Most of the national chatter surrounding ECAC Hockey this season has centered around Quinnipiac and Harvard, and for good reason.
Both have spent plenty of time at or near the top of both the ECAC standings and the USCHO.com men’s D-I poll and are two of the favorites heading into the quarterfinals of the conference tournament this weekend as the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds, respectively.
That’s quite alright with Cornell coach Mike Schafer, as his Big Red are feeling good about their chances as the No. 3 seed.
“I don’t think we’re lurking or fooling anybody,” said Schafer, now in his 29th season at the helm. “We’ve been solid. Those two teams (Quinnipiac and Harvard), deservedly so, they’ve done an outstanding job.”
Cornell enters the weekend with a 18-9-2 overall record and a 15-6-1 ECAC mark, with two of those losses coming against this weekend’s opponent, intra-state rival Clarkson (16-15-4, 9-10-3). The sixth-seeded Golden Knights took a 4-1 win on Nov. 12 in Potsdam, N.Y., and earned a 4-3 decision in the rematch in Ithaca, N.Y., on Feb. 17.
Schafer noted that Clarkson is a better team than its record indicates. The Golden Knights have been hobbled all season by injuries, including key senior forward Anthony Romano, who has played in only 16 games this year.
“They’re not a 6 seed,” Schafer said. “We know they’re a good hockey team. Things might have been a lot different for them if they didn’t have the injuries they had throughout the course of the year.”
Clarkson scored twice on the power play in each win over Cornell, including the game winner late in the third period of the second meeting. Cornell scored only once with an extra attacker over the two games, an aberration for a team that led ECAC Hockey in power-play percentage (.277) during the regular season.
“We lost the special-teams war against them in both those games,” Schafer said. “And special teams has been a strength for us this year. It just takes playoff hockey right now at this time of year — good discipline, good special teams, patience.”
This weekend’s series is a best-of-three affair, with Game 1 on Friday. All three games are scheduled for Cornell’s Lynah Rink. Game 2 is Saturday at 7 and the third game will be Sunday at 4, if necessary. The winner of the series heads to the ECAC hockey semifinals next weekend in Lake Placid, N.Y.
Cornell was third in scoring average in ECAC Hockey (3.59 goals per game), led by forwards Ben Berard and Gabriel Seger with 27 points apiece (10-17-27 for Berard and 6-21-27 for Seger). Defensively, the Big Red is second in goals allowed per game (2,10). Sophomore goaltender Ian Shane has been stellar all season, sporting a 1.86 goals-against average and a 9.08 save percentage.
“There are times when he doesn’t see a lot of shots, then all of a sudden he does,” Schafer said. “That’s his strength — he’s been able to go long periods of time without getting a lot of activity, then he gets a flurry. He’s done a solid job with that.”
The rest of the best-of-three quarterfinal round of the ECAC Hockey tournament lines up as follows — No. 10 Yale is at No. 1 Quinnipiac; No. 9 Princeton is at No. 2 Harvard and No. 5 Colgate is at No. 4 St. Lawrence.
