WHEN AND WHERE: Friday's contest will be at 7:05 p.m. at the Hart Center on the campus of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., while Saturday's matchup will take place at 2:05 p.m. at the MassMutual Center in downtown Springfield. Directions to the Hart Center can be found by clicking here. Tickets for Saturday's game can be purchased at the MassMutual Center Box Office or online by clicking here.

ABOUT THE CRUSADERS: Holy Cross sits at 9-18-3 overall and 8-12-3 in Atlantic Hockey, and their lone non-conference win is a major one, as they defeated current national number one Boston College 5-4 on November 29. As a team, the Crusaders are eleventh in the conference at 2.39 goals per game and sixth defensively at 2.58 goals against per game. Their power play is 13-of-78 for 16.7%, ninth in league play, with a penalty kill that is 69-of-87 for 79.3%, tenth in the league. Senior Adam Schmidt leads the team with 12 goals for 22 points, while sophomore Matt Vidal is the top playmaker and second leading point-getter, with 15 assists and 20 points; freshman Mike Barrett has 10 goals to his credit. Junior Matt Ginn has started 28 of his team's 30 games and holds a record of 7-18-3 with a .911 SV% and 2.96 GAA. The team is coming off of a split with Connecticut where the visitor won both; Holy Cross topped the Huskies 3-1 in Storrs last Friday before returning home to fall 5-0 on Saturday.

ABOUT THE YELLOW JACKETS: AIC is currently 10-19-1 overall and 9-13-1 in Atlantic Hockey, with a 3-2 out-of-conference win at the University of Massachusetts on January 14. The AIC offense is seventh in the conference overall at 2.96 goals per game, while the defense ranks eleventh at 3.72 goals against per game. The power play is 18-of-74 for 24.3%, third best in the league, while the penalty kill, which has improved as the season has gone on, currently sits at 64-for-79, 81.0%, seventh in the league. Senior left wing Jon Puskar is fifth in the league in goals and eighth in the league in points with 16 and 32, both team highs, while rookie right wing David Norris is second in the league-first among forwards-with 26 assists and leads all rookie scorers with 30 points. Junior center Alexander MacMillan, who has been on a line with those two for most of the year, has 12 goals and 13 assists for 25 points. Freshman goalkeeper Hunter Leisner is 8-10-1 in his 20 starts out of 21 appearances overall, and has a .903 SV% to go with a 3.65 GAA and one shutout.

LAST TIME THEY MET: AIC defeated Holy Cross, 1-0, at the Hart Center on November 15, as the line of Puskar, Norris, and MacMillan combined for the game's only goal at 14:13 of the first. Leisner made 22 saves for AIC, as did Ginn for the Crusaders.

PLAYOFF IMPLICATIONS: Mathematically, the Yellow Jackets can finish anywhere from sixth to eleventh in the conference, as they sit in eighth place with 19 points, five back of Niagara, four back of Canisius, tied with Holy Cross, two ahead of RIT, and three ahead of Sacred Heart with each team having four games to play. The picture is complicated but ultimately the Yellow Jackets control their destiny, in that so long as they win out they could do no worse than eighth, which is the lowest seed to host a first-round playoff series.

PUSHING FOR RECORDS AND MILESTONES: Puskar's 16 goals and 32 points puts him within striking distance of several team records. In the 2001 campaign, Guillaume Caron '04 set the high water mark for goals and points with 19 and 37, respectively, meaning Puskar needs four goals and six points to set new standards for the program. Should he earn six points, he would also become just the third player to reach 100 in program history; Caron and Adam Pleskach '13 are the only two to have done so. He has at least six games to reach the mark, depending upon how far the team advances in the playoffs.

FROM WILD TO MILD: The Yellow Jackets came into their last game at Holy Cross off of an offensive outburst, winning 8-7 at Bentley, only to win a game that was a defensive masterpiece that saw just one goal between the squads; they head into this matchup after another offensive explosion, a 7-6 win at Sacred Heart.

SAVING GRACES: Both Ginn and Leisner are in the top five in Atlantic Hockey in saves; Ginn is second with 851 while Leisner is fifth with 689; notably, Leisner has eight fewer starts than Ginn.

JACKETS PLAY OUT OF THE BOX HOCKEY: No team in the conference has been involved in special teams situations as infrequently as the Yellow Jackets; in league play AIC has just 185 penalty minutes in 23 games, lowest in the league, but by the same token has drawn just 74 power play chances; between those and their 79 penalty kill situations, AIC has been involved in 153 special teams situations. Interestingly, Holy Cross is in a similar boat, with just 79 power plays and 87 penalty kills for 166 special teams situations, third least in the league; Air Force, at 85 and 75 for 160, is second fewest.

BAY STATE'S BEST: The Yellow Jackets have a 3-1-0 record against opponents from Massachusetts this season, with wins over Bentley (8-7), Holy Cross (1-0), and Massachusetts (3-2); their lone loss was against seventh-ranked Massachusetts-Lowell (6-1).

UP NEXT: The Yellow Jackets conclude the regular season with a home-and-home against Bentley, visiting the John A. Ryan Skating Arena on Friday, February 28 at 7:05 p.m. before returning to the Olympia Saturday, March 1 at 7:05 p.m.; both teams will host their Senior Night games during the weekend.