undefeated (15-0-1,
only Division I team to do that) regular season at Ingalls last
winter, finished 17-1-1 at home (5-5 this year). That is the most
wins ever in New Haven for a Yale team (The Blue went unbeaten at
New Haven in 1928-29). The Bulldogs are 45-14-3 over the last
three-plus seasons at the Whale and 12-10-3 in home ECAC playoff
games all time.
SOLD OUT
Ingalls Rink was sold out for the last 12 games of the 2010-11
regular season and six (Cornell, Colgate, BC, QU, PU, Union) times
this year. There are tickets available for the rest of the home
campaign, but only G.A. and S.R.O. tickets remain for contests with
Harvard and Dartmouth.
ATTENTION MEDIA
Here are some important things to know if you are covering the
Bulldogs or just working a game at Ingalls. Interviews: Yale head
coach Keith Allain and select players are available on a
semi-regular basis each week at Ingalls Rink, typically Thursdays
at 2:30 p.m. If you would like to attend these informal media
sessions, please contact Sports Publicity Director Steve Conn.
Post-game:interviews with Yale personnel are conducted in one of
the youth locker rooms at ice level on the home side of the
building. Let Steve Conn know who you would like to speak with
immediately after the game. Media Gate List: Attendants stationed
at the front and back of the rink have a media gate list to check
off your name. Parking: The same list is used for PARKING in the
garage (entrance off Prospect Street) behind the rink.
filed by Steve Conn, Yale Sports Publicity
