The wild ECAC Hockey season that featured more parity than any recent memory ended this past weekend, which means the road to Lake Placid, the Whitelaw Cup and the NCAA tournament kicks off for real this week with single-elimination first round games.
After a week in which virtually every spot aside from first-place Quinnipiac remained up for grabs, here’s the final result:
1. Quinnipiac
2. Cornell
3. Colgate
4. Dartmouth
5. Clarkson
6. Union
7. St. Lawrence
8. Harvard
9. Princeton
10. Yale
11. Brown
12. Rensselaer
Unlike last year, when three teams tied for the final two home slots, the only tiebreaker required came in the race for ninth place, where Princeton and Yale broke a tie for 25 points with the Tigers’ two-game season sweep. That means the 2024 ECAC Tournament looks a little something like this:
First Round: Single Elimination
Friday, March 8
No. 9 Princeton at No. 8 Harvard: 7 p.m. (Bright-Landry Hockey Center, Cambridge, Mass.)
No. 10 Yale at No. 7 St. Lawrence: 7 p.m. (Appleton Arena, Canton, N.Y.)
Saturday, March 9
No. 11 Brown at No. 6 Union: 4 p.m. (Messa Rink, Schenectady, N.Y.)
No. 12 RPI at No. 5 Clarkson: 7 p.m. (Cheel Arena, Potsdam, N.Y.)
Quarterfinal Round: Best-of-Three Series
Friday-Saturday, March 15-16 (If Necessary: Sunday, March 17)
No. 5 Clarkson or best-remaining seed at No. 4 Dartmouth
Second-highest remaining seed at No. 3 Colgate
Second-lowest remaining seed at No. 2 Cornell
No. 12 RPI or lowest-remaining seed at No. 1 Quinnipiac
Championship Weekend: Single Elimination
Friday-Saturday, March 22-23
Semifinal 1: March 22, 4 p.m.
Semifinal 2: March 22, 7 p.m.
ECAC Championship: March 23, 7 p.m.
How bad did I get it?
I’m doing things a little bit differently this year and borrowing some formatting from Atlantic Hockey colleague and mentor/writing sibling Chris Lerch by introducing a look at how badly I got my preseason predictions. I actually went through things on Sunday night and didn’t think I did bad, but a couple of really big misses are going to stick out:
Quick thoughts:
-I’m pretty sure Quinnipiac could drop internal votes from the voices in my head and still finish first.
-Cornell gave the Bobcats a good run for their money at the end of the season, but a good hockey team finished a couple of hairpoints behind. I’d personally love to see what the Big Red could do with the same number of games.
-I’m notoriously low on the format, but Reid Cashman and Dartmouth cashed big time checks by taking seven different games to the shootout. They also won three of them with an extra fourth overtime win, which means a team with the same number of wins as Union or St. Lawrence gained its first bye in nine years with the same number of losses as Cornell, one of the least-defeated teams in the nation.
-I specifically said Harvard walked a balance beam heading into the season, but the well-documented struggles from the first half of the season cost the Crimson a shot at a first round bye. That they’re playing at home for the first round is a credit to their resilience across the final two months.
-A changeover in head coach didn’t stop Colgate from reaching a first round bye for the first time since 2014-2015.
Previewing the First Round
RPI at Clarkson
RPI’s game at Clarkson took place in November, but the Engineers’ win at Cheel Arena was the last Golden Knights’ Friday night loss at home. They had dropped the two previous Fridays to single games against Penn State and Lake Superior State, but RPI’s entry marked a turning point for a team that finished the year by only losing three other games in its own building.
If there’s a key to this game, it’s what happens if and when RPI specifically takes a penalty. Clarkson’s power play was 51st in the nation at just under 16 percent, but the Engineers paired a team that absorbed a top-20 PIM rate with a penalty kill that ranked last in Division I as one of two teams under 70 percent. That said, removing the 40-plus power play goals by opponents drops the Engineers from 4.1 goals per game allowed to a 2.76 goals against average, meaning Clarkson could have its hands full if the game stays five-on-five.
Brown at Union
Brown’s last-day shootout win over Harvard saved the Bears from a second consecutive trip to the North Country by instead sending them to a place where they previously earned a 3-2 overtime victory. Somewhat surprisingly, it was their first overtime win since a 2022 first round series game against St. Lawrence, but it helped pave a road that ended with a second straight 11th place finish while the Garnet Chargers fell out of first round bye contention only after splitting their final two weekends.
Straight from the fun fact department, this is just the second time the two teams will ever cross paths with one another in a postseason game, but their only other meeting was notable for the fourth-seeded Dutchmen’s win over the seventh-seeded Bears in the 2013 ECAC Championship at Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall. That the teams are in this position is a bit of a surprise after Brown gained significant steam near the middle of the season, but an unkind final two months prevented a regulation regular season win after the Harvard-Dartmouth sweep.
Yale at St. Lawrence
The Saints were an exceptional second half team that did a great job of avoiding regulation losses down the stretch, and after their 5-1 loss at Cornell in February, St. Lawrence didn’t lose a game by more than one goal until the final game at Quinnipiac. The team earlier beat the Bobcats with a bruising 3-1 decision at home, then rode three shootout games and an overtime win to over Colgate to a seventh-place finish.
Yale is a prime dark horse candidate because of its strength on the defensive end and in net, in particular. Goalie Jack Stark joined Cornell’s Ian Shane and Quinnipiac’s Vinny Duplessis as the three goalies averaging less than two goals per game in ECAC play, and his save percentage moved from .922 to .928 – both tops in the league – after removing his five non-conference games that featured a five-spot by Denver around Thanksgiving.
Princeton at Harvard
Princeton’s first game was at Harvard, but the 4-4 tie started a trend where the Tigers gained a second point after the third period. Of their Ivy League-leading six wins against Ancient Eight rivals, three required overtime, which in turn allowed Cornell to claim the “league title” while simultaneously enabling the Crimson to earn home ice despite having four less overall wins and two less league wins.
That said, handicapping this game is nearly impossible because both games took place in the first half of the year. After a 5-2 win at Baker Rink closed 2023, a six-game losing streak tailspun Princeton into a 1-8 stretch where the only win was an overtime non-conference victory over Army. The sweep over Yale and Brown helped, but Harvard finished the season with one regulation loss after the Beanpot and a 2.00 goals against average in games aside from that 6-2 loss at Union.
