Four Teams Advance in ECACHL Playoffs to Face Top 4 Next
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Quarterfinal pairings for the ECAC Hockey League's men have been determined, now that the first-round games have been completed. No. 1 St. Lawrence, No. 2 Clarkson, No. 3 Dartmouth and No 4 Cornell will get their first taste of playoff action starting this coming Friday, March 9. The Saints will play host to No. 8 Colgate, while the Golden Knights will face No. 7 Harvard, the Big Green will battle No. 6 Princeton and the Big Red will take on No. 5 Quinnipiac.
All of the higher seeds won their first round matchups, keeping the quarterfinal pairings straight forward. No. 5 Quinnipiac swept No. 12 Union, 3-1 and 5-4 to advance, while No. 7 Harvard downed No. 10 Yale 5-2 and 2-1 and No. 8 Colgate defeated No. 9 Rensselaer 3-1 and 4-1. No. 6 Princeton and No. 11 Brown needed three games to determine who advanced, and the Tigers came out on top, 3-4 (ot), 2-1 (ot) and 4-3.
Player of the Week Reid Cashman helped Quinnipiac advance after picking up a goal and four assists on the weekend. He had a helper on Saturday' overtime game winner.
Princeton's B.J. Sklapsky earned Goaltender of the Week honors after winning two games for the Tigers. He had 53 saves over the two contests, 32 of them coming in Sunday's deciding game. Brett Wilson had a point in all three games with two goals and two assists on the weekend. He scored the overtime winner on Saturday and assisted on the winner Sunday.
Harvard's Doug Rogers won Rookie of the Week honors after winning 24 of 31 faceoffs for the Crimson while also scoring a goal and adding an assist against Yale. Dylan Reese also provided offense, netting a hat trick on three straight power-play goals to lead the team to victory on Friday.
Colgate also had strong performances in its series sweep of Rensselaer. Junior goalie Mark Dekanich set a single-season saves record while recording his 2,000th career save. He also had an assist on the winning goal. Tom Riley had three goals over the two games, including the winner on Saturday.
Winners of the quarterfinal series will advance to the Championship Round at the Times Union Center in Albany N.Y., March 16-17. Tickets can be purchased at the Center Box Office, online at www.timesunion.com or over the phone (1-800-30-EVENT).
ECACHL Player of the Week
REID CASHMAN -- Quinnipiac
Sr., Defenseman * Red Wing, Minn.
Cashman opened play on Friday by setting up Quinnipiac's first goal
and then had a hand in four of Quinnipiac's five goals the next
night - scoring the first marker and setting up three others,
including the GWG.
ECACHL Goalie of the Week
B.J. SKLAPSKY -- Princeton
Sr., Goalie * Martensville, Sask.
Sklapsky backstopped Princeton to both wins, making 53 total saves,
including 21 in Saturday's OT victory.
ECACHL Rookie of the Week
DOUG ROGERS -- Harvard
Fr., Forward * Watertown, Mass.
Rogers had a pair of points, was +1 and a 24-7 record at the
faceoff dot to help the Crimson sweep Yale and move onto the
quarterfinals.
TEAM NOTES
Brown: For the second year in a row, Brown's season came to an end in the ECACHL first round ... Matt Vokes scored his 10th goal of the year on Sunday giving Brown three goal scorers with at least 10 goals for the first time since 2005 ... Brown had 13 players with double-digit points this season ... The Bears played 12 overtime games, just one less than the school record of 13, set last season ... Senior Sean Dersch played in 123 career games, second all-time at Brown ... Dan Rosen's season GAA of 2.74 and his save percentage of .920 rank second all-time at Brown for freshman goalies and sixth overall.
Clarkson: Clarkson will be hosting its first ECACHL quarterfinal series in five years when it battles Harvard this weekend ... The Knights swept the regular-season series from the Crimson this year for the first time since the 1999-2000 campaign, and have won three of the last four meetings to even the all-time series at 44-44-9 ... Clarkson owns a 75-57-5 record in the ECACHL playoffs, including a 47-18-4 record in the quarterfinal round ... The Knights have advanced to 30 league championship tournaments with their last appearance coming in 2004 when they skated all the way to the title game as the number nine seed before losing to Harvard, 4-2.
Colgate: Colgate will play in the ECACHL quarterfinals for the fifth straight season. The last time the Raiders played a quarterfinal series on the road, they fell to Dartmouth in a three-game set after winning the first game in four overtimes ... Mark Dekanich reached two milestones this weekend. On Saturday, he surpassed his own single-season saves record, set last year, and enters this weekend with 993 saves during the 2006-07 campaign. On Friday, he became just the fifth goalie in school history to record 2,000 saves in his career; he now has 2,028 stops ... Jesse Winchester became the first Raider to score a goal on a penalty shot in 26 years when he beat Jordan Alford on Saturday. The last Colgate player to score on a penalty shot was former RPI head coach Dan Fridgen '82, who beat Northeastern's Mark Davidner in an ECAC quarterfinal game on Mar. 10, 1981.
Cornell: Cornell returns to action after finishing in fourth place and winning the tiebreaker for the bye over Quinnipiac ... Cornell is the only team in the league to earn a first-round bye in each of the five seasons of the current format ... Cornell has advanced to the league semifinals three of the four previous times the Big Red has received a bye ... Topher Scott has scored at least a point in six of the last 10 games, recording eight assists over that span. This season, Scott has not gone longer than two games without recording a point.
Dartmouth: The Big Green earned its third first-round bye in four seasons. When earning the bye Dartmouth has then advanced to the ECACHL championship round ... The Big Green will play host to Princeton this weekend in the quarterfinals ... Dartmouth will look to avenge its recent 3-0 regular-season loss to the Tigers. The two teams tied 3-3 in the first matchup of the season back in November.
Harvard: Harvard took the all-time lead with its 80th ECACHL playoff win Saturday ... The Crimson has won its last six playoff games, its last eight home playoff series and its last four games overall ... Dylan Reese has 12 points (6-6) and is +16 in 17 career playoff games ... Saturday marked Ted Donato's 100th game as Harvard's head coach. He is 9-2 in playoff games ... Harvard has won six straight playoff games and eight straight home playoff series ... Justin Tobe has four straight wins and has allowed a total of five goals in those games ... Jimmy Fraser has notched points in the each of the last three games and has six total points in that span (2-4-6) ... Dylan Reese has five points (4-1-5) in the last three games.
Princeton: Princeton defeated Brown two games to one to win its first playoff series in eight seasons. The last was over Cornell in 1999 ... Princeton has three playoff series wins over Brown, all by 2-1 margins ... Princeton rallied to win the third game 4-3 with two goals in the third period. The win was Princeton's first this season when trailing after two periods. Princeton was 0-9-1 previously when trailing after two periods ... Brett Wilson had points in all three games of the series and has a six-game point-scoring streak ... Daryl Marcoux had two goals and an assist in the series, matching his point total from the previous 29 games of the season ... Keith Shattenkirk earned his first point of the season on Sunday, giving each of Princeton's 24 skaters at least one point this season ... Princeton's win on Saturday night was the 100th of Head Coach Guy Gadowsky's career. He had 78 wins at Alaska-Fairbanks and now has 33 at Princeton.
Quinnipiac: Quinnipiac has registered first round playoff sweeps in its first two years in the league. Last year, the Bobcats went on the road to defeat RPI ... The Bobcats won back-to-back games for the first time since Jan. 12-13 (Yale, Brown) in sweeping Union ... Quinnipiac went a perfect 5-0 against Union this season. It's the first time that Quinnipiac has recorded more than 4 wins in one single season against any opponent.
Rensselaer: RPI's eight ties this season is a new school record ... Defenseman Jake Luthi tied for the team lead in scoring, marking the first time since 1960 that a blueliner sat atop the team's final stat sheet ... Four players played in all 36 games for the Engineers this season: senior defenseman Jake Luthi, junior forward Jake Morissette, sophomore forward Seth Klerer, and freshman defenseman Peter Merth ... The Engineers finished with a 4-9-3 road record.
St. Lawrence: St. Lawrence and Colgate will meet in the ECACHL quarterfinals for the second time in the last four seasons ... St. Lawrence has an all-time record of 47-42-3 in 33 previous ECACHL tournament appearances ... SLU is making its 23rd consecutive tournament appearance and 22nd in a row under the guidance of coach Joe Marsh ... The Saints are hosting a quarterfinal series for the first time since the tournament went to its current format ... St. Lawrence has an all-time record of 24-26-3 in tournament quarterfinal games and is 21-5-0 in quarterfinal games in Appleton Arena.
Union: T.J. Fox picked up two assists this weekend to tie Union's single-season points record of 37set in the 2002-03 season ... Fox also became the 23rd player in Union's D-I history to register 55 career points; he stands at 57 in 66 career games... Olivier Bouchard finished his career as the program's sixth-leading scorer with 89 career points on 44 goals and 45 assists... Union bested its previous season record for power-play goals by 11 this season, netting 46 PPGs.
Yale: Three different bulldogs scored goals but Yale's season came to an end with two straight losses to Harvard in Cambridge, Mass. ... Leading scorers Sean Backman and Mark Arcobello were non-healthy scratches both nights and Yale's productivity dropped immensely compared to the 10 goals against Harvard in two regular-season wins ... Alec Richards made 23 saves in the 5-2 loss in game No. 1 and Matt Modelski (22) closed out his career with a strong showing in the 2-1 decision in game two.
