Arriving at the last weekend of the regular season is an enjoyable process for me.
No, it’s not because I’m finally close to enjoying time off after spending the last five months in full blown college hockey mode (shoutout: the earlier start for half of ECAC Hockey’s teams). It’s not because I’ve spent close to seven or eight months covering college sports (shoutout: football season), and it’s certainly not because I’m going to relax or anything (shoutout: two kids).
Nope. I enjoy reaching this time of year because everything’s a little simpler. Wins and losses are worth the same amount of points in October as February, but they sure seem more important when the playoffs are around the corner because they’re easier to comprehend. Win on Friday, for example, and a team like Quinnipiac wins the Cleary Cup. Lose the weekend, and a team like Dartmouth misses a first-round bye.
The need for superfluous storylines is gone, and as much as coaches talk about focusing on one game at a time, we’re really in a situation where one game matters a whole ton.
At the risk of being too wordy, let’s dive right into what’s at stake for each of the 12 ECAC teams taking the ice for this weekend’s regular season finale, in order from first to 12th. As always, thanks to the Playoff Status website for some of these percentages and scenarios, and apologies for any mathematical errors in the summaries. Trying to condense the league, especially this year, is nearly impossible, but I’ll throw this under the “I did my best” category that usually makes it easier to swallow any mistakes.
Quinnipiac
Possible finishing spot: First or Second
Most likely finishing spot, per me: First
Most Critical Game of the Weekend, per me: Clarkson-Quinnipiac on Friday
Quick hits: This is my fourth season covering ECAC Hockey for our website, and I picked against Quinnipiac twice. You’d think I would learn, but this year was really the one time when I thought the Bobcats would backslide into second place. Though to be fair, I believe I said that they’d be fine in the long run, but I couldn’t account for the injury woes at Cornell. Regardless, the Bobcats need two points to win their fifth consecutive Cleary Cup and sixth in the last seven years (at least I’m pretty sure they won the Cleary Cup during that four-team COVID year) and even losing to the Golden Knights only lowers the percentage to an 85 percent likelihood with a game against St. Lawrence in Saturday’s finale.
Beyond that, Quinnipiac (No. 13 in the Pairwise Rankings) is unquestionably inching closer to a safe space within the NCAA Tournament’s bubble. Expecting the cut line to land around No. 14 puts the team right on the edge, but not losing games at this point is a big deal when No. 12 UMass plays No. 14 UMass-Lowell and No. 15 Penn State, which plays Minnesota, is surging through the Big Ten.
Clarkson
Possible finishing spot: First, Second or Third
Most likely finishing spot, per me: Second
Most Critical Game of the Weekend, per me: Clarkson-Quinnipiac on Friday
Quick hits: Let’s play a bit of the “what if” game here and assume that Clarkson beats Quinnipiac in regulation. Under that scenario, the Bobcats enter Saturday with a one-point advantage but without the head-to-head tiebreaker because of dueling losses to the Golden Knights. That means Clarkson would win the league’s top seed under three scenarios:
1) Beating Princeton in regulation as long as St. Lawrence at least takes Quinnipiac to overtime.
2) Beating Princeton in overtime or a shootout as long as St. Lawrence beats Quinnipiac in overtime.
3) Losing to Princeton in an overtime or shootout as long as St. Lawrence outright beats Quinnipiac in regulation.
Clarkson can’t win the league if it beats Quinnipiac and loses to Princeton in regulation.
Should Clarkson beat Quinnipiac in overtime, a two-point differential requires the following two scenarios:
1) Beat Princeton in regulation and St. Lawrence beats Quinnipiac in overtime or a shootout.
2) Beat Princeton in overtime or a shootout and St. Lawrence wins in regulation.
Beyond any of that, Clarkson finishes second, and while there are scenarios where Union and Colgate can catch the Golden Knights, the five-point differential requires a weekend sweep against the Bobcats and Tigers.
Side note: Clarkson is sitting at No. 18 in the Pairwise Rankings, so while there are limited opportunities to improve that situation in the ECAC postseason, a win over Quinnipiac makes things a bit more interesting.
Union and Colgate
Possible finishing spot: Second Through Sixth
Most likely finishing spot: Third-Fourth
Most Critical Game of the Weekend, per me: Colgate-Union on Saturday
Quick hits: Union and Colgate tied each other in an early February game in Hamilton, so the head-to-head win on Saturday clinches the tiebreaker scenario. To that extent, it almost doesn’t matter how each team does on Friday, though a Union loss to Cornell and/or a Colgate loss to RPI opens the door for the Big Red to slip ahead of one or both teams, though the Garnet Chargers hold the head-to-head tiebreaker, at least for now, over Cornell by virtue of a 4-1 win at Lynah Rink.
Dartmouth can’t gain a first-round bye if Colgate and Union both win in regulation on Friday, so let’s ignore that situation for a second. We’ll come back to it later, but cycling back to the scenario where both Colgate and Union win in regulation on Friday, they’ll play each other for the difference between third and fourth place. If there’s an opening for Cornell or Dartmouth, which essentially requires the Big Red to beat Union along with a successful Big Green trip to southern New England, this game potentially serves as a de facto play-in game for the first-round bye.
Cornell and Dartmouth
Possible finishing spot: Third-Seventh
Most likely finishing spot: Fifth-Sixth
Most Critical Game of the Weekend, per me: Cornell-Union on Friday
Quick hits: Both Cornell and Dartmouth have a chance at gaining a first-round bye, but the scenario essentially requires both teams. The Big Green hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Garnet Chargers but not the Raiders, and the Big Red split with their travel partner outside of the aforementioned loss to Union. So getting both teams into the first-round bye requires some creative math and some tiebreaker shenanigans. There are also scenarios where the three-team or four-team tiebreakers get really weird.
To me, Dartmouth is the wild card to this whole situation. The Big Green travel to Brown and Yale, and I think there’s a direct combination to help them overcome the same four-point differential as Cornell. I think it hinges on a win in Providence on Friday, but the head-to-head game between Colgate and Union keeps the Big Green in the conversation for fifth place even if they lose to the Bears. Under a best-case scenario, a win over Brown, an RPI win over Colgate and a Cornell win over Union increases Dartmouth’s likelihood of finishing fourth by a full two-thirds. It’s not the most probable spot, but I actually really like its possibility.
Both Cornell and Dartmouth open their respective windows by winning in overtime or a shootout on Friday. A loss opens the door for Harvard, which is five points behind both teams, to jump into the conversation for fifth place, but remember that the Big Green have a game against Yale, which is either the No. 11 or No. 12 seed in the postseason.
Harvard and Brown
Possible finishing spot: Harvard: Fifth Through Eighth. Brown: Seventh through Ninth
Most likely finishing spot: Seventh-Eighth
Most Critical Game of the Weekend, per me: Anything involving Brown
Quick hits: Brown last clinched a regular season record above .500 during the mid-2000s, but the ability to host a playoff game with a winning record runs directly through one of the best layered matchups of the weekend. The Bears have a four-point lead over RPI – a common thread throughout the ECAC standings – but playing Dartmouth and Harvard is a brutal proposition given everything that’s at stake.
The most obvious part of Brown’s journey gains home ice with either a regulation win over Dartmouth or a Colgate win over RPI if the Big Green win in regulation. The less-direct route requires the Bears to win in overtime or a shootout while the Engineers and Raiders go to overtime in any capacity, and if the Bears lose in overtime, Colgate needs to win in overtime or a shootout.
Harvard, meanwhile, can move itself closer to a better seed with a win over Yale and a Dartmouth win, but since the Crimson are locked into playing a first-round game at home, there’s less at stake outside of seeding. Should Brown lose to Dartmouth, things get hairier for Saturday’s game in Providence. Of course, RPI’s games against two of the teams vying for the top four spots decreases the likelihood of Brown losing its first-round spot, but the three percent likelihood is enough to make Brunonians sweat until it’s clinched.
RPI, Princeton, Yale and St. Lawrence
Possible finishing spot: RPI can finish as high as eighth, but everyone else is ninth-12th.
Most likely finishing spot: Road for the first round
Most Critical Game of the Weekend, per me: Princeton-St. Lawrence on Friday.
Quick hits: RPI remains the only team with a mathematical opportunity to play itself into a home game for the first round of the ECAC postseason, but the Engineers are most likely to finish ninth unless either a) they’re swept and Princeton beats St. Lawrence on Friday night or b) Brown collapses against Dartmouth and Harvard. Their season series split means that the Tigers also don’t hold the tiebreaker over RPI because of the secondary league win component (RPI’s seven wins is the tiebreaker scenario victory over Princeton’s four).
St. Lawrence, meanwhile, can gain the head-to-head tiebreaker by beating Princeton after the teams tied 4-4 in early February, but Yale’s two wins over the Saints makes things a bit more interesting in the lower quadrant. Each team has an opportunity to move into tenth, but playing things out further, the difference for the first or second round depends largely on where Colgate, Cornell, Dartmouth and Harvard finish.
It’s worth noting that road teams are 3-5 since ECAC implemented the single elimination first round in 2023, but one of those wins was No. 12 RPI’s 3-2 win at Clarkson last year.
