Details on last night's ECAC qualifying round games:
 
Colgate 5, Princeton 2
     In what should be their last home game of the season, the Red Raiders
     kept their hopes of defending their ECAC tournament title alive by
     defeating the Tigers, who were playing without top scorers Sean Murphy
     (out with a separated shoulder) and Rob LaFerriere (serving a disqual-
     ification).  Colgate's Jamie Cooke scored the only goal of the first
     period at the 9:26 mark, uncorking a blast from a few feet inside the
     blue line that beat Princeton goalie Mark Salsbury to the upper right
     corner of the net.  Craig Woodcroft gave the Red Raiders a 2-0
     advantage at 7:22 of the second, stuffing a point-blank shot past
     Salsbury.  Princeton struck back less than a minute later, as sloppy
     play by the Colgate defense left Andre Faust alone in front of the
     Colgate net, and he flipped a backhander past goaltender Greg Menges.
     Then, with 3:16 left in the second period, Princeton's Matt Zilinskas
     poked the puck home to tie the score.
 
     Woodcroft converted a power-play opportunity for the Red Raiders with
     13:03 left in the game to put Colgate up for good.  Taking a pass from
     behind the goal by Dale Band, he drew Salsbury over to the left side of
     the net, then slapped the puck past him into the open right side.  Less
     than three minutes later, Cooke made it 4-2 with his second score, and
     Band iced the game by scoring the final goal with 54 seconds left.
     Band, Cooke, and Woodcroft have been skating on the same line since
     February 2, and while the Red Raiders lost 4-3 to Clarkson that night,
     they have gone 6-0-1 since.
 
Yale 2, Brown 1
     Unfortunately, I don't have much on this one, but with the game tied at
     1-1, and Brown on the power play, Yale's Jeff Blaeser stole the puck at
     center ice and passed to Craig Ferguson, who scored a short-handed
     breakaway goal at 8:06 of the third.
 
Now that the pairings are set for the ECAC's quarterfinal round (two games
with no overtimes, plus a ten-minute "mini-game" if necessary), here's a
preview of this weekend's action:
 
Yale at Clarkson:
     SEASON SERIES:  Yale beat Clarkson at home, 7-4, and Clarkson beat Yale
     at home, 4-1.
     OUTLOOK:  First of all, a tip of the hat to the Elis, who for the
     second year in a row have won the qualifying game on the road.  Both
     times, they were mired in a long slump to end the season, but they were
     able to put it aside once the playoffs began.  Now, back to reality.  A
     trip to Clarkson is no picnic, especially this year; the Golden Knights
     have gone 10-0-1 at Walker Arena against ECAC competition and 14-0-1
     overall.  In addition, the Clarkson defense is considerably better than
     Yale's, and their offense is potent enough to make Eli goalie Ray Le-
     tourneau's life miserable.  Despite winding up as the top seed, the
     Knights aren't going into the playoffs on a particularly high note, as
     they stumbled through their last two games -- but they should have a
     rather easy time advancing.  Note to superstitious Clarkson fans:  the
     last ECAC team to go through the season undefeated at home was the
     1988-89 Harvard squad, which went 12-0 during the regular season and
     4-0 in the playoffs.  The Crimson won the NCAA championship that year.
     Something interesting to think about...
     PREDICTION:  Clarkson.
 
Colgate at Cornell:
     SEASON SERIES:  The teams tied at Cornell, 4-4, and Cornell won at
     Colgate, 3-2.  Colgate defeated Cornell in the consolation game of the
     Syracuse Invitational tournament, 4-3.
     OUTLOOK:  Perhaps it's because I'm still sulking over Cornell's lost
     weekend, but I see a real possibility for an upset here.  Colgate has
     shown themselves to be a very opportunistic team, and if the Big Red
     scrambles around against the Red Raiders the way they did in the RPI
     and Vermont games last weekend, they're going to find themselves in
     trouble quickly (the SIT game is proof of that).  Despite outshooting
     the opposition in most of its games, the Cornell offense has an
     annoying habit of looking for the pass too often, rather than the shot,
     and this could, and has, hurt them against Colgate.  On the other hand,
     Cornell is more talented this season than Colgate at virtually every
     position:  they are somewhat better on offense, significantly better on
     defense (especially if Dan Ratushny returns for the playoffs -- no word
     yet), and if Corrie D'Alessio reverts to his form of a few weeks ago,
     Cornell will have the better goaltender as well.  The Big Red also has
     a history under head coach Brian McCutcheon of rebounding from a disap-
     pointing last weekend of the regular season and pasting the opposition
     in the quarterfinals.  They've done exactly that to Clarkson and
     Harvard the last two years.
     PREDICTION:  Cornell, but if any of these series goes to the mini-game,
     it'll probably be this one.
 
Vermont at St. Lawrence:
     SEASON SERIES:  St. Lawrence beat Vermont at Vermont, 1-0.  Vermont
     beat St. Lawrence at St. Lawrence, 5-4.
     OUTLOOK:  A pretty tough call, actually.  Both the Saints and the Cata-
     mounts are capable of exploding, but they've both been a little incon-
     sistent all season.  Vermont, in particular, has shown the ability to
     play up to the level of the league's good teams (with upset victories
     over Cornell, Harvard, and St. Lawrence), and down to the level of the
     not-so-good ones (losses to Colgate and Brown, a pair of ties with
     Yale).  St. Lawrence is also guilty of the occasional lapse -- witness
     the tie with Army and the loss to Yale.  Vermont has been quite good on
     the road this season (11-5-1), while St. Lawrence has a comparable
     record at home (11-4).  This looks like a series that will probably be
     decided by goaltending, which should give the edge to the Saints.  Les
     Kuntar, as Mike Zak said, has been reasonably steady in goal all year;
     conversely, Vermont's Mike Millham has a history of running out of
     steam in pressure situations.
     PREDICTION:  St. Lawrence.
 
RPI at Harvard:
     SEASON SERIES:  RPI defeated Harvard at Harvard, 8-7 in overtime, and
     Harvard won at RPI, 6-3.
     OUTLOOK:  I might as well go out on a limb right now and say that if
     Harvard gets by RPI, they're my pick to take the championship.  The
     Crimson had the top offense in the ECAC during the regular season, and
     even though the bulk of the scoring was done by Peter Ciavaglia, Ted
     Donato, and Mike Vukonich (who combined for 72 of the team's total of
     133 goals, or 54%), Harvard is capable of putting a bunch of points on
     the board against anybody, including the other home-ice teams.  They
     should also get plenty of good goaltending, assuming head coach Ron
     Tomassoni abandons his goalie rotation and starts Allain Roy all the
     way through the playoffs, which he's likely to do.  Harvard would do
     well in the Gah-den -- the only problem is, they have to beat RPI to
     get there, and I doubt that they will.  The Engineers have a high-
     powered offense of their own, and in addition, their style of play is
     incredibly disruptive to a skate-and-pass team like Harvard.  RPI's
     goaltending is not the best, but the Engineers will probably frustrate
     Harvard's Big Three so much that it won't matter.
     PREDICTION:  RPI, and they'll probably set some kind of penalty record
     as well.
 
Gee -- if I'm right, the ECAC semifinals at Boston Garden will feature four
teams from Noo Yawk for the second year in a row, and only the second time
in tournament history.  Makes me wonder if the league will consider moving
the games to Madison Square Garden... :-)
 
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86
LET'S GO RED!!
 
"I want to know one thing about those wanted posters in the post office:  why
 didn't they hold onto the guy when they were taking his picture?"
-- Jerry Seinfeld