Well one thing was settled on the second to last weekend in the ECAC regular season: we know the four teams that will receive a first round bye. Cornell, Union, Clarkson and Harvard will have March 2-4 off and will be able to prepare to host a quarterfinal series the following weekend.
Harvard’s sweep of St. Lawrence and Clarkson assured Dartmouth can’t catch the Crimson next weekend as Harvard owns the tie breaker as they swept the Big Green in the regular season.
For two of those teams, the No. 1 seed is still up for grabs. Cornell has the share or the Cleary Cup with 34 points. Union can can take the No. 1 seed and share the Cleary Cup if they sweep next weekend as they have 30 points and Cornell gets swept. They would have the tie-breaker with the most conference victories.
Did I mention they play next Saturday night in Schenectady? So if the stars align, that game would settle who’s the top overall seed for the conference playoffs.
The Clarkson has an one point advantage (26 points) over the Crimson for the No. 3 seed. Clarkson hosts Princeton and Quinnipiac while Harvard plays Brown and Yale on the road.
The Big Green are rolling
If you want to point to Clarkson’s struggles this past month, it all started out with 3-2 loss to Dartmouth on Jan. 20. Since then they are 1-5-3.
The Big Green however are 5-3 in that same time span and enter the final weekend of the regular season in fifth place in the conference as once again they swept Clarkson and St. Lawrence this weekend.
They have been a resilient in their current stretch of games as they had to comeback against the Saints late in the third period on Saturday night. They also came back against Colgate on Jan. 26.
Sophomores Will Graber and Shane Sellar has been the catalysts lately especially last weekend against Rensselaer.
Coach Bob Gaudet reached a milestone on Friday night as he reached the 300 win plateau. He joins Eddie Jeremiah as the only coaches to have 300 or more wins in program history.
According to Jeremiah’s US Hockey Hall of Fame profile, he had 308 wins behind Dartmouth’s bench.
Tip of the cap to Bruce Racine
The Colgate senior goalie picked up his first career victory Saturday night in a 3-1 victory on Senior Night. He made 27 saves.
It was was his 12th career game on Saturday.
It was an important victory as the Raiders slipped to sixth in the standings after holding the fifth spot down for much of the season. Colgate is a team that needs the home ice advantage as they are 9-5-2 at the Class of 1965 Arena compared to their 4-9-3 record on the road.
They travel to Union and RPI this weekend and hold a two point advantage over Quinnipiac who sits in ninth who’s looking to get into the top eight to host a first round playoff series.
Good for Racine for sticking it out all four years sitting behind two good goalies in Charlie Finn and Colton Point.
