LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — The quest for a league-leading 13th ECAC Hockey championship continues for the men's hockey team when it takes on Ivy League rival Harvard in the ECAC Hockey Championship game on Saturday night at historic 1980 Rink - Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, N.Y. The game will be broadcast by American Sports Network, with games also carried across numerous outlets — including TSN2 nationwide in Canada and by SNY in the upstate and metro New York markets. Eric Cohen will have the play-by-play and Colby Cohen will provide commentary. For Cornell, Jason Weinstein will be on play-by-play with Tony Eisenhut providing color commentary on WHCU (870 AM, 95.9 FM) in the Ithaca area. Their call can also be accessed here.

ECAC HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIPS
Finals: #9/10 CORNELL vs. #2/2 HARVARD
PLACE: 1980 Rink - Herb Brooks Arena  •  Lake Placid, N.Y.
CORNELL: 21-7-5 overall, 13-4-5 ECAC Hockey
HARVARD: 25-5-2 overall, 16-4-2 ECAC Hockey
TV: ASN / TSN2 / SNY (full listings)
RADIO: WHCU (870 AM, 95.9 FM)
VIDEO: ECACHockey.com
LIVE STATS: ECACHockey.com

Cornell game notes (PDF)
Harvard game notes (PDF)

Big Red Rewind:
•  Third-seeded Cornell defeated second-seeded Union, 4-1, in Friday's second semifinal at 1980 Rink. The Big Red is now 9-1-3 since Feb. 1.
•  Cornell came flying out of the gate with 21 shots on goal in the first period, but it wasn't until the second period when goals from Noah Bauld and Jake Weidner gave it a 2-0 lead.
•  Union got its lone goal on a power play in the third period and threatened to equalize a few times thereafter, but that turned out to be the only dent in the armor of goalie Mitch Gillam. He made 33 saves to earn the victory.
•  Eric Freschi and Beau Starrett scored goals 62 seconds apart later in the third period to cement the victory and Cornell's first berth in the ECAC Hockey finals since 2010, when it defeated Union to capture the Whitelaw Cup.
•  The win also mathematically assured Cornell of an NCAA tournament berth.

Highlights From Friday's Semifinal Win vs. Union: 


Who's Who at CU:
•  Sophomore forward Mitch Vanderlaan (15-13–28) leads the team in goals and points. Up until last weekend's Game 2, he had a six-game goal-scoring streak — the Big Red's first since at least the 2001-02 season. Vanderlaan's plus-14 rating is also tied for second-best on the team.
•  Senior defenseman Patrick McCarron (6-19–25) continues to lead the team in assists. He averages the fifth-most points per game for ECAC Hockey blueliners (0.76) and had an eight-game points streak earlier this season — a first for a Cornellian since Greg Miller from Oct. 29 to Nov. 22, 2011, and a first for a Big Red defenseman since Mark McRae from Jan. 25 to Feb. 21, 2003.
•  Junior forward Trevor Yates (12-10–22) leads the team with eight power-play goals and 13 power-play points. He has nine points in his last 13 games and is the first Cornellian with at least eight power-play goals in a season since Blake Gallagher had 10 during the 2009-10 season.
•  Sophomore forward Anthony Angello (12-8–20) had both game-winning goals last weekend in the quarterfinals against Clarkson to eclipse his goal total for last year.
•  Senior forward Matt Buckles (9-9–18) has nine points over the last 12 games.
•  Senior forward Eric Freschi (2-12–14) leads the team with a plus-15 rating. He was on the ice for just six five-on-five goals against in 22 league games.
•  Senior Mitch Gillam (21-6-5, 2.11, .922, 3 SO) had the nation's longest active unbeaten streak for goaltenders snapped Jan. 27, having backstopped the Big Red to a 10-0-1 record over 11 starts. The Big Red's lone nominee for the Hobey Baker Memorial Award had a 1.63 goals against average and .931 save percentage over that span.

Road Warriors:
•  Cornell completed the road portion of its schedule with a sterling 9-2-2 record, with the .769 winning percentage ranking second-best in the country entering the weekend (Ohio State, .781). This marks the Big Red's best road winning percentage since the 2002-03 season (.821), when Cornell reached the Frozen Four.
•  This year marks the first time since 2004-05 that the Big Red has swept three ECAC Hockey road weekends in a single season.

Awards Season:
•  ECAC Hockey announced its postseason awards before yesterday's semifinals. While Cornell did not have a single player on any of the three all-league teams, senior Jake Weidner was named the ECAC Hockey Best Defensive Forward and freshman Yanni Kaldis was named to the All-Rookie team.
•  The All-Ivy League teams were announced earlier this month, with the Big Red placing four players on the two teams for the first time since the 2011-12 season. Kaldis was named to the first team, while senior goalie Mitch Gillam, senior defenseman Patrick McCarron and sophomore Mitch Vanderlaan were all placed on the second team.

The Sum of Intangibles Is Tangible:
•  Through 33 games, the Big Red has accumulated 122 man-games lost to injury — which includes lengthy absences from the team's leading scorer last year (Jeff Kubiak, 10 games) and a top-four defenseman (Ryan Bliss, 33).
•  Senior Jake Weidner has the massive task of being the Big Red's leading faceoff man. He entered the weekend fourth in the nation in average faceoffs per game (25.2), and Weidner is also far and away the nation's top shot-blocker among forwards (2.12 per game).

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.
•  Vanderlaan 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.
•  Freshman forward Jeff Malott (5-3–8) then scored his first three collegiate goals in a span of 8 minutes, 44 seconds during the first period to power the Big Red past Princeton on Jan. 13. He was subsequently named ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week after becoming the first Cornell freshman with a hat trick since current NHLer Matt Moulson on Feb. 7, 2003.

What, Me Worry?:
•  Eight of Cornell's 20 victories so far this season have come in games in which the Big Red has surrendered the first goal. Its winning percentage of .607 in that scenario ranks third in the country behind just Harvard (.667) and Minn.-Duluth (.656).
•  The Big Red's resilience from an early deficit has become somewhat of a trend, with the team sporting a very respectable 13-12-4 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).

Gillam's Groove:
•  Senior goaltender Mitch Gillam moved up to fourth on the program's all-time list for career shutouts Feb. 24 vs. Rensselaer. By stopping all 31 shots from Rensselaer, Gillam earned his 11th career clean sheet.
•  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 at 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 11 career shutouts is that he's only won nine of them — Dec. 28, 2014 against Lake Superior State and Nov. 20, 2015 against Yale were both scoreless ties.

First Ivy League Coach To 400:
•  Already the winningest coach in program history and in Ivy League history, Mike Schafer has eclipsed another milestone in his career with his 400th victory in January. He ranks 10th in victories among active Division I coaches and is Cornell's fifth-winningest coach across all sports — second among current coaches, behind just Dave Eldredge (men's and women's polo).

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.

Never Too Close For Comfort:
•  Cornell's 1-0 win Jan. 7 at Merrimack was hardly new territory for the team. 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 last year, with a 4-3-7 record in those games.

Apple Harvest:
•  Freshman Yanni Kaldis (1-13–14) ranks third on the team in assists. His 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.

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.
  

About Harvard:
•  The Crimson are currently tabbed third in the Pairwise Rankings and second in both the USCHO.com and USA TODAY/USA Hockey Magazine polls.
•  Senior forward Sean Malone (18-23–41) leads the team in scoring after scoring the first three goals of Harvard's 4-1 win over Quinnipiac in yesterday's first semifinal.
•  Senior forward Alexander Kerfoot (16-24–40) leads the team with eight PPGs and is second in team scoring. He was one of two Crimson announced on the All-ECAC Hockey First Team yesterday.
•  The other is freshman Adam Fox (5-29–34), who was also a hands-down selection as the league's Rookie of the Year. The Calgary Flames draft pick leads the nation in points per game for defensemen (1.10).
•  Junior Merrick Madsen (25-5-2, 2.22, .917) had started every game in goal for the Crimson and is one of eight NHL draft picks on the team.
•  Harvard leads the nation in goals per game (4.22) and its power play is fourth-most efficient at 25.9 percent.
•  The Crimson has outscored its opponents by a 37-12 margin in the first period of games this season.

The Series Against Harvard:
•  Cornell has been battling with ancient rival Harvard since 1910, and they have matched up 149 times with the Big Red holding a 74-64-11 lead.
•  The Crimson won both regular-season meetings between the squads. On Nov. 5 at Harvard, Yanni Kaldis teed up three power-play goals for the Big Red only to see the Crimson win, 4-3. Cornell was then in control for the better part of the Jan. 27 rematch at Lynah Rink, the Crimson broke through in the third for a 4-1 victory.
•  Cornell head coach Mike Schafer is 34-17-6 in 56 games against Harvard.  

Postseason Series With Harvard:
•  The Big Red and Crimson have clashed 23 times in the playoffs, with the Big Red holding a 14-8-1 advantage. Harvard won the last meeting, 6-1, which was in a 2012 semifinal in Atlantic City, N.J.
•  Cornell holds a 4-2 advantage in ECAC Hockey championship game meetings between the programs. Four of those meetings came in a five-year span from 2002-2006, with each team emerging victorious twice.
•  Two of the clashes have come at 1980 Rink - Herb Brooks Arena, with Cornell winning in 1996 and Harvard winning in 2002. Cornell also won twice in Albany (2003 and 2005) and once at the Boston Garden (1969).

Anniversary Season:
•  The Jan. 27-28 weekend marked a reunion for the 50th anniversary of Cornell's first national championship team in 1967. There were festivities throughout, highlighted by a special ceremony to honor the returning
members of the team during the first intermission of the second game.
•  This is also the 60th year of hockey in Lynah Rink. The facility was dedicated April 6, 1957, a few weeks after it hosted an exhibition between the New York Rangers and the Rochester Americans (AHL).

The Offensive Defense:
•  Mitch Gillam leads the nation's goaltenders in career points. His quick outlet pass Jan. 21 against St. Lawrence set up the line rush leading to Patrick McCarron's goal, giving Gillam five career points on one goal and four assists.

An Empire State of Mind:
•  The Big Red's stars in the Nov. 26 win over New Hampshire at The Frozen Apple at Madison Square Garden 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., participated in the New York Rangers prospect development camp in 2012 and once played youth hockey on MSG ice in between periods of a 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.

The Streak Is Over!
•  Junior forward Alex Rauter's penalty-shot goal in The Frozen Apple on Nov. 26 ended a remarkable string of futility on such plays for the Big Red. Rauter became the first Cornellian to score on a penalty shot since Feb. 27, 1987 — 949 games since Joe Nieuwendyk scored on a penalty shot against Rensselaer.

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.

Up Next:
•  Cornell will learn its draw in the NCAA tournament during the selection show at noon Sunday.