Men's Ice Hockey 12/4/2014 10:02:00 AM

Purple Eagles Begin December With Series Against Holy Cross

This weekend's contests will be the 13th and 14th meetings all-time between these two teams.
Niagara has a slight 7-5 edge all-time against Holy Cross.
The Purple Eagles won the first five games of the all-time series. The closest game in that stretch was a 5-4 OT win on Oct. 14, 2006. NU outscored its opponent 25-8 during the streak.
Holy Cross was the opponent when Niagara set the record for most shots on goal in a game. NU put 61 shots on goal in a 6-0 win on Jan. 11, 2000.

Last Time Out

The last time the Purple Eagles and Crusaders faced-off was on Jan. 18, 2014 in a game that would go down as a 3-2 NU loss and completed a weekend sweep. Niagara led 2-0 after the first 20 minutes on goals from Patrick Conte and Brock Edwards. Despite outshooting the visitors 40-24, NU wasn't able to hold onto the lead and a pair of HC goals in the second and another late in the third gave the Crusaders the win.

Notent Notables

Two Purple Eagles have notched career-moments against the Crusaders.
Senior defenseman, and team captain, Kevin Albers notched his first career goal against Holy Cross on Jan. 18, 2013.
Isaac Kohls collected an assist in the loss on Jan. 18, 2014 was his 50th career point

Opening The Floodgates

Heading into the series against Army, the Purple Eagles have scored exactly three total goals in each weekend series.
They broke out of that run pretty quickly, topping the Black Knights 3-1 on Nov. 21 and 6-1 on Nov. 22.
The 6-1 win was the first time NU scored over five goals in a game since an 8-3 win over Army on Nov. 16, 2013. The nine combined goals were the most NU scored since it put up 13 over Army between Nov. 15-16 last season.

And The Winner Is...

Robert Angiolella brought home the first weekly honor of the season when he won the Travel Team USA Rookie of the Week honors after turning in three goals as the Purple Eagles swept the Army Black Knights.
His first goal came in the third period of Friday's contest that gave NU its final goal in the 3-1 win. He added a pair in Saturday's 6-1 win, the first of which came at the 6:40 mark of the first and would go down as the game-winning goal. He added a power-play tally in the third to wrap up the scoring.
He finished the weekend with three goals on seven shots for a .429 shooting percentage, was a +2, and added four blocks.

Welcome To The Party

Forwards TJ Sarcona (Sr.) and Stanislav Dzakhov (Fr.) both played in their first action of the season against Army and both are on a point-a-game pace.
Sarcona scored a filthy goal on Nov. 15 and added an assist on Nov. 16. Dzakhov added an assist in both contests.

Players Mentioned