OPENING FACE-OFF
Fri. Feb. 12 – Yale 7 p.m.
Sat., Feb. 13 – Brown 7 p.m.
Tues. Feb. 16 – Cornell 7 p.m.
Radio: WKXZ (94 FM – Oneonta, N.Y.) – John McGraw on the call
TV: Friday's game versus Yale and Tuesday's contest with archrival Cornell will be both aired live on Time Warner Cable Sports from Starr Rink.
After splitting its two road games at Princeton and Quinnipiac, Colgate returns home and hopes its recent luck against the Ancient Eight continues as it hosts an important set of three games against Ivy League opponents in the matter of five nights. Five of the final seven regular-season games will be played at Starr Rink beginning with Friday's meeting with nationally-ranked Yale. Colgate, 11-11-5 overall and 8-6-1 in league play, will head into the weekend in sixth place in league standings with 17 points, which is only two points behind St. Lawrence for fourth, but only two points ahead of eighth-place Harvard.
MEET THE HEAD COACH
Don Vaughan is in his 17th year at the helm of the Colgate Raiders. The 1984 graduate of St. Lawrence enters the campaign as the program's all-time winningest coach with a 280-264-64 mark. On February 16, 2008, he became the all-time winningest coach with his 252nd victory as Colgate blanked Union 8-0. On November 11, 2007, former Colgate President, Rebecca S. Chopp, announced the creation of the Donald F. Vaughan Endowed Coaching Chair for Men's Hockey.
THESE DATES IN COLGATE HISTORY
When looking at Colgate's history on February 12, 13 and 16th, these three dates haven't been kind to the Raiders in the least. Colgate doesn't have a winning record on any of these dates and has a combined 17-23-1 overall record on these particular three dates. The Raiders are 4-8 on the 12th, 7-8-1 on the 13th and 6-7-0 in games on the 16th.
February 12, 2000 – Colgate broke a tied game with two third period goals in a 4-2 victory over Clarkson at Cheel Arena in front of an announced crowd of 2,704 in Potsdam. Kevin Johns eighth goal of the year at 12:44 from Andy McDonald proved to be the game winner. Etienne Morin cemented the game away with his fifth of the campaign with 24 seconds remaining. The Raiders other two goals came from McDonald and Sean Nolan, both first period goals. The penalty boxes were relatively empty all night as only four infractions were called, three against Colgate. Shep Harder made 44 saves in the victory, 31 coming in the final two periods.
February 13, 1993 – Colgate netminder Jason Gates made 41 saves, including 18 in the opening period to pace the Raiders to a 5-2 victory over visiting Clarkson. Colgate never trailed in the contest as Bruce Gardiner gave the Raiders the lead for good at 6:21 of the first. Up 3-2, Colgate received third period goals from Rob Metz and Earl Cronan to cement the win. The Raiders' penalty kill unit was busy as it was successful in killing off 10 of 11 Golden Knight man advantage opportunities.
February 16, 2008 – Tyler Burton and Jesse Winchester each tallied three-point evenings as Colgate dismantled visiting Union 8-0 at Starr Rink. With the win, Colgate's Don Vaughan became the winningest coach in the program's storied history. The Raiders took command early getting first period goals from Tom Riley, Ethan Cox and Burton. Burton finished with two goals and an assist, while Winchester dished out three assists. Six current Colgate players figured in the scoring. David McIntyre contributed a goal and an assist. Mark Dekanich posted 33 saves in the shutout.
COLGATE AT A GLIMPSE
The Raiders rank 17th nationally in scoring offense (3.15) heading into this weekend. The offense is led by the trio of Austin Smith (11-22-33), David McIntyre (9-19-28) and Brian Day (16-10-26). Junior Francois Brisebois (10-8-18) is closing in on the 20-point barrier. Colgate ranks 44th in scoring defense (3.36). Alex Evin (6-5-3, 2.65, .909) appears to have grabbed a firm hold on the starting position between the pipes for the Raiders. Colgate's power play ranks 37th nationally (.176) and 46th on the penalty kill (.785).
COLGATE /YALE SERIES HISTORY
Including the earlier 3-3 overtime draw at Ingalls Rink in New Haven, Colgate still holds a firm 45-35-4 advantage over Yale. The last three games in the series have gone into overtime with the Raiders posting a 1-1-1 record. Last year, Yale erased a 4-0 deficit in the third period to post a 5-4 overtime victory at Starr Rink. Colgate returned the favor in its final regular season game of the year as the Raiders upset then 11th ranked Yale 3-2 as Peter Bogdanich fired in his fourth of the year, 1:19 into the extra session. In a series that dates back to the 1916-1917 season, the goal differential sits in Colgate's favor at 330-329. The Raiders are 24-13-1 at Starr Rink, however have dropped the last two meetings to the Bulldogs.
YALE IN BRIEF
The Bulldogs come into Friday night's class ranked sixth in the latest national polls. Yale, 14-6-3 overall and 10-4-2 in league play, is tied for first in the ECAC Hockey standings with Cornell at 22 points. The Bulldogs have won three of their last four games and are 9-3-1 since the start of December. Yale, which boasts the nation's most potent scoring offense (4.04 gpg), has the most balanced scoring attack in the country. The Bulldogs have seven players with 20 or more points, with the trio of Broc Little (18-8-26), Sean Backman (15-11-26) and Brian O'Neill (9-16-25) leading the way. Yale's power play is fourth nationally, scoring at a 23.5 clip. Keith Allain has used four net minders with a pair of freshmen – Nick Maricic (5-3-2, 2.74, .896) and Jeff Malcolm (5-2-0, 2.74, .887) seeing most of the action. Maricic was in net for the first meeting between the two.
LAST TIME VERSUS YALE
Despite being outshot 44-22, Colgate battled to a 3-3 draw against 11th-ranked Yale in New Haven on November 14. The Raiders jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the opening period with a power play goal by Brian Day and a shorthanded score by Jason Williams. Colgate got a second period goal from Robbie Bourdon and took a 3-2 lead into the final period. Tom Dignard scored the period's lone goal at 11:53. Charles Long stopped 41 shots in the draw, including 16 in the second period. Colgate's power play was a perfect one for one, while Yale went one of four. Nick Maricic turned aside 19 shots in the tie for Yale.
COLGATE SCORING VERSUS YALE
Eight Raiders have scored at least a point in their respective collegiate careers versus Yale with David McIntyre (2-6-8) leading the way. Rounding out the scoring are Brian Day (4-2-6), Jason Williams (2-2-4), Ethan Cox (0-3-3), Austin Smith (0-2-2), Nick Prockow (1-0-1), Robbie Bourdon (1-0-1), and Francois Brisebois (0-1-1).
COLGATE/BROWN SERIES HISTORY
Colgate holds a commanding 48-18-5 record in the series, which includes a 5-3 victory over the Bears November 13 in Providence. Colgate is 3-2-4 against Brown in its last nine meetings. The Raiders have dominated the series at Starr Rink as they hold a 27-5-2 all-time record. Brown snapped an 18-game winless skid at Starr Rink with a 4-1 victory last season. Colgate is 14-3 in games determined by one goal and is 5-0-5 all-time in contests that have gone into overtime.
BROWN IN BRIEF
After suffering a five-game losing skid, Brown has played better as of late with a 2-1-2 record in its last five games. Three of the Bears last four contests have gone into overtime among which includes a 5-5 draw with Dartmouth, last Saturday in Providence. Brown headed to Ithaca with a 7-13-3 overall record and is in a tie for ninth place with 5-8-3 record in league play. The offense is balanced with nine players posting 10 or more points and no goal scorer with more than nine goals. The trio of Jack Maclellan (9-13-22), Harry Zolnierczyk (9-12-21) and Aaron Volpatti (9-10-19) leads the offense. Sophomore Mike Clemente (7-9-3, 3.42, .898) has seen the majority of action between the pipes for first-year head coach Brendan Whittet. Brown's scoring offense is ranked 27th nationally (3.04); scoring defense is 54th (3.74); power play ranks 53rd (.136) and penalty kill unit is 49th (.778).
LAST TIME VERSUS BROWN
After racing to a 5-0 lead, Colgate needed to hold on for dear life in a 5-3 victory over the Bears, November 13 at Meehan Auditorium in Providence. Leading 2-0 after the opening period, the Raiders netted three scores in the opening 3:09 of the third period to gain what looked like a comfortable advantage. Included in that three-goal outburst was Corbin McPherson's first collegiate goal, which gave the Raiders a 4-0 lead. The Bears shaved the deficit with three goals in less than four minutes. Jordan Pietrus brought Brown within two with 10:58 left in the contest. Charles Long made 29 saves in the victory. Mike Clemente stopped 20 in the first 42:28 before being replaced by Dan Rosen.
COLGATE SCORING VERSUS BROWN
Thirteen Raiders have at least one point in their respective collegiate careers versus Brown with David McIntyre (3-2-5), Jason Williams (2-2-4), Austin Smith (2-1-3) and Brian Day (1-2-3) leading the way. Ethan Cox (0-2-2). Nick Prockow (0-2-2), and Kevin McNamara (0-2-2) are the others who have posted more than two points in their careers versus Brown.
RANDOM NOTE
Austin Smith roomed with Brown's Jeff Buvinow at Gunnery Prep.
COLGATE/CORNELL SERIES HISTORY
Tuesday's meeting will be the 136th clash between the two schools with Cornell holding a 71-54-11 advantage including an earlier 4-2 victory in Ithaca. Big Red is 8-1-2 in its last 11 games versus Colgate. The Raiders will be looking to snap an eight-game winless skid versus Cornell with the last victory being a 4-2 decision at Starr Rink on January 25, 2007. The Raiders have scored the opening goal in the last three meetings between the two schools. Colgate is 25-25-4 all-time at Starr Rink versus Big Red.
CORNELL IN BRIEF
Big Red heads into the weekend series with Brown and Yale with a 13-6-3 record, and is tied for first in ECAC Hockey with 22 points (10-3-2 in league play). Cornell had a three-game winning streak snapped by Princeton last Saturday at Hobey Baker Rink, 5-3. The offense, which ranks 26th nationally (3.05 gpg), centers around a pair of seniors in Blake Gallagher (14-14-28) and Colin Greening (8-14-22). Senior netminder Ben Scrivens (13-6-3, 2.00, .928) has basically played every minute between the pipes, absent 43 minutes. He ranks third nationally in both goals against average and save percentage. Defensively, Big Red allows 2.09 goals per contest, which is ranked second in the country; their power play is fifth (.226), while the penalty kill is second overall (.888).
LAST TIME VERSUS CORNELL
Blake Gallagher scored a power play goal with 5:11 left in regulation and Colin Greening added an empty net goal with four seconds left as seventh-ranked Cornell downed Colgate 4-2, November 24 at Lynah Rink. After a scoreless first period, Colgate opened scoring at 11:07 with a power play goal by Francois Brisebois. Trailing 2-1 early in the third period, Nick Prockow knotted the contest with Colgate's second power play goal of the game at 1:40. Thomas Larkin finished the game with assists on both goals. The Raiders outshot Cornell 30-20. Alex Evin surrendered two goals and stopped 16 shots in the loss, while Ben Scrivens turned aside 28 shots in the win for the Big Red.
COLGATE SCORING VERSUS CORNELL
A dozen Raiders have tallied at least one point versus Cornell in their collegiate careers. Brian Day (2-1-3), David McIntyre (1-2-3) and Kevin McNamara (0-3-3) lead the offensive charge versus Big Red with Austin Smith (1-1-2), Wade Poplawski (1-1-2) and Thomas Larkin (0-2-2) round out the other Raiders to have collected multi points versus Cornell.
LAST WEEKEND IN BRIEF
For the fifth consecutive time on the Princeton/Quinnipiac road trip, Colgate posted a split. The Raiders downed Princeton 3-1 before falling to Qpac 2-0 Saturday evening in front of a national television audience on CBS College Sports.
Friday evening, the Raiders completed their first sweep of Princeton since the 2004-05 season. Austin Smith and Ethan Cox scored second period goals and David McIntyre cemented the victory with an empty net power play goal with 12 seconds left. Alex Evin stopped 23 shots in the victory. Colgate's power play held the Tigers scoreless in four tries. It was the first time in six tries the Raiders had defeated Princeton goalie Zane Kalemba.
Saturday evening, Evin stopped 34, but it wasn't enough. Colgate was outshot by Quinnipiac 36-26 and its power play went scoreless in five tries.
WHAT A DIFFERENCE
Colgate enters the weekend 11-11-5 overall and 8-6-1 in ECAC Hockey action. A year ago after 27 games, the Raiders were 7-15-5 overall and 2-10-3 in league play. During the 2008-09 season including play-offs, Colgate's offense manufactured 89 goals. Heading into this weekend, the Raiders have accounted for 85. Brian Day (16), Francois Brisebois (10), Nick Prockow (6), Matt Firman (5), Ethan Cox (3), Corbin McPherson (2) and Sean Carty (1) have more goals this year than last.
POISON IVY
Since blanking Dartmouth 1-0 on February 14, 2009 at Thompson Arena, Colgate's success against the Ancient Eight has been impressive. During this stretch, the Raiders are 7-1-2 in games played against Ivy League competition. The only slip up was a 4-2 loss to Cornell in Ithaca on November 24. During the stretch, Colgate has two wins versus Princeton and Dartmouth and one each versus Brown, Yale and Harvard.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
For the first time in his career, Alex Evin was named the ECAC Hockey goalie of the week. The sophomore received the honor after going 1-1 last weekend at Princeton and Quinnipiac. He stopped 57 of 60 shots fired upon the net for a .950 save percentage. In his last seven starts, he is 4-2-1 and has stopped 191 of 204 shots for a .936 save percentage. During this recent stretch, his goals against average has dipped from 3.48 to 2.65 and his save percentage is up from .885 to .909.
AUSTIN “EXTRA ATTACKER” SMITH
On January 23, Austin Smith's extra attacker goal with 49 seconds left versus Robert Morris was his third such goal of his career. As a freshman, Smith scored two extra attacker goals in the closing minute to force overtime. On February 20, he scored at 19:21 of the third against Union to knot the game up at 2-2. Two weeks later, Smith scored with 19 seconds left as Colgate rallied from two down in the closing moments to force overtime in a potential elimination game at Quinnipiac. Smith would go on to score the game-winner less than a minute into overtime to force a third game in the opening round of the 2009 ECAC Hockey Tournament. Colgate has scored two extra attacker goals this season. Before Smith, Corbin McPherson was the last to post such a goal for the Raiders this season at 2:28 of the third in a 5-3 victory at Brown on November 13, 2009.
POINT PER GAME SMITTY
Heading into this weekend, Austin Smith is averaging a point per game in his career. The sophomore has played in 64 games and has 28 goals and 36 assists thus far in his career. Smith has 14 multi-point games in his career, including two four-point performances to his credit – one versus Quinnipiac last year and a four-assist evening at Canisius on December 20, 2009.
DAY DREAMING
With seven more regular season games remaining, Brian Day is only two points a way from establishing a career-high in points. The junior posted 14 goals and 13 assists for 27 points during the 2008-09 campaign. Day, who played his 100th career game Saturday evening at Quinnipiac, has already established a career-high 16 goals, nine of them coming in ECAC Hockey clashes.
PASSING THE CENTURY MARK
With his career-high four-point evening versus Harvard, David McIntyre became the 48th player in the program's history to surpass the 100-point milestone. He heads into this weekend's play versus Yale and Brown with 120 career points, which stands 29th all-time. He needs two points to pass Larry Gibson for 28th; three points to pass former Raiders' assistant coach Andrew Dickson for 27th, and four points to surpass Steve Riggs and Dave MacKenzie for 25th.
GEE WILLIE
With his two appearances versus Princeton and Quinnipiac last weekend, Jason Williams has appeared in 144 career games, which is seventh on the all-time Colgate games appeared chart. The senior needs three more games played to tie former teammate Nick St. Pierre for sixth and five more to tie another familiar face in Jason Fredricks. David McIntyre (142) is tied for ninth all-time with Tom Riley and Jesse Winchester, while Ethan Cox (141) will tie Riley and Winchester with one appearance this weekend. Tyler Burton holds the all-time record with 158 games.
CLIMBING UP THE LISTS
Rookie defensemen Thomas Larkin and Jeremy Price have three goals on the season. That is tied for eighth with J.R. Bria on the single-season list goals by a freshman blueliner. One more would move them into a tie for fifth all-time with David Sloane, Mike Campaner and Mike Dosdall. Larkin needs two more assists and points to move into the top 10 for rookie blueliners in those categories as well.
FRESHMEN IMPACT
After 27 games, the Colgate freshmen have integrated themselves rather well as far as posting points. Including last weekend's performances, the freshman class has posted 53 points, or 1.96 points per game (17 goals, 36 assists). Earlier, there was a four-game stretch where a freshman collected his first collegiate goal of his career. Kurtis Bartliff netted his first goal in the 1-1 tie with nationally ranked Nebraska-Omaha, while Christian Long found the back of the next the following night against the Mavericks. Against UMass-Lowell, it was Robbie Bourdon's turn to light the lamp and then it was Jeremy Price opening the scoring versus Army. Bourdon (6-10-16) and defenseman Thomas Larkin (3-11-14) lead the scoring charge for the first year players.
NATIONALLY SPEAKING
As of February 8, Colgate had a strong presence in national statistical categories as six skaters were ranked among the top 50 in the country. They are as follows …
Austin Smith – 17th in assists per game (0.81), T20 in points per game (1.22); T25 in shorthanded goals (1), T21 in game winning goals (3).
Brian Day – 11th in goals per game (0.64), T24 power play goals (6).
Thomas Larkin – 49th in points per game for a defenseman (0.58) and 36th in points per game for a rookie (0.58).
David McIntyre – T26 in assists per game (0.73) and T45 in points per game (1.08).
Robbie Bourdon – T21 in game winning goals (3) and T26 in points per game for a rookie (0.64).
Jason Williams – T25 in shorthanded goals (1).
Alex Evin – 32nd in goals against average (2.65), 36th in save percentage (.909), T35 in win percentage (.535)
48TH IS GOOD IN THIS INSTANCE
Colgate is ranked 48th in the nation averaging 11.9 penalty minutes per game. Alaska remains the least penalized school in the country at 9.9, while its rival to the south, Alaska Anchorage posts on average 20.8, which is the most in the nation.
PENALTY KILL SHOWING IMPROVEMENT
After allowing five goals in 11 penalty kills in two games to Notre Dame and Niagara to kick off the New Year at the Shillelagh Tournament in Chicago, Colgate has settled down to kill off 31 of its last 37 (.8378) penalties in its last eight games. The Raiders held Princeton scoreless in four power play opportunities, which was the second time since the start of the New Year that the Colgate penalty kill unit has held the opposition's power play scoreless. The Raiders stopped Robert Morris all five times in a 3-3 tie on January 23.
MORE ON PENALTY KILLING
During the season, Colgate has been down two men to penalties 13 times this season, including giving Canisius two five on three man advantages on December 20. The Raiders have allowed only four goals when being down two men – versus Niagara in a 5-1 loss in the consolation game of the Shillelagh Tournament; versus Army in a 4-4- overtime draw; at Clarkson (1/16) in a 6-2 victory and at Quinnipiac in a 2-0 loss.
VOTE FOR MCINTYRE
David McIntyre is a preliminary selection to participate in the 2010 Frozen Four Skills Challenge, April 9 at Ford Field in Detroit. The senior is competing with 16 other skaters to represent the East team. Fans can receive additional event information as well as vote for McIntyre by going to www.ncaa.com/frozenfourskillschallenge/index.html.
