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Team Notes: Bulldogs, Gophers in Friday's West Regional

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The Yale men's hockey team makes its sixth NCAA Hockey Tournament appearance as the No. 4 seed at the West Regional in Grand Rapids, Mich. The No. 15 Bulldogs (18-12-3) face top seed University of Minnesota (26-8-5), No. 1/2 in the polls, at 2 p.m. EDT on Friday at Van Andel Arena. The contest airs live on ESPNU.

AGOSTINO
Yale junior forward Kenny Agostino (Flanders, NJ) is an All-America candidate who leads the team with 37 points and is 17th in Division I with 1.12 points per game (19th in assists, .67). Agostino impacted four (1-3-4) of the six goals on the last weekend of the regular season and then had four points in the quarterfinal series against SLU. His four-point road weekend at SLU/Clarkson earned him ECAC Player of the Week. Agostino's biggest goal of the year beat No. 2 Denver in OT on Nov. 23. Agostino, a second-team All-Ivy pick this winter, had 14 goals and 34 points in 2011-12, while he earned ECAC Player of the Week honors for his three-goal, Feb. 17-18 weekend. Agostino (95 gp, 40-56-96) has scored other significant, late goals. Last winter, he scored goals in consecutive games with under 35 seconds left in regulation (win, OT loss). Agostino beat Dartmouth at Hanover with 34.8 ticks remaining, followed by a GTG against SLU with 34.2 left at home. His season-high was 2-2-4 against both UConn and Harvard at Ingalls in 2011-12. Agostino became the first Yale newcomer in 30 years to record five points in one game on Jan. 2, 2011. He notched 3-2-5 against Holy Cross and became the school's first freshman to tally five points in 27 years. Yale's rookie of the year in 2010-11, Agostino had 11 goals and 25 points and was the HCA National Rookie of the Month for January (8-4-12), the first Bulldog to receive that award. He was ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week on Jan. 23 (3 goals vs. Clarkson/SLU), becoming the only Bulldog to earn conference rookie honors in 2010-11. The former Delbarton School star had a goal and three assists before the holiday break, and 10 goals and 11 assists after. He ranked 11th among D1 rookies with .86 points per game.