ECACHL Race Still Wide Open With One Weekend to Go
Clarkson and St. Lawrence sweep
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Two teams swept over the weekend, as Clarkson and St. Lawrence each earned four points in ECAC Hockey League play. The league leaders split their games, and in doing so, kept the regular season and playoff position chase as tight as ever. Tight enough, in fact, that five teams can still claim first place in the final league standings. Currently, Cornell has 27 points and sits in the top spot, with Colgate and Dartmouth in hot pursuit, just one point behind. SLU is fourth.
Looking at the playoff picture, the Big Red is the only team to have claimed a first-round bye. However, it could still finish between first and fourth place. We also know that Brown, Princeton, Quinnipiac and Yale will all be on the road for the first round. Everything else is still up for grabs.
The Golden Knights and Saints helped their causes by sweeping their respective competition, while Quinnipiac also gained ground with a three-point weekend. Clarkson moved up one spot in the standings and is now seventh, while the Bobcats made a two-spot jump and now sit ninth. St. Lawrence got a little boost, as it went from being tied for fourth place, to sitting in the No. 4 spot all by itself.
The North Country duo made their moves by beating Brown and Yale this past weekend.
The Golden Knights started things off with a one-goal victory vs. the Bulldogs and then downed the Bears 8-2. Jeff Genovy led the Green and Gold with back-to-back multiple goal games, scoring twice each night. He opened the scoring vs. Yale and helped close out the scoring vs. Brown with two third period goals in that game. His four-goal weekend earned him Player of the Week honors. The Golden Knights also had help from freshman center Chris D'Alvise, who earned Rookie of the Week honors after picking up five points. He assisted on both of Genovy's Friday night goals and then had a power-play marker and two helpers vs. Brown. Grant Clitsome (0-3), Steve Zalewski (1-1), Shawn Weller (1-1), Brodie Rutherglen (0-2) and Nick Dodge (0-2) also had multiple points on the weekend for the Golden Knights.
The Saints were backstopped to victory by Justin Pesony, who stopped 45 of the 46 shots he faced over the weekend. The sophomore netminder earned his second career shutout with the 3-0 win over Yale (20 saves) and was named Goaltender of the Week after earning the two wins. He faced 25 shots vs. Brown and finished the weekend with a .978 save percentage and a 0.50 goals against average. Four different Saints scored goals against Brown, while Adam Hogg led the way vs. Yale with two markers. John Zeiler posted a goal in each game.
Yale's two goals of the weekend came against Clarkson, with Matthew Thomey picking up both tallies. Brown sophomore Jeff Prough led the way for the Bears, with a two-goal, one-assist weekend.
Quinnipiac picked up its points with a 3-1 win over Union and a 4-all tie with Rensselaer. Three different players scored in the win over the Dutchmen with Chris Walsh netting the winner. The next night vs. the Engineers, two players made all the difference for the Bobcats, as sophomore Jamie Bates and freshman Brian Leitch each had a hand in all four goals. Bates scored twice (including the tying goal) and had two helpers, while Leitch assisted on all four.
Before tying Quinnipiac, Rensselaer picked up a point with a 4-4 tie with Princeton. The Engineers scored two goals to open the game and two to tie it up at the end. Eight different players picked up goals (four for each team). The Engineers also saw four different scorers in the tie with the Bobcats.
Union rebounded from its loss to Quinnipiac with an overtime victory vs. Princeton the next night. The Tigers scored first in the game but then found themselves down 3-1 after goals by Dutchmen Olivier Bouchard, Augie DiMarzo and Scott Wheeler. Princeton didn't give up and fought back to retake the lead on a Grant Goeckner-Zoeller power-play score, before Jonathan Poirier tied it back up at 18:38 in the third. Poirier's goal came with the goalie pulled for an extra Union attacker. The Tigers put two shots on goal in overtime, however, it was Union's Sean Streich who ended the game with a goal at 4:18 in the extra period.
The final series of the weekend had the top four teams in the league battling it out in Central New York. All four games were split, with Colgate, Cornell, Dartmouth and Harvard earning two points each.
Friday night belonged to the home team, as both the Raiders and Big Red won. Colgate claimed a 4-1 victory over the Crimson behind solid goaltending by Mark Dekanich (29 saves) and a balanced attack (four different goal scorers). Kyle Wilson and Nick St. Pierre led Colgate with four and three assists, respectively in the win. For Cornell, David McKee made 22 stops in avenging the Big Red's earlier season loss to the Big Green. All of the scoring came in the first 26 minutes of the game with Byron Bitz netting the game winner at 19:53 in the first period. Dartmouth's lone goal was a short-handed marker scored by Rob Pritchard.
The road teams took Saturday's games, as the Big Green blanked Colgate and Harvard edged Cornell 4-3. Mike Devine earned his first career shutout for Dartmouth in the win over the Raiders. The sophomore goalie stopped 21 shots to earn the win. Nick Johnson, J.T. Wyman and Kevin Swallow all scored for the Green. Harvard broke a 2-2 tie to earn its first victory over Cornell at Lynah Rink since 1999. The Crimson's Jon Pelle and Peter Hafner netted goals during a five-minute power play to take the lead in the game. Hafner was actually hurt on the play that drew the major penalty by Cornell and had to leave the ice, but he came back and scored what proved to be the winner. The Big Red fought to get back in it and scored with an extra attacker to bring it within one, however the Crimson's John Daigneau, who had been making outstanding saves all night long, denied Cornell's last minute efforts to tie it up.
Seeing how tight the standings are, and that just about everything is still up for grabs, this weekend's games are sure to be scorchers. Union and Rensselaer will welcome Colgate and Cornell, while Harvard and Dartmouth play host to Clarkson and St. Lawrence. Yale and Brown are also home and will take on Princeton and Quinnipiac.
