The most surprising result of the weekend was obviously Quinnipiac dropping its first league game, but it was inevitable that it would drop a game. The Bobcats still have a comfortable lead in the ECAC standings, up five points on New Haven rival, Yale. The Bulldogs are hard charging to the race and it has become the team that we thought it would be in the preseason. it has five straight wins and has just one loss in its past 14 games. Harvard, who sits in third is two points back, dropping a game against RPI on Friday and rebounding on Saturday.

St. Lawrence had the most impressive weekend in the league, as it became the giant slayer in finally taking down the league undefeated Bobcats who had just a loss entering the week. The weekend sweep moved the Saints into the  final bye position and leaves it two points clear of Dartmouth and RPI who share the fifth place spot. Clarkson and plunging Cornell are the other two teams in contention for the byes, as the Golden Knights are three points back and the Big Red are four points back. It seems unlikely that either of those teams can recover, because it would have to gain points and pass 3-4 teams to get the bye. Union, who sits five points behind eighth is the only team that can mathematically get to eighth from the bottom four, but it is unlikely. Colgate, Brown and Princeton are assured of travelling the first round of the ECAC tournament.

Quinnipiac, Yale and Harvard are solidly in the NCAA tournament, according to the Pairwise. Quinnipiac remains in the top spot, while Yale has moved all the way up to tenth. Harvard, although 12th in the ratings, has a comfortable cushion over the 14th spot which is the current cutoff. The mess comes behind the cutoff, as St. Lawrence, RPI, Cornell, Dartmouth and Clarkson are all within striking distance of the 14th spot. Despite being in 23rd, Clarkson has a chance because the RPI difference is .1016. That is a minuscule amount and can be made up with wins. The best case scenario is one of these ECAC teams makes it in, but I don’t think it is going to happen. Three is the usual magic number for the ECAC, mainly because the league is so deep and the bottom teams can beat the top ones.

Make sure to check out my feature on Clarkson Goaltender, Greg Lewis.

Yale is Looking Like the Contender (Maybe the Juggernaut) We Thought it Would Be

Right now, Yale is doing contender things that even Quinnipiac isn’t doing. The Bulldogs are as hot as any team in the nation and look like they are peaking at the right team. Yale to begin the year struggled to find the back of the net and it struggled for consistency in its game, but since a loss to Princeton on December 5th, its game has rounded out and it looks like the contender I thought it would be to begin the season. Since that loss the Elis have just one loss to Union on its plate and impressive wins over Boston University, SLU,  RPI and Harvard.

For Yale, everything was going to begin and end with its defense and Alex Lyon between the pipes. As much as that has been the case, it wasn’t a juggernaut in the first half like it is now. Since the loss to Princeton, the Elis have played 14 games and have allowed just 18 goals in those games. That means they are allowing just 1.21 goals per game, which in all honesty gives you a chance to win games as long as you can score yourself. Beating a team that gives up just a goal game is very difficult.

But I thought, as did most pundits, that the offense would come out firing on all cylinders to begin the year and be better than last season, which was hardly the case. It was struggling to score the big goal, but now its offense is firing and scoring near a half goal more per game. Instead of scoring two per game, meaning they couldn’t allow more than one to win, they are now scoring three per game and giving up less than two is more doable. There are many notables that have picked up the offense, but most notably John Hayden has 14 goals on the year with ten of them coming in the 14 games since December 5th.

What it all means, to me, is that Yale is a national title contender, which I thought it would be at the beginning of the year. Its defense is top notch, it has great goaltending and it has been getting timely scoring. These things make teams successful in league tournaments and ultimately the big tournament after that. So look for Yale to go far. Yale will totally beat Quinnipiac in the NCAA title game again, right? Sorry Bobcat fans, I had to.

It isn’t always good to be a deep conference, like the ECAC is right now

Unlike Hockey East, the ECAC is a deep conference with many good teams up and down. On any given night, the eighth place team can beat the first place team and the teams on the NCAA bubble, like Cornell, Clarkson, Dartmouth, RPI and SLU can lose to Princeton and anyone in the bottom four. Everyone has raved how good the league is more than normal this season and it is starting to look the part.

Last weekend, Dartmouth was looking good and heading up in the pairwise but a loss to Union all but eliminated them from contention for the 14th spot. No team that was in good shape, save Yale, has been rattling off wins and teams have been falling out of the tournament picture because the league is just that good in the middle that losses just sting and teams have been struggling to string together wins against each other. Just a month ago, six ECAC teams were in the NCAA tournament and now just three.

Getting wins is paramount to moving up and keeping position in the Pairwise, just ask Quinnipiac who has held the top spot in the Pairwise for quite some time. The league was hardly weak in inter-conference play, as it had the second best record against the other conferences with a .593 record and 7-2-0 record against the juggernaut NCHC. The movement is there to be had, or should be, but as per usual the league is beating itself up. This is good for fans on most nights, until you realize the top four in Hockey East is winning near 80 percent of its games against the bottom four, while the bubble NCAA teams in the ECAC are winning a much smaller amount. It all matter, but as time goes on the ECAC will probably be stuck at its magic number of three again.

Cornell’s Plummet is on red alert

I figured Cornell would come back to earth after its red hot start, but at this point I think it has gone on too long. The Big Red have just one win in its past 11 games and since its win on Jan 9th against Merrimack, it is tied for the 9th worst record in NCAA hockey during that timeframe at .250.

Like Yale, above, the numbers for Cornell have flipped flopped in recent months and for the Big Red they have gone in the wrong direction. The offense that was once clicking at near three goals per game, has slowed in a major way and is now only scoring 1.50 per game. Losing 1.43 goals on the offense can be attributed mostly to streaks, because in all honesty Cornell is healthier now than it was a few months ago.

Whereas Cornell had three double digit scorers in its first 15 games, in its last 10 its top scorer has just four points. It is a progression down from throughout the lineup and not just the top line, which often happens in college hockey when a big line slows down. The JAM line, which had a combined 18 goals, 23 assists and 41 points in its first 15 games, has a combined five goals and 12 points in its last ten. For Cornell, that needs to change.

The Big Red of today looks a lot like the Cornell team of last year that struggled to find the back of the net, but in some ways I said it was expected a few weeks back and I stand corrected I think this has gone too far. Once as a high as fifth in the Pairwise, Cornell has dropped all the way to 18th at this point with no bounce seemingly in sight.

Monday, February 15th, 2016 - 10:13 pm | Blogs, ECAC, Notes, Thoughts, Ramblings