MANCHESTER, N.H. — The Cornell men's hockey team will compete in the NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Championships for the 20th in program history, starting with a Northeast Region semifinal at noon Saturday against UMass Lowell at SNHU Arena. The game will be broadcast on ESPN3 and the WatchESPN app. Allen Bestwick will have the play-by-play and Bill Jaffe will provide color 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.

NCAA DIVISION I MEN'S HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIPS
#9/9 CORNELL vs. #4/4 UMASS LOWELL
Northeast Region semifinal
PLACE: SNHU Arena  •  Manchester, N.H.
CORNELL: 21-8-5 overall, 13-4-5 ECAC Hockey
UMASS LOWELL: 26-10-3 overall, 14-7-1 Hockey East
TV: ESPN3
RADIO: WHCU (870 AM, 95.9 FM)
VIDEO: ESPN3 / WatchESPN app
LIVE STATS: TBA

Cornell postseason guide (PDF)
UMass Lowell game notes (coming soon)

Big Red Rewind:
•  Cornell finished second in the ECAC Hockey tournament, dropping last Saturday's championship game against Harvard, 4-1, in Lake Placid, N.Y. Jeff Malott scored the Big Red's lone goal late in the third period, keeping the Big Red as one of just seven teams in the country to not yet be shut out.
•  The Big Red advanced to its first league title game since 2010 after defeating Union, 4-1, in Friday's semifinal. Cornell is now 9-2-3 since Feb. 1, which helped it move up to third place in the final ECAC Hockey regular season standings.
•  Cornell came flying out of the gate with 21 shots on goal in the first period against the Dutchmen, 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.
•  The win over the Dutchmen essentially clinched an NCAA at-large bid for the Big Red, which is making its first NCAA appearance since 2012.

Highlights Of Last Saturday's Loss To Harvard:


Highlights Of Last Friday's Win vs. Union:


Who's Who at CU:
•  Sophomore forward Mitch Vanderlaan (15-13–28) leads the team in goals and points. Up until Game 2 of the ECAC Hockey quarterfinals, he had a six-game goal-scoring streak — the Big Red's first since at least the 2001-02 season. Vanderlaan's plus-13 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 (0.74) 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 is the first Cornellian with at least eight power-play goals in a season since Blake Gallagher (10, 2009-10).
•  Sophomore forward Anthony Angello (12-8–20) had both game-winning goals in the ECAC Hockey quarterfinals against Clarkson to eclipse his goal total from last year.
•  Senior forward Matt Buckles (9-9–18) has nine points over the last 13 games.
•  Senior forward Jeff Kubiak (3-14–17) leads the team with 11 assists since Feb. 1.
•  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 (21-7-5, 2.17, .921, 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.

NCAA Championship History:
•  The Big Red is appearing in the NCAA's national championship tournament for the 20th time, which is sixth-most among 2017 qualifiers. This is the 50th anniversary of Cornell's first national  championship in 1967, and the Big Red won a second title three years later in 1970.
•  Since the NCAA tournament switched to single elimination in 1992, Cornell has advanced to the regional final or beyond in seven of nine appearances.
•  In his 22 years at the helm, this is Mike Schafer's 10th trip to the NCAA tournament — third-most among 2017 qualifiers (Don Lucia 18; Jeff Jackson 14).

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 last weekend's games. 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.
•  Senior defenseman Patrick McCarron was named to the ECAC Hockey Championship all-tournament team last weekend.
•  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 forward Mitch Vanderlaan were all placed on the second team.

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 (6-3–9) 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. Malott and Jake Weidner have two postseason goals apiece coming into this weekend.

The Sum of Intangibles Is Tangible:
•  Through 34 games, the Big Red has accumulated 125 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, 34).
•  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 (25.3), and Weidner is also the nation's top shot-blocker among forwards (2.06 per game).

What, Me Worry?:
•  Eight of Cornell's 21 victories so far this season have come in games in which the Big Red has surrendered the first goal, with the team maintaining a winning record even when it concedes first.
•  The Big Red's resilience from an early deficit has become somewhat of a trend, with the team sporting a very respectable 13-13-4 record when yielding 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's .924 career save percentage is fifth-highest among goaltenders in this year's NCAA tournament field.
•  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.

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.

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 UMass Lowell:
•  The River Hawks finished the season fifth in the Pairwise Rankings, making them the top No. 2 seed among the four regionals. UMass Lowell won the Hockey East championship for a third time in the last five years.
•  UMass Lowell had a four-game losing skid in late January that was followed by a perfect 7-0 record in February to close out the regular season.
•  The River Hawks won the Hockey East regular season title, rallied to survive a three-game series with New Hampshire, then won its league tournament last weekend in Boston with a 5-1 semifinal victory over Notre Dame on Friday and a 4-3 win over Boston College on Saturday.
•  The River Hawks' top three scorers play on the same line, with senior Joe Gambardella (18-33–51, 7 PPG) centering juniors C.J. Smith (22-28–50; 8 PPG) and John Edwardh (18-19–37). They have matching team-best plus-20 ratings.
•  Seniors Dylan Zink (10-25–35) and Michael Kapla (3-26–29) are the top-scoring defensemen. They are typically paired together.
•  Freshman Tyler Wall (25-9-1, 2.10, .917, SO) has started 32 of the team's 39 games. He is a draft pick of the New York Rangers.
•  UMass Lowell has a power play that clicks at 27.1% efficiency, which is fourth-best in the nation.

The Series Against UMass Lowell:
•  Despite being within a six-hour bus trip of each other, the Big Red and River Hawks have met just once before – and it was in Estero, Fla. UMass Lowell won that game, 3-2, on Dec. 28, 2007 on the first day of the Florida College Classic.  

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.

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).

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 Drought 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.

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.

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.

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).

Up Next:
•  The winner of Saturday's game will advance to the Northeast Region final, which will be staged at 3:30 p.m. Sunday at SNHU Arena against the winner of the other semifinal between No. 1 seed Minnesota and No. 4 seed Notre Dame.