Hobey Baker Award<\/a>: Jack Maclellan (Brown); Alex Killorn (Harvard); Allen York and Polacek (RPI); Adam Presizniuk, Jeremy Welsh and Keith Kinkaid (Union); and Broc Little and Denny Kearney (Yale) are on the list so far. Vote early, vote often: We want more smart kids on the podium!<\/p>\nNotable numbers<\/h4>\n Everyone knew that Yale’s offense was dynamite, Union’s power play was lethal, and you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a top-flight goalie in this league. We all knew that, in November and December. But what about now?<\/p>\n
Well, right now Union has the nation’s longest unbeaten (and winning) streak, at 9-0-0. The Dutchmen also have the most wins (24) in the land, while Yale has the best winning percentage (.815).<\/p>\n
St. Lawrence, Clarkson and RPI rank sixth, ninth and 10th, respectively, in the nation in penalty killing, with Cornell (13th) and Dartmouth (16th) lurking. Union’s power play is still the best around at 29.5 percent, a whole 4.2 points ahead of second-place Air Force. Yale is third and Princeton is sixth, on opposite sides of the 24 percent mark.<\/p>\n
The Big Green and Dutchmen rank sixth and seventh in the country in fewest penalty minutes per game, as Dartmouth is whistled for 10.9 and Union 11.<\/p>\n
On to the offense. No shock here: Yale (4.41 goals per game) and Union (3.76) are Nos. 1 and 3 in the country in scoring, with only Boston College in between. The ECAC duo also holds the top two seats in average scoring margin as well, which is no surprise since Union (2.09), Rensselaer (2.16) and Yale (2.22) are first, third and fifth — respectively — in Division I defense.<\/p>\n
Speaking of stingy, the Engineers’ Allen York (1.99), Union’s Keith Kinkaid (2.00) and Big Blue’s Ryan Rondeau (2.06) are each in the top seven in the country in goals-against average, with Dartmouth’s James Mello and Princeton rookie Sean Bonar just beyond. Mello, York and Rondeau each boast elite save percentages between .925 and .930, so the low GAA numbers aren’t all thanks to lousy offenses (that’s for all you nay-saying big-school blowhards).<\/p>\n
RPI’s Nick Bailen, Harvard’s Danny Biega (USCHO’s third star of the week) and Princeton’s Taylor Fedun are lighting it up from the blue line with the best of ’em, each averaging nearly a point a game. Rookie Daniel Carr out of Union is tied for the national lead in power-play goals (11), and his 18 goals overall are tied for second among all D-I frosh. Not to be lost behind Carr’s snipe stats are Yale and Princeton rookies Kenny Agostino and Andrew Calof, who are each averaging about a point a game and are ranked ahead of Carr in offensive production.<\/p>\n
And when you get to the most obvious statistics — goals and points — what does it mean when ECAC Hockey has only three players (Polacek and Yale’s Brian O’Neill and Andrew Miller) in D-I’s top 20 scorers? Or that only O’Neill, Polacek and Brown’s Jack Maclellan are among the country’s 20 most-prolific goal scorers?<\/p>\n
It means that these players have embraced the words of every coach they’ve had since mites: It’s a team game, and we’re watching some pretty extraordinary teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For those of you who may be new to the Playoff Quotes game, let me save you some trouble: Here’s a time-tested breakdown of what your coach will say depending on his team’s position in the standings. Bottom four: “There’s no question, we’ve had a difficult season. We really struggled to play a full 60 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":122606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
What you'll hear from ECAC Hockey coaches, depending on where they stand - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n