The only ECAC Hockey team to record two wins last weekend will hit the road to close out the regular season when Cornell visits Brown on Friday and Yale on Saturday. The Big Red is jockeying for playoff position with a handful of teams, including Brown, making Friday night's game particularly meaningful in determining which teams will draw home ice for the first round of the playoffs. Cornell will then visit Yale the following night in a matchup of last year's Ivy League champion vs. this year's titleist. Both of this weekend's games can be heard in the Ithaca area on WHCU-AM (870), with Jason Weinstein handling the play-by-play duties. His call can also be heard worldwide on Cornell Athletics' subscription-based Redcast service.
 
GAME 28: CORNELL at BROWN
DATE: Friday, March 1, 2013
TIME: 7 p.m.
SITE: Meehan Auditorium — Providence, R.I.
2012-13 RECORDS: Cornell 11-13-3, 7-10-3 ECAC Hockey; Brown 10-11-6, 6-8-6 ECAC Hockey
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 69-43-5
LAST MEETING: Brown won, 3-0, on Jan. 26, 2013 in Ithaca, N.Y.
RADIO: WHCU 870 AM (Jason Weinstein)
LIVE VIDEO: http://www.americaonesports.com/partner_members.asp?id=1
LIVE STATS: http://livestats.prestosports.com/brown
 
GAME 29: CORNELL at #14/15 YALE
DATE: Saturday, March 2, 2013
TIME: 7 p.m.
SITE: Ingalls Rink — New Haven, Conn.
2012-13 RECORDS: Cornell 11-13-3, 7-10-3 ECAC Hockey; Yale 14-10-3, 10-9-1 ECAC Hockey
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 79-57-5
LAST MEETING: Yale won, 3-2 in overtime, on Jan. 25, 2013 in Ithaca, N.Y.
RADIO: WHCU 870 AM (Jason Weinstein)
LIVE VIDEO: www.yalebulldogs.com/links/1vljo0
LIVE STATS: http://livestats.prestosports.com/yale
 
Cornell game notes (PDF)
Brown games notes (unavailable at this time)
Yale games notes (PDF)
 
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell is tied for the second-longest unbeaten streak in the country, having secured seven points over its last eight games to keep itself in the hunt for home ice in the first round of the ECAC Hockey playoffs. The Big Red never trailed in last weekend's victories over Rensselaer and Union at Lynah Rink, led by a five-point weekend from ECAC Hockey Player of the Week Greg Miller (14-12–26). He had his second and third career two-goal games, giving him 10 points over his last eight games and the lead in scoring. He is attempting to become the Big Red's first three-time scoring champion since current NHLer Matt Moulson did it in 2006. ... Sophomore forward Brian Ferlin (5-13–18) assisted on all four of Miller's goals last weekend to tie classmate Joel Lowry (10-8–18) for second on the team in scoring. ... Senior forward John Esposito (10-4–14) leads the team with five power-play goals, just ahead of Lowry's four. ... Sophomore Joakim Ryan (2-15–17) has the team lead in scoring from defensemen. ... Junior goalie Andy Iles (11-13-3, 2.43, .911) is in line to start his 64th consecutive game for the Big Red on Friday, having won ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Week honors after making 65 saves in last weekend's wins.
 
ABOUT BROWN
The Bears are 3-2-2 since defeating the Big Red, 3-0, on Jan. 26 at Lynah Rink. But the quality of the results supersedes the numbers, considering one of the wins was against Yale and both ties were against No. 1 Quinnipiac. One of those ties, coupled with a win at Princeton last Friday, have Brown sitting one point ahead of Cornell for the eighth place in the league standings. ... Sophomore center Matt Lorito (14-13–27) is far-and-away the team's leading offensive player, leading junior Garnet Hathaway (5-11–16) by 11 points for the scoring lead. Center Mark Naclerio (3-11–14) is fourth in the league in freshman scoring. ... Senior Anthony Borelli (8-6-5, 1.68, .947) has not only emerged as a first-year starting goalie for the Bears, but he also ranks first in the league in save percentage (.951) and third in goals-against average (1.62).
 
ABOUT YALE
The Bulldogs have already locked up the Ivy League title, but are in a heated race for one of the league's coveted first-round byes. Yale ended a five-game losing streak with a 4-3 victory Saturday at Princeton. That game also marked the return of senior goalie Jeff Malcolm (12-4-2, 2.51, .915), who suffered an injury during the Bulldogs' last win before that on Feb. 1 — also against Princeton. Yale has won just two of the eight games in which Malcolm hasn't started. ... Junior winger Kenny Agostino (13-16–29) leads the team in scoring, while seniors Andrew Miller (12-14–26) and Antoine Laganiere (12-12–24) are tied for the team lead with six power-play goals apiece. ... Sophomore Tommy Fallen (6-13–19) is the team's leading scorer among defensemen. ... Twelve of Yale's 14 wins this season have come by one- or two-goal margins. ... The Bulldogs are on pace to convert on greater than 20 percent of their power plays for a fourth consecutive season.
 
THE SERIES WITH YALE
Friday's game will be the 142nd all-time meeting between the Bulldogs and Big Red, with Cornell holding a 79-57-5 advantage since the teams first met during the 1902-03 season. The Big Red swept last year's games, winning 6-2 when Yale was ranked ninth in the country on Nov. 4, 2011, then clinching the Ivy League title outright with a 4-2 victory on Feb. 11, 2012. But the Bulldogs answered with a 3-2 victory in overtime to start this season's series. Forwards Brian Ferlin and John Esposito scored for the Big Red on Jan. 25, but Yale won on Stu Wilson's goal midway through overtime. Mike Schafer is 19-16-4 against Yale in his tenure as Cornell's head coach.
 
THE SERIES WITH BROWN
The Big Red still has a commanding lead in the all-time series, 69-43-5, and Mike Schafer is a dominating 27-7-3 against the Bears during his time as the Big Red's head coach. But while the Bears have finished in the league's bottom third in each of the last seven seasons, Brown has given Cornell fits of late by winning four of the teams' last five meetings. The Bears skated away with a 3-0 victory on Jan. 26 in the teams' first meeting this season at Lynah Rink, with several of the Big Red's key offensive players out of the lineup that night. Brown also won the last meeting at Meehan Auditorium between the two teams, rallying for a 5-4 victory on Nov. 5, 2011.
 
MILLER TIME
Senior forward Greg Miller is the reigning ECAC Hockey Player of the Week after winning the honor for the first time in his career. He scored two goals in each of last weekend's games against Rensselaer and Union, also adding an assist against the Dutchmen. With the breakout weekend, Miller is now tied for third in ECAC Hockey for in-league goals (10) and just nine points away from becoming the 48th player in program history to eclipse the 100-point plateau.
 
ILES FILES
Junior Andy Iles earned ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Week honors for the third time this season after coming up with 65 saves in a pair of victories over Rensselaer and Union last weekend. The first time Iles won the award was on Oct. 30 after the Big Red's two victories against Colorado College, including a season-opening shutout. Iles then stopped 26 shots in the Big Red's 5-1 victory over Michigan on Nov. 24 in The Frozen Apple to earn the league's weekly goaltending honor on Nov. 27. Iles was an All-Ivy League First Team and All-ECAC Hockey Second Team selection last season after earning all-league rookie team honors as a freshman.
 
HOME HUNTING
Despite a late flourish, the Big Red will finish the season below .500 in ECAC Hockey for the first time since 1998-99. As a result, Cornell is in danger of not having home playoff games for the first time since ECAC Hockey went to its current playoff format before the 2002-03 season. The last time the Big Red didn't have home games in the postseason was 1999, when the league used a format where only the top five teams hosted playoff series. The current playoff format ensures a home playoff series for the top eight seeds.
 
BREAKING THE FUNK
One of the most decorated teams in ECAC Hockey, Cornell has endured rare bumps in the road this season — including a seven-game losing streak (from Jan. 19 to Feb. 9) and a stretch of 10 losses over 11 games (from Dec. 29 to Feb. 9). Both skids were the first of their kind since the Big Red lost 11 straight games from Dec. 23, 1992 to March 5, 1993.
 
CLIMBING THE CHARTS
Cornell head coach Mike Schafer is quickly moving up  the ranks of the coaching fraternity in his win totals.  Now in his 18th season, Schafer has 343 career victories, ranking him second in ECAC Hockey. Schafer trails only Quinnipiac's Rand Pecknold by 17 games. He is also tops among Ivy League coaches, with Dartmouth's Bob Gaudet up to 325 career victories in his 25th season as a head coach.
 
WARMING UP
Sophomore forward John McCarron scored his first three goals of the season in three consecutive games from Dec. 28 to Jan. 4, and he's added three more since. It's a similar trend to his freshman season, when all six of his goals game in January, February or Match. All 12 of his career goals have now come after the December break for final exams and the holidays — including three goals in the playoffs.
 
REST OPTIONAL
Andy Iles was the only goalie in Division I to be used exclusively by his team this season, having now made 63 consecutive starts in the Cornell net. But he got a rare view from the bench for the final 31 seconds of last Saturday's game against Union, when senior Omar Kanji made his collegiate debut in goal on Senior Night. Iles was one of just two goalies to be used exclusively by his team last season, with Minnesota's Kent Patterson being the other. By starting and finishing all of the Big Red's games in 2011-12, Iles became the first goalie at Cornell to accomplish that feat since Darren Eliot in 1982-83, and the first Cornell sophomore to do so since Laing Kennedy in 1960-61 — when the season was just 19 games long.
 
POLLS PROSE
The Big Red is out of both the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine and USCHO.com polls for the just the fifth week this season. Cornell has still been in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine a league-high 14 weeks this season. Despite being outside of the USCHO.com poll, Cornell holds a 7-5-1 mark in games against teams in the Top 20 at the time of the games.
 
WHO'S HOT
Senior forward Greg Miller is currently riding a four-game scoring streak, racking up six goals and an assist over that span. He's now one game shy of the team's longest scoring streak of the season, belonging to classmate Erik Axell (Nov. 24 to Dec. 29). Not surprisingly, sophomore Brian Ferlin — Miller's linemate — has a three-game assist streak. He's had five helpers over that span.
 
WE WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN
It has been 1,508 games since the Big Red has been shutout in back-to-back contests — a streak that has been threatened twice in the last couple months. But Cornell bounced back from shutout losses to Brown and Princeton to keep the streak alive, dating back to December 1963 games vs. Clarkson and St. Lawrence.
 
POWERFUL START
Senior forward John Esposito is tied for second on the team with nine goals — the first four of which came on the man advantage. All five of the Big Red's goals in its two victories Oct. 26-27 over Colorado College came on the man advantage, including one strike on a five-on-three. It was the first time since 2000 that Cornell opened the season without scoring a five-on-five goal. The last time the team scored as many as five power-play goals in its first two games actually wasn't that long ago — 2009, when it racked up six against Niagara and Dartmouth.
 
FIVE-ON-THREE PROWESS
There are few situations in hockey more dire than when your team is facing a two-man disadvantage, but the Big Red has been impregnable in those scenarios so far this season. Cornell is a perfect 7-for-7 on the two-man disadvantage this season, spanning a total of 6 minutes, 18 seconds. Conversely, the Big Red offense has scored in two of its five two-man advantages this season — John Esposito on Oct. 26 against Colorado College and Nick D'Agostino on Feb. 2 at Clarkson.
 
HOBEY WATCH
The same three members of the Big Red who were nominated for the Hobey Baker Award in 2012 are back on the ballot in 2013. Senior defenseman Nick D'Agostino is one of the squad's tri-captains and leads the team in goals among blueliners, senior forward Greg Miller is on pace to lead the team in scoring for a third consecutive season, and junior Andy Iles is a reigning All-Ivy League First Team selection.
 
BLANK YOU VERY MUCH
With its season-opening 2-0 victory over Colorado College, Cornell has recorded at least one shutout in each of the last 18 seasons. The last time the Big Red went a full schedule without posting a shutout came during the 1994-95 season under former coach Brian McCutcheon, as Cornell finished that year 11-15-4. The following year marked the first season for current head coach Mike Schafer, and his clubs have never gone a full year without recording a shutout.
 
GOLDEN AGAIN
Sophomore forward Cole Bardreau won a gold medal while serving as an assistant captain for the United States at the 2013 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship earlier this month in Ufa, Russia. He then scored a goal and added an assist in his first game back with the Big Red last weekend against Union. It wasn't the first time Bardreau's earned gold with the U.S. either — he also wore an “A” while capturing gold at the IIHF Under-18 World Championship in April 2011. Sophomore defenseman Joakim Ryan was also among the 45 players who started the camp for this year's World Juniors before the roster was trimmed.
 
FEEL THE DRAFT?
Cornell has eight players on the roster who have been selected in the NHL Entry Draft, including three picks from last June. Freshman defenseman Reece Willcox was selected in the fifth round by the Philadelphia Flyers, then sophomore forward John McCarron was snagged in the sixth round by the Edmonton Oilers. The San Jose Sharks then selected sophomore defenseman Joakim Ryan in the seventh round, giving the Big Red its most NHL draft picks entering a season since it had eight in the 2006-07 campaign. Other NHL draft picks on this year's team include sophomore forwards Brian Ferlin (Boston Bruins) and Joel Lowry (Los Angeles Kings), senior defensemen Braden Birch (Chicago Blackhawks) and Nick D'Agostino (Pittsburgh Penguins), and junior defenseman Kirill Gotovets (Tampa Bay Lightning).
 
GLOBAL INFLUENCE
The Big Red has 11 players on the roster born in the United States, the second-highest total for a Mike Schafer-coached team at Cornell (trailing only the 12 it had last season). The Big Red also now has players native to seven different countries on its squad. Aside from the bulk of its roster hailing from the United States and Canada, Cornell also has a player from Belarus (Kirill Gotovets), Denmark (Christian Hilbrich), Finland (Teemu Tiitinen), Singapore (Dustin Mowrey) and South Africa (Armand de Swardt).
 
CLOSER TO HOME
Hometown fans of the Big Red got a rare treat when goalie Andy Iles became the first Ithaca native to play for the team since Mike Tallman in 1988-89. Sophomore forward Kevin Cole then made his collegiate debut last season, marking the first time in at least 50 years — and perhaps the first time in program history — that two Ithaca natives have played for the Big Red in the same season. Cole was born in Ithaca and raised in nearby Lansing before heading off to junior programs in Syracuse and Cornwall, Ontario. His father, Dave, lettered for the Big Red in the 1981-82 season. Yet another Ithaca area connection came on board this season when the Big Red added junior defenseman Craig Esposito, who is also from Lansing and serves as one of the tri-captains on Cornell's men's golf team. Freshman forward John Knisley, who calls Pittsford, N.Y. home, also joins the Big Red this season to give Cornell five players that call Upstate New York home for the first time since 1963-64.
 
FIRST 1,000 DOWN ...
The Big Red's 2-1 win over Quinnipiac in game one of the ECAC Hockey quarterfinals in 2011 marked the 1,000th victory all-time for the Cornell men's hockey program. Cornell became the 17th program to reach that milestone.
 
COLLECTING HARDWARE
While sophomore forward Cole Bardreau became the first Cornell player to earn gold with the U.S. at the IIHF World Junior Championships, junior goalie Andy Iles was the first to earn a medal with Team USA. Iles claimed bronze at the 2011 tournament in Buffalo, N.Y., with the only player before to compete with the United States
being goaltender Jean-Marc Pelletier in 1998.
 
FOR THE RECORD
With three consecutive shutouts in November 2011, Andy Iles recorded the second-longest shutout streak in program history, spanning 213 minutes, 35 seconds over a five-game span. The only Cornell shutout streak that went longer was posted by Toronto Maple Leafs goalie Ben Scrivens, who held the opposition scoreless for 267:11 during the 2010 playoffs. But Iles wasn't done there — he posted back-to-back shutouts against St. Lawrence and Clarkson on Dec. 2 and Dec. 3, respectively, spurring another lengthy shutout streak of 152:36 that ranks ninth all-time in Big Red history. His success has stretched into the postseason, as evidenced by a career-high 46 saves in a March 9 double-overtime victory against Dartmouth. Iles was third in the nation with six shutouts and 10th in goal-against average (2.12). He also set a record for longest streak in ECAC Hockey play of 286:54 from November 2011 to January 2012.
 
INTERNATIONAL EXPOSURE
Junior Kirill Gotovets got a taste of the big time when he was selected to represent his native Belarus in the 2010 IIHF World Championships — not an age group World Championships (though he did play for Belarus at the U20 World Championship as well) — playing against some of the best players the world has to offer. He played in three of Belarus' eight games at the World Championships, recording two shots and two minutes in penalties, helping his nation to a 10th-place finish.
 
BE PROMPT
In 12 of the Big Red's last 16 games, a goal has been scored in the first four minutes of the first period — the latest occurrence being Greg Miller's goal 2:03 into the Feb. 16 game at Harvard. In six of those games, Cornell has scored first.
 
UP NEXT
As usual, there is plenty of uncertainty about the ECAC Hockey postseason picture even as the league enters its final weekend of games. The Big Red could finish anywhere from fourth to 11th in the standings, meaning it could be either home or away for a best-of-three first round series March 8-10 at campus sites — and there's still a slight chance Cornell could secure a first-round bye.