FRIDAY ROUNDUP: Playoffs in full swing for Atlantic Hockey, ECAC Hockey, NCHC as Holy Cross downs RIT, Colorado College upsets Western Michigan, Quinnipiac blanks Yale to start busy weekend

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Western Michigan’s Hugh Larkin and Colorado College’s Matthew Gleason have their eyes on a loose puck Friday night (photo: Ashley Huss).

Atlantic Hockey, ECAC Hockey, and NCHC are all playing best-of-three series this weekend, while the Big Ten, CCHA, and Hockey East all are playing single-elimination games.

The conferences with best-of-three series started Friday night.

SCOREBOARD | STANDINGS | USCHO.COM POLL | PAIRWISE

Atlantic Hockey

In Atlantic Hockey, Niagara edged Canisius 2-1 and Holy Cross beat RIT 1-0 in overtime.

Ryan Cox and Casey Carreau scored for the Purple Eagles and Chad Veltri finished with 28 saves on the road at the Harbor Center.

For Canisius, JD Pogue scored and Jacob Barczewski finished with 34 stops in goal.

At the Gene Polisseni Center, Liam McLinskey’s goal at 8:01 of overtime lifted Holy Cross over RIT.

Jason Grande made 40 saves for the Crusaders and Tommy Scarfone 22 for the Tigers.

ECAC Hockey

Over in ECAC Hockey, No. 6 Harvard defeated Princeton 6-1, Colgate beat St. Lawrence 4-3 in overtime, No. 2 Quinnipiac blanked Yale 3-0, and No. 12 Cornell topped Clarkson 2-1.

Sean Farrell and Alex Laferriere each scored two goals to lead Harvard over Princeton at the Bright-Landry Hockey Center.

Marek Hejduk and Henry Thrun also scored for the Crimson and Mitchell Gibson made 31 saves in goal.

For the Tigers, David Jacobs scored and Aidan Porter collected 24 saves between the pipes.

Colton Young’s goal 11:33 into overtime gave Colgate the win over St. Lawrence at Appleton Arena, rallying from a 3-0 deficit.

Alex Young, Reid Irwin and Daniel Panetta also scored for the Raiders, who got a 28-save effort from goalie Carter Gylander.

Mason Waite, Tucker McIntosh and Aleksi Peltonen all scored in the first period for St. Lawrence.

Emil Zetterquist made 33 saves in goal for the Saints.

At the Frank Perrotti, Jr. Arena, Yaniv Perets pitched a five-save shutout for the Bobcats. With his 20th career shutout, Perets has also broken the Quinnipiac team record and ECAC Hockey all-time record.

Jacob Quillan, Iivari Rasanen and Zach Metsa scored for Quinnipiac.

Luke Pearson made 27 stops for the Bulldogs.

Gabriel Seger and Michael Suda scored for Cornell and the Big Red held on for a 2-1 win at Lynah Rink.

Ian Shane made 13 saves in goal for Cornell to grab the victory.

Mathieu Gosselin scored Clarkson’s goal and goalie Ethan Haider turned aside 18 shots.

NCHC

Then in NCHC circles, Colorado College upset No. 7 Western Michigan 3-1, No. 8 St. Cloud State beat Minnesota Duluth 3-1, No. 17 Omaha edged North Dakota 2-1, and No. 3 Denver bested Miami 6-2.

Colorado College scored three times within a span of 59 seconds in the third period to upset Western Michigan on the Broncos’ home ice at Lawson Arena.

The Tigers snapped a 13-game winless streak and posted just their third opening-game victory in the first round of the NCHC playoffs.

With Western Michigan holding a 1-0 lead in the final period after a Ryan McAllister goal 14:50 into the first period, Logan Will evened the score at the 13:36 mark. Just 40 seconds later, Tyler Coffey took a pass from Noah Laba and sent a one-timer past Cameron Rowe to take the lead.

Shortly thereafter, Aidan Fulp was called for a kneeing penalty at the 14:30 mark, and Hunter McKown scored his nation-leading 13th power-play goal with a blast from the point at 14:35.

Tiger goalie Kaidan Mbereko finished the game with 25 saves and Rowe made 22.

Micah Miller potted a pair of goals to lead St. Cloud State over in-state rival UMD at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.

Josh Luedtke tallied the Huskies’ other goal and Dominic Basse made 24 saves between the pipes.

For the Bulldogs, Dominic James scored and Zach Stejskal turned aside 22 shots.

At Omaha’s Baxter Arena, Jacob Guevin and Davis Pennington each had a goal and an assist to lift the Mavericks over the Fighting Hawks.

Simon Latkoczy made 40 stops in goal for Omaha.

For North Dakota, Riese Gaber scored and Drew DeRidder finished with 26 saves.

At Magness Arena in Denver, the Pioneers’ Jack Devine scored four goals to pace the defending national champion over the RedHawks.

Tristan Lemyre and Connor Caponi added goals to back Matt Davis’ 30 saves in goal.

PJ Fletcher and Joe Cassetti netted Miami’s goals with Ludvig Persson stopping 28 shots in taking the loss.

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