The ECAC playoff race is beginning to heat up, as both Cornell and Clarkson
clinched postseason tournament berths with their victories on Saturday.
With Harvard and Princeton returning to action after a few weeks off, all
twelve teams have eight ECAC games remaining, and the only non-league
affairs left are the two on Tuesday night and Harvard's participation in the
Beanpot tournament.
Scores from ECAC games over the weekend:
Friday, 1/25:
CLARKSON 7, Vermont 6
Colgate 5, DARTMOUTH 0
ST. LAWRENCE 6, Rpi 3
Saturday, 1/26:
Brown 8, YALE 6
CLARKSON 8, Rpi 5
Cornell 7, DARTMOUTH 3
Vermont 5, ST. LAWRENCE 4
ARMY 11, Royal Military College 1
ECAC Standings as of 1/28/90:
League Overall
Team W L T Pts GF GA W L T Pts GF GA
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
$ Cornell 10 2 2 22 69 48 11 4 2 24 82 58
$ Clarkson 10 3 1 21 72 54 16 5 1 33 125 85
St. Lawrence 9 4 1 19 60 53 12 9 1 25 88 82
Yale 8 5 1 17 60 51 9 7 1 19 71 67
RPI 8 6 0 16 72 60 13 9 0 26 119 97
Harvard 8 6 0 16 88 55 8 8 0 16 89 61
Vermont 7 6 1 15 55 57 11 10 1 23 90 94
Brown 6 6 2 14 52 63 6 9 3 15 67 89
Colgate 4 7 3 11 50 54 10 8 3 23 86 78
Princeton 5 8 1 11 60 63 6 11 1 13 71 81
Army 1 11 2 4 36 62 6 12 3 15 84 77
Dartmouth 0 12 2 2 29 83 1 17 2 4 45 122
$ - Clinched playoff spot
@ - Clinched qualifying round bye
# - Clinched home ice
Scores from Division III (mostly involving teams from the ECAC West):
Friday, 1/25:
Geneseo State 9, Brockport State 5
Hamilton 8, Potsdam State 2
Plattsburgh State 16, Binghamton State 4
RIT 13, St. Bonaventure 2
SE Massachusetts 7, Stonehill 4
Williams 3, Bowdoin 2
Saturday, 1/26:
American International 9, Trinity 4
Canisius 4, Fredonia State 2
Cortland State 7, Brockport State 4
Elmira 6, RIT 4
Geneseo State 6, Oswego State 1
Hobart 6, Potsdam State 3
New Hampshire College 4, Bentley 3
Plattsburgh State 6, Hamilton 3
Skidmore 7, Villanova 4
Union 3, Norwich 2
Standings in the ECAC West division as of 1/27/90:
ECAC East-West Overall
Team W L T Pct. W L T
---------------------------------------------------
Elmira 18 2 0 0.900 18 2 0
Geneseo State 14 1 3 0.861 15 1 3
Union 11 2 2 0.800 12 3 2
Mercyhurst 7 2 0 0.778 8 9 0
RIT 11 3 1 0.767 12 7 1
Plattsburgh State 14 6 0 0.700 15 6 1
Cortland State 9 6 1 0.594 11 6 1
Oswego State 9 8 0 0.529 9 8 0
Fredonia State 8 8 1 0.500 9 8 1
Hamilton 6 7 2 0.467 6 7 2
Hobart 6 10 1 0.382 6 10 1
Canisius 5 12 0 0.294 6 14 0
Potsdam State 4 14 0 0.222 4 14 0
Brockport State 3 12 0 0.200 5 12 0
Binghamton State 2 12 0 0.143 2 12 0
St. Bonaventure 1 13 2 0.125 1 13 2
Notes on a few of the games:
Plattsburgh State 16, Binghamton State 4
Martin Beliveau and Ray Deblois each had two goals in the game as
Plattsburgh State scored eight times in the first period, outshooting
the Colonials by a 25-6 margin (shots were 53-28 for the game).
Elmira 6, RIT 4
Rebounding from only their second loss of the season (to Mercyhurst
last Sunday), the Soaring Eagles never trailed in this game and put it
away with two late goals, despite being outshot by the RIT Tigers
45-25. Mike McNamara gave Elmira a quick lead, slapping a rebound past
RIT goalie Fred Abraham just 1:11 into the first period. RIT's Tom
Masaschi tied it up at the nine minute mark, but the Eagles went up 3-1
on goals by Bob McGee and Bobby Holmes. RIT again tied it up late in
the second period with goals three minutes apart by Mike Heaney and Ken
Moran. Both of these scores came during 5-on-3 power plays for RIT.
Trevor MacLeod ricocheted one into the net off Abraham to give Elmira a
4-3 lead at 6:46 of the third period. Five minutes later, the game was
tied for the third and final time. RIT's Bill Gall blasted a shot
which Elmira goalie Tom O'Brien blocked, but Scott McNair was there to
flip the rebound home for RIT's only even-strength goal of the night.
Just 46 seconds later, however, Pete Romeo's slap shot from the blue
line bounced off Abraham's glove and trickled into the net. Elmira was
trying for a line change at the time. RIT had a golden opportunity to
tie the score again, as Moran picked up a loose puck all alone in front
of the Elmira goal, but O'Brien made the clutch save. Holmes picked up
an empty-net goal with 13 seconds remaining. Elmira's All-American
defenseman Jules Jardine picked up two assists to bring his career
point total to 105, a school record for blue-liners.
Colgate 5, Dartmouth 0
Colgate jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first period and pretty much
coasted the rest of the way. Red Raider goalie Greg Menges was called
on to make just 14 saves in recording the first shutout of his col-
legiate career. Sam Raffoul scored twice for Colgate, while Marcel
Richard added one goal and two assists.
Cornell 7, Dartmouth 3
Dartmouth goalie Michael Bracco continued his quest to become the
ECAC's next Chris Harvey, as he made 48 saves -- 43 of them in the
first two periods. However, the star of the night was Cornell's Doug
Derraugh, who picked up a hat trick in his second consecutive game,
becoming the first Big Red player to do that since Joe Nieuwendyk in
1987. The six goals against Colgate and Dartmouth earned Derraugh the
ECAC Player of the Week honors.
As Cornell-Dartmouth games often do, this one started out slowly, with
most of the action going on in the Dartmouth zone. The Big Green was
not able to bring the puck out of their own end very often, and when
they did get the puck into the Cornell zone, they didn't do much with
it. Finally, the Big Red lit the lamp at 12:18 of the first. Kent
Manderville got control of the puck deep in the Cornell zone and went
on an end-to-end rush, skating around the Dartmouth defense and feeding
Joe Dragon at the top of the faceoff circle. Dragon's shot went off
Bracco's stick and dribbled across the goal line.
Cornell went up 2-0 about two minutes later. Trent Andison stole the
puck from Dartmouth defenseman Nat Collins and backhanded it toward the
net. Bracco made the save, but the rebound floated over to Derraugh.
Bracco was able to stop two tries by Derraugh, but the third shot went
over the prone goalie and into the net. Bill Fitzpatrick and Anthony
DelCarmine combined to put Dartmouth on the board at the 15:52 mark of
the first period. Fitzpatrick knocked a Cornell defenseman off the
puck and passed it to a wide-open DelCarmine, who fired a shot between
goaltender Corrie D'Alessio's legs, and just that quickly, Dartmouth
was back in the game.
But just that quickly they were back out of it. Derraugh picked up his
second goal of the night at 16:27 of the first on a beautiful play. On
a give and go, Derraugh was knocked down in the Dartmouth slot, but he
was able to field a pass from Andison and whack at the puck with the
shaft of his stick, all while lying on his stomach. The shot bounced
into the net off Bracco's pad. Eleven seconds later, Dan Ratushny
caught the Dartmouth defense off guard with a 25-foot wrist shot over
Bracco's shoulder. DelCarmine brought the Big Green back to within 4-2
with one minute left in the opening period. He took a harmless shot
that D'Alessio made the save on, but the puck bounced straight up in
the air and came down in the crease, and DelCarmine was there to tap it
in.
Cornell played more sloppily in the second period, but was still able
to score two more goals and pretty much put the game out of reach.
Bruce Frauley and Phil Nobel combined on a play that looked very much
like the Big Red's first goal of the game, with Frauley coming out of
the Cornell end with the puck, crossing the Dartmouth blue line, and
sliding the puck over to Nobel. Nobel fired the puck through Bracco's
legs to put the Big Red up 5-2 at 2:13 of the second. At the 8:34
mark, Andison poked the puck away from Bracco and into the net for an
apparent goal, but referee Dan Murphy had lost sight of the puck and
had blown the play dead. Murphy had a pretty shaky game, not calling
much of anything, and when he did, it was usually the wrong player for
the wrong penalty anyway. At any rate, Derraugh completed his hat
trick at 12:43 of the second with a power-play goal, beating Bracco on
the right side with a low shot.
Dartmouth almost killed off a Cornell 5-on-3 (which, interestingly
enough, included a major for hitting from behind -- no injuries) early
in the third, but Manderville stuffed in a rebound for the Big Red's
final goal at the 2:21 mark. After playing his way down to the fourth
line and nearly onto the bench over the past several games, Manderville
put together a pretty good effort against the Big Green (one goal, one
assist) and seems to be on his way back to the form that won him ECAC
Rookie of the Year honors last season.
At 6:31 of the third period, Parris Duffus replaced D'Alessio between
the pipes for the Big Red. A little while later, Murphy made his worst
non-call of the night, as he watched Dartmouth's Scott Fraser butt-end
Derraugh right in the face (which usually earns a game disqualifi-
cation) and merely gave Fraser a warning. Proving perhaps that there
is no justice in the world, Fraser picked up the last goal of the game,
corralling a loose puck in the Cornell zone and beating Duffus with a
35-foot wrist shot. Other than that, Duffus played pretty well,
finishing with six saves; D'Alessio stopped 16 shots.
This week's games in the ECAC:
Jan. 29
Boston College at Cornell (NLG)
Lowell at Yale (NLG)
Feb. 1
Army at Harvard
Brown at Vermont
Clarkson at Cornell
Princeton at Dartmouth
St. Lawrence at Colgate
Yale at RPI
Feb. 2
Army at Dartmouth
Brown at RPI
Clarkson at Colgate
Princeton at Harvard
St. Lawrence at Cornell
Yale at Vermont
Although only Cornell and Clarkson have mathematically clinched spots in the
ECAC, the current top ten teams will probably end up going to the playoffs.
(Army and Dartmouth are both far enough back that they will not see post-
season action unless some teams completely collapse) Thus, the hunt will
begin for the coveted home-ice berths. The three biggest games of the week
are all taking place at Lynah Rink, which of course is great for me :-)
Games to watch:
Yale at RPI
These two teams are still in pretty good shape as far as home ice is
concerned (Yale is in fourth place, RPI in fifth), but they have been
hurting themselves with their play recently. RPI has lost four of
their last five ECAC games, while Yale has dropped their last three in
a row, including two to traveling partner Brown. The Elis will need to
turn it around quickly, as six of their last eight games are on the
road.
Boston College at Cornell
The most relieved team in the league has to be the Big Red, returning
to the friendly confines of Lynah Rink after an eight game road trip.
Their relief will be short-lived, however, as they start a five-game
home stand with one of the top teams in the East. Although BC owns a
5-1 record against ECAC competition this season, they are playing at
about a .500 clip on the road, while Cornell is undefeated at Lynah.
The Big Red has already shown that they can hold their own against the
best in the country (against Lake Superior in the SIT), and if they can
play up to their potential, the Eagles are going to have a lot of
trouble. However, Cornell has also put together a few pretty dismal
efforts this season (a loss to Princeton? Ouch!), and if they play
like THAT, well, BC will hardly break a sweat.
Clarkson at Cornell
St. Lawrence at Cornell
Did someone say "breather"? I didn't think so. These two games will
go a long way toward determining who is going to walk off with the ECAC
regular-season title and a probable (though not guaranteed) NCAA
tournament berth. When Clarkson and Cornell met in November at Walker,
both teams were undefeated and tied for first, and top-spot bragging
rights will once again be on the line Friday night. I belittled Clark-
son's Chris Rogles at the beginning of the season, but he has emerged
as one of the ECAC's top goaltenders. By the way, what happened to
Jason Currie? The last I heard, he was in coach Mike Morris' doghouse
for cutting classes.
Cornell will certainly be up for Clarkson (and vice versa); however,
the Big Red would be well advised not to have a letdown against St.
Lawrence. Despite some inconsistent play this season, the Saints have
remained in the thick of things, even getting a whiff of first place a
few weeks back. Their goalie, Les Kuntar, is another good one.
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86
LET'S GO RED!!
From the "I never thought of that" department:
"To open, use can opener"
-- Printed on the top of a can of Furmano's spaghetti sauce
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