St. Lawrence University men's hockey coach Greg Carvel and freshman goaltender Kyle Hayton earned two of ECAC Hockey's major awards as announced prior to Friday night's ECAC semifinal games.

Carvel was named the winner of the Tim Taylor Coach of the Year award while Hayton was selected as the league's Rookie of the Year after the two helped the Saints, picked 11th in the pre-season polls, to a second place finish in the regular season and their first championship round appearance since 2010.

Carvel was also the ECAC Media Association's Coach of the Year and Hayton was named both Rookie of the Year and Goalie of the Year in the media voting.

Named the Charles W. Appleton II Hockey Coach in 2012, Carvel is a 1993 graduate of St. Lawrence and a former Saint player. He was the 1993 ECAC Outstanding Defensive Forward award winner as a player and a team captain. He becomes the second Saint coach to earn league coach of the year honors since the award was established in 1987. Former coach Joe Marsh was a four-time winner of the award. Carvel is the third former SLU player to earn the award as a coach, joining Colgate's Terry Slater (1990) and Don Vaughan, who was coach of the year in 2000 and a year ago.

Carvel's team went 14-7-1 in league play and finished second in the regular season standings, the best finish for a Saint team since 2007. The current team is his first 20-win team in his tenure as head coach. He joined the Saint staff as an assistant coach prior to the 2011-12 season and served as co-coach that year when Marsh was sidelined by illness. He took over officially as head coach in 2012-13 and his 18-16-4 record in his first season was the best for a first-year Saint coach since 1955-56.

Hayton, who has been among the nation's goaltending leaders since early in his rookie season, is the second straight SLU player to earn league Rookie of the Year honors and the sixth league Rookie of the Year in program history. He set the Saint program record for shutouts with his fifth in a 1-0 ECAC quarterfinal victory over RPI and will finish his freshman season with Saint records for goals against average and save percentage. His 18 regular season wins were the most for a Saint goalie since 1962-63. He was the ECAC Rookie of the Week three times, Goaltender of the Week twice and was named ECAC Rookie of the Month for October and both Rookie and Goaltender of the Month for January.

Hayton was also named the 2015 All Rookie Team goaltender and was the second-team goaltender on the all league team. He went into the semifinals with a 1.90 goals against average, a .939 save percentage and a 20-12-3 record. His save percentage shares the national lead with Yale goaltender Alex Lyon, who was the first-team All League goaltender and he leads all ECAC goalies in saves and minutes played in addition to being second in goals against average.

He was joined on the all-rookie team by defenseman Nolan Gluchowski and on the all-league second team by defenseman Eric Sweetman.

Gluchowski made an immediate impact on the Saint blue line and was the top defenseman in rookie scoring with 16 points in his first collegiate season. He was tied for seventh overall in scoring by league defensemen despite missing eight games due to an injury sustained in the Saints' second game of the year.

Sweetman was fifth among all ECAC defensemen in scoring with four goals and 15 assists for 19 points in his sophomore season and was a key figure as the Saints improved their team goals against average by 1.48 goals over a year ago. The Saints rank among the best teams in the nation in defense, penalty kill and goal differential with a defensive unit which featured one senior, four sophomores and three freshmen among its eight regulars.

Hayton and Sweetman were first team all league in the media voting and Gluchowski and Hayton were on the all-rookie team. Hayton was also the runner-up for Player of the Year in the media selections behind Harvard's Jimmy Vescey.