ITHACA, N.Y. — The Cornell men's hockey team concludes the fall semester portion of its schedule this weekend with a pair of non-league games against Miami (Ohio) on Friday and Saturday at Lynah Rink. Both games will be broadcast by the subscription-based Ivy League Digital Network, with Friday's game also simulcast on ESPN3. Jason Weinstein will handle the play-by-play, while Tony Eisenhut will provide color commentary. Their call for Saturday's game can also be heard in the Ithaca area on WHCU-AM (870 AM, 95.9 FM) and around the world via the station's website.

GAMES #10-11: MIAMI (OHIO) at CORNELL
TIME: 7 p.m.
DATES: Friday, Dec. 2, 2016 and Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016
PLACE: Lynah Rink · Ithaca, N.Y.
RECORDS: Cornell 5-3-1, 4-2-1 ECAC Hockey · Miami 3-6-4, 0-4-2 NCHC
RADIO (Sat. only): WHCU-AM (95.9 FM, 870 AM)
WEBCAST: Ivy League Digital Network and ESPN3
LIVE STATS: CornellBigRed.com

Cornell game notes (PDF)
Miami game notes (PDF)
 
Big Red Rewind:
Cornell is coming off a 3-2 victory on Tuesday at Colgate, which served as its final ECAC Hockey game of the unofficial first half of the season. Senior defenseman Patrick McCarron scored two goals on the power play and senior forward Eric Freschi's goal off a highlight-reel feed from freshman Jeff Malott eventually turned into the game-winner after a later Raiders rally. ... The Red had an exhilarating 3-1 victory over New Hampshire on Saturday at the third biennial Frozen Apple at Madison Square Garden in New York. Junior forward Trevor Yates scored his third power-play goal of the year, then freshman forward Noah Bauld's first collegiate goal proved to be the winner on a marvelous redirection of a point shot from sophomore defenseman Matt Nuttle. Junior forward Alex Rauter put the icing on the cake with the Big Red's first penalty-shot goal in nearly 20 years — all coming in front of senior Mitch Gillam's first-star, 29-save performance in goal. The Big Red was a perfect 7-for-7 on the penalty kill against a potent UNH power play.

Highlights from Tuesday's 3-2 Win at Colgate:


Highlights from Saturday's 3-1 Win vs. UNH at The Frozen Apple:


The Hot Hand:
Senior defenseman Patrick McCarron (2-6–8) ranks second in team scoring and rides a seven-game points streak into the weekend after his two power-play goals Tuesday at Colgate. He is the first Cornell blueliner to have points in seven straight games since Charlie Cook from Nov. 22, 2003 to Jan. 9, 2004. After Tuesday's game, five of McCarron's eight collegiate goals have come against Colgate.
 
Who's Who at CU:
Even with Jeff Kubiak — the Big Red's leading scorer last season — out of the lineup for the last eight games, the other members of the vaunted 'JAM' line from a year ago, sophomore forwards Mitch Vanderlaan (7-3–10) and Anthony Angello (3-3–6), are off to productive starts. Vanderlaan is tied for eighth nationally in goals per game (0.78). ... Junior forward Trevor Yates (4-3–7) leads the team with three power-play goals. ... Senior goaltender Mitch Gillam (5-3-1, 2.46, .910) has started the last 43 games for the Big Red. His seven shutouts last year were tied for the third-most in the country.
 
Apple Harvest:
Freshman Yanni Kaldis (0-6–6) is tied for the team lead in assists and is tied for fourth nationally in assists per game for first-year defensemen (0.67). Kaldis' passes set up the shots resulting in all three of the Big Red's power-play goals Nov. 5 at Harvard, making him the first Big Red player to record three power-play assists in a single game since Byron Bitz on Jan. 7, 2006. Subsequently, Kaldis was named the ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week on Nov. 8.
 
An Empire State of Mind:
The Big Red's stars in Saturday's win over New Hampshire at The Frozen Apple all had ties to New York. Junior forward Alex Rauter, who scored on a penalty shot in the third period, is from nearby Chatham, N.J., and once played youth hockey on MSG ice in between periods of a New York Rangers game. Freshman forward Noah Bauld, who scored the game-winner, was actually born in New York before moving to his hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia when he was a toddler, and senior goaltender Mitch Gillam once attended the New York Islanders' prospect camp.
 
What, Me Worry?:
Four of Cornell's five victories so far this season have come in games in which the Big Red has surrendered the first goal. Only one other team in the country has more wins when being scored upon first (Minn.-Duluth 5-1-2), and only four other teams have a winning record in that scenario (Minn.-Duluth, Penn State 3-1, Boston College 3-2 and North Dakota 4-3-1). The Big Red's resilience from an early deficit has become somewhat of a trend, with the team sporting a very respectable 9-10-3 record when conceding the game's first strike since the beginning of the 2015-16 campaign. That's a stark turnaround from the team's 14-34-5 record when yielding the game's first goal from the previous three seasons (2012-15).
 
The Streak Is Over!
Junior forward Alex Rauter's penalty-shot goal in the third period of Saturday's game ended a fairly remarkable string of futility on such plays for the Big Red. Rauter became the first Cornell player to score on a penalty shot since Feb. 27, 1987 — a span of 949 games since Joe Nieuwendyk scored on a penalty shot against Rensselaer.
 
Road Warriors:
The history of Cornell hockey dates all the way back to 1900-01, but this year was the first time the Big Red has ever started its season with five consecutive road games — and all three of the trips over that stretch were lengthy. The Big Red traversed approximately 2,450 miles over a 17-day span (Oct. 27 to Nov. 13), amounting to about 44 hours on the bus.
 
Face Off Frenzy:
Senior Jake Weidner has been the Big Red's leading faceoff man for three years now, but Jeff Kubiak's early-season injury has pushed Cornell's captain into even more draws this year. In fact, Weidner enters the weekend ranked second in the nation in average faceoffs per game (26.7) — trailing only Bentley's Max French (28.6).
 
Milestone Watch:
Already the winningest coach in program history and in Ivy League history, Mike Schafer is closing in on another milestone this season. After Tuesday's win at Colgate, Schafer is now just four victories short of 400 career victories. He became the 35th coach all-time to rack up 350 victories across all NCAA divisions, and he is also just the third coach to pass 350 victories with Ivy League tenure, joining Ned Harkness (Cornell, Union and Rensselaer) and Tim Taylor (Yale).
 
Turning The Trick:
Mitch Vanderlaan's hat trick Nov. 12 at Yale was Cornell's first since Jan. 22, 2011, when Tyler Roeszler scored three times against Colgate. Subsequently, Vanderlaan was named the ECAC Hockey Player of the Week on Nov. 15. The Big Red's leading scorer to date potted a couple more goals Nov. 19 against Princeton to become the first player from Cornell with seven goals in the first seven games of the season since Blake Gallagher did so at the start of the 2009-10 campaign.
 
Gillam's Groove:
Senior goaltender Mitch Gillam posted the third-longest shutout streak in program history last season, spanning 213 minutes, 17 seconds over four games in November 2015 — including consecutive shutouts in the Big Red's last trip to this weekend's opponents, Yale and Brown. That marked the Big Red's first back-to-back shutouts since Andy Iles did so Dec. 2-3, 2011 against St. Lawrence and Clarkson, and it was the Big Red's first consecutive road shutouts since Ben Scrivens blanked Princeton and Quinnipiac from Nov. 7-8, 2008. An odd twist on Gillam's eight career shutouts is that he's only won six of them — Dec. 28, 2014 against Lake Superior State and Nov. 20, 2015 against Yale were both scoreless ties.
 
Freshman Force:
The jump to college hockey can be a big one for newcomers, but forward Anthony Angello — a 2014 draft pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins — clearly felt right at home as a freshman last season. Angello was the Big Red's first player to have points in his first four collegiate games since Ryan Moynihan from Nov. 8-16, 1996 — which was Mike Schafer's second season as head coach of his alma mater. Angello then scored the overtime winner Nov. 14 at Colgate and was named ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week twice (Jan. 12 and March 1) on his way to posting a team-high 11 goals.
 
Feel The Draft?:
Cornell has five players on the roster who have been selected in the NHL Entry Draft, including four from 2014. Sophomore forward Beau Starrett (Chicago Blackhawks) was selected earliest in the group, having been taken in the third round with the 88th overall pick. Classmate Anthony Angello, also a forward, was selected in the fifth round by the Pittsburgh Penguins. Junior forwards Jared Fiegl (Arizona Coyotes) and Dwyer Tschantz (St. Louis Blues) were then picked in the seventh round. Senior forward Matt Buckles was taken by the Florida Panthers in the fourth round of the 2013 draft.
 
Helping Out:
Members and friends of the Cornell men's hockey program embarked on another mission trip to the Dominican Republic through the Portal de Belén Foundation over the summer. It was the fourth time the program has participated, following trips in 2009, 2012 and 2014. Current members of the team Ryan Bliss, Alec McCrea, Anthony Angello, Dan Wedman, Alex Rauter, Hayden Stewart, Trent Shore, Jared Fiegl and Dwyer Tschantz were on this year's trip, as well as Mike Schafer, the Jay R. Bloom '77 Head Coach of Men's Hockey.
  

Binational Interests:
Cornell has the unique distinction of having exactly 14 players hailing from both the U.S. and Canada. The Big Red joins just two other teams — Robert Morris and Michigan Tech — with an even split on their respective rosters.
 
About Miami:
The RedHawks are winless in their last seven games, though their last two appearances Nov. 18-19 were road ties against second-ranked Denver. In the five losses before those games, Miami conceded a total of 22 goals. ... Miami has 14 freshmen on its roster of 26, accounting for four of the squad's 31 goals to date. Forward Anthony Louis (9-8–17; 3 PPGs), one of just three seniors on the team and already a 100-point scorer in his career, leads the way offensively. Sophomore forward Kiefer Sherwood (6-9–15; 4 PPGs) and freshman forward Carson Meyer (2-8–10) are next in line. ... Junior defenseman Louie Belpedio (3-3–6) has scored all of his goals on the power play in just seven games. ... Freshman Ryan Larkin (3-4-4, 2.64, .915, 1 SO) has assumed the starting role. ... The RedHawks have been shut out just twice since March 1, 2014.
 
The Series Against Miami:
The RedHawks hold a 3-1 series lead, including a thorough 3-0 victory on Dec. 29, 2014 at the Florida College Classic in which Cornell generated just 15 shots on goal. ... Miami won the first meeting on Dec. 28, 1989 in Cincinnati, then defeated the Big Red on Nov. 30, 1996 at Lynah Rink in Ithaca, N.Y. Cornell's victory, by a 4-2 score, then followed on March 22, 1997 in an NCAA regional game in Grand Rapids, Mich.
 
Anniversary Season:
There are some significant milestones in Cornell hockey history that have happened in years ending with a '7', so this season will feature a couple noteworthy anniversaries. This is the 60th year of hockey in Lynah Rink, since the facility was dedicated April 6, 1957. This season also marks the 50th anniversary of Cornell's first national championship team in 1967. There will be a special ceremony to honor that team Jan. 27-28 during home games against Dartmouth and Harvard.
 
Never Too Close For Comfort:
The Big Red had four 1-0 victories last season for the first time in program history. Cornell also set a team record by going to overtime in 14 of its 34 games last year. The previous record was 12, set in 1985-86, then matched in 2010-11 and 2011-12. Cornell went to overtime in seven of its final 15 games, with a 4-3-7 record in those games.
 
Up Next:
Cornell will be idle for three-plus weeks for final exams and a holiday break, then it will regroup to compete Dec. 28-29 in the Florida College Classic in Estero, Fla. The Big Red will take on Northern Michigan in the first round and either Colorado College or Merrimack on the second day.