For the second straight year, the ECAC's four home-ice teams advanced to the
semis, although there was some cause for concern Saturday night at Harvard,
Clarkson, and especially St. Lawrence, where a mini-game was required to
decide a series for the first time since 1988. Like I predicted, the series
between Cornell and Colgate was a blowout all the way for the Big Red. (I
know what you READ, but what I MEANT was...) The 18 goals that Cornell
scored on the weekend was the highest total in back-to-back ECAC playoff
games since RPI's quarterfinal sweep of Princeton (7-2, 11-4) in 1985.
Both Clarkson and Cornell are advancing to the ECAC semifinal round for the
20th time, continuing their tie for the league lead in that department.
ECAC quarterfinal results:
Friday, 3/1:
CLARKSON 4, Yale 0
CORNELL 10, Colgate 3
HARVARD 7, Rpi 3
ST. LAWRENCE 8, Vermont 2
Saturday, 3/2:
CLARKSON 6, Yale 3
(Clarkson wins series, 2-0)
CORNELL 8, Colgate 1
(Cornell wins series, 2-0)
HARVARD 3, Rpi 3
(Harvard wins series, 1-0-1)
Vermont 3, ST. LAWRENCE 1
ST. LAWRENCE 1, Vermont 0 (mini-game)
(St. Lawrence wins series, 2-1)
Notes on the quarterfinals:
St. Lawrence 1, Vermont 0
In the ten-minute mini-game that ended this series, the Saints' Andy
Pritchard made a couple of great plays to keep the puck in the Vermont
end early, and at the 1:10 mark, Mike Lappin stuffed home the rebound
of a Pritchard shot. St. Lawrence goalie Les Kuntar made the lead
stand up with several outstanding saves over the rest of the game,
including four (two without his stick) during a furious Vermont flurry
with three minutes left.
Cornell 10, Colgate 3
Remember the Cornell team that was picked number two in the country by
_The Hockey News_ in the preseason, that beat Northeastern 8-3 and
Brown 7-1, and that held on to first place in the ECAC for a month and
a half? Remember the Colgate team that lost nine players from last
year's NCAA runner-up team and stumbled to a 2-6-2 record in their
first ten league games? Well, both of those teams showed up Friday
night at Lynah Rink, and the result was not pretty, especially for
Colgate fans. It's a little unusual for a team to have its biggest
offensive explosion of the year in the playoffs, but the ten goals were
the most for the Big Red since February of 1989. The scoring was well
spread out, too; of the eighteen Cornell skaters who played in the
game, only defensemen Paul Dukovac and Etienne Belzile failed to pick
up at least one point.
The Big Red came out moving well and forechecking aggressively in the
first period, but the Lynah Faithful, having endured season-ending
disasters against RPI and Vermont, were saying, "Oh no, not again" when
Colgate's Craig Woodcroft put the Red Raiders on the board first at the
7:40 mark. Dale Band fired a pass across the front of the net to Wood-
croft in the right circle, and Woodcroft's slap shot beat Cornell goal-
tender Jim Crozier high on the glove side. The fact that Crozier was
in goal Friday night was a bit of a surprise, given that Corrie
D'Alessio had been the Big Red's starter for 13 of the team's last 15
games, but D'Alessio had slumped badly against RPI and to a lesser
extent against Vermont, and McCutcheon probably needed to make the
change to, at the very least, shake the team out of its season-ending
funk. (McCutcheon was later quoted as saying, "After the last weekend
of the regular season, things didn't go all that well. Thus, the
switch.")
Cornell proceeded to puncture the Red Raiders' balloon by scoring the
game's next ten goals, starting with Ryan Hughes' tally at 9:52 of the
first. Showing the play that would haunt Colgate for the entire night,
Doug Derraugh set up behind the net, then passed to Hughes who was
standing completely unmolested in the slot. Just over three minutes
later, Crozier stopped a breakaway attempt by Band, and the Big Red
worked the puck up the ice, where Hughes fired a pass from the left
boards that Derraugh (alone in front) deflected over Colgate goalie
Greg Menges at the 13:51 mark. Less than three minutes after that,
Cornell was up 3-1, as Derraugh again set up behind the net, this time
passing in front to Trent Andison, who poked the puck under Menges.
Immediately after this goal, Menges, who seemed to be having a groin
problem of some kind, was replaced by Shawn Murray; however, thirty
seconds later, Menges was back in. The rest didn't help, as Andison
got his second goal of the night with 1:10 left in the first period,
skating past Colgate's Alphonse-Gaston defense ("After you" "No, after
you"), deking Menges, and firing a high shot just inside the crossbar.
Murray replaced Menges for good at the beginning of the second period,
but that frankly didn't slow Cornell down at all. Karl Williams, in
his first game back from an injury, gave the Big Red a 5-1 lead at 4:21
of the second. Andison fed him from the left side of the net (Williams
was alone in front -- do you see the pattern developing here?), and
Williams poked the puck past Murray. Thirty-one seconds later, the red
light was on again, thanks to an outstanding effort by Geoff Bumstead.
Coming into the Colgate zone, Bumstead poked the puck through a de-
fender's legs, skated around him, retrieved the puck, and passed to a
streaking Shaun Hannah, who shovelled it behind a surprised Murray.
The Colgate defense was desperate by this time, and they began to take
a few cheap shots in an attempt to keep the Cornell players away from
the net. Referee John Gallagher, who was calling a pretty loose game,
seemed content to let things go, which I guess was all right, since the
action never really got out of control. He did hit the Red Raiders
with a couple of penalties later in the period, which set up a 5-on-3
power play for the Big Red, and they weren't long in taking advantage
of it. Dan Ratushny, seeing his first action in four games, passed to
fellow blueliner Tim Vanini, who sent a soft, rolling shot that wound
up going through Murray's legs at the 14:02 mark. Just over a minute
later, with Cornell still on the power play, Joe Dragon tallied to give
the Big Red an 8-1 lead. Hannah then fired a slap shot past Murray
from the left faceoff dot with 3:08 left in the second, and at this
point, the fans started jingling their keys (time to start the bus).
This is apparently a new tradition at Lynah, and it seems to have
gotten its start from the game at Brown, where the Bruin fans were
doing that to US. (Hey, it wasn't copyrighted, so it's not plagiarism)
Of course, there was still another period left, and not too much
happened in it. Stephane Gauvin scored Cornell's tenth goal at 2:56 of
the third, when he found himself all alone in front (surprise!) and
flipped the puck over a prone Murray. Less than thirty seconds later,
Jason Greyerbiehl cut the lead to (ahem) eight with a blast that beat
Crozier between the pads. The keys were still jingling, though. At
7:27 of the third, apparently satisfied that Crozier had had enough
work for the night, McCutcheon replaced him with D'Alessio. Colgate
had one more salvo left, as Marc Dupere notched a power play goal with
a hard shot from the blue line at 10:10 of the third. Cornell pretty
much coasted for the rest of the game, while Colgate continued its
inconsistent play and never really threatened to score again.
Surprisingly enough, the Red Raiders wound up outshooting the Big Red
in the game by a 27-25 margin. Crozier was brilliant between the pipes
for Cornell, stopping 20 shots, while D'Alessio mopped up with four
saves. At the other end, Menges made three saves before giving way to
Murray, who finished with 12.
Cornell 8, Colgate 1
Cornell didn't fool around in this one, as the fans brought their keys
out with less than four minutes gone in the first and the Big Red
holding a 3-0 lead. Cornell got things going right from the opening
faceoff, winning the draw into their own zone, where Dan Ratushny
slipped to the ice but was still able to poke the puck to Doug Derraugh
at the blue line. Derraugh found a wide-open Trent Andison at the Col-
gate blue line, and Andison streaked toward the net on a breakaway,
deking Red Raider goalie Greg Menges and sliding the puck under him
just 18 seconds into the game. Less than a minute later, Bruce Frauley
blasted a shot past Menges from the right point, and then at 3:47 of
the first, Andison, alone near the crease, flipped home Derraugh's
centering pass. Jingle, jingle.
Andison completed his hat trick with a power-play tally at the 16:29
mark of the first, with a high, tough angle shot off a Derraugh re-
bound. Colgate protested this goal for some reason, and in general,
the Red Raiders were not very happy with the officiating by John Gali-
peau. I don't know why, since he called a considerably better game
than he usually does. Anyway, Colgate finally got on the board at 1:55
of the second, as Craig Woodcroft broke in between the defensemen on
the right side and beat goalie Jim Crozier from in close. A couple
minutes later, Menges made a great leg save on a breakaway attempt by
Jim McPhee. By this point, however, the game had started getting
rough, and at 4:05 of the second period, Colgate's Scott Gordon blind-
sided Crozier behind the net, earning himself a major for charging.
The Cornell power-play unit was a little sloppy, but they managed to
pick up a goal at the 6:42 mark. Ratushny took a long shot from the
Colgate blue line, and Derraugh picked up the rebound and slid it under
Menges' leg. Later in the period, Galipeau waved off a couple of
goals, first a Cornell one when the net came off before the shot, and
then one for Colgate, ruling that the puck was kicked in. As you can
guess, the Red Raiders were pretty frustrated by this time.
Derraugh put the Big Red up 6-1 with 3:28 left in the second, as he
corralled a clearing pass that had bounced off a Colgate player and
took a soft, wobbly shot that eluded Menges. Kent Manderville and
Jason Vogel combined to score 1:13 into the final period, as Vogel
passed from behind the net to Manderville, who was skating across the
goalmouth. Colgate had a couple of opportunities to set up breakaways
later in the period, but they were unable to take advantage of them.
The Big Red's final goal came with 2:24 left in the game, as Geoff
Bumstead deflected Paul Dukovac's soft shot over Menges' shoulder. The
goal was the first of Bumstead's Cornell career.
With 35 seconds left, and with the Lynah Faithful having called for
third-string goalie Parris Duffus for most of the third period, Mc-
Cutcheon sent him in for Crozier. Duffus stopped a Red Raider shot a
few seconds later, and while he was not officially credited with a
save, he received a standing ovation. Crozier finished the game with
20 saves, while Menges recorded 29. Andison's five goals and three
assists in the series earned him ECAC Player of the Week honors.
As part of the Hockeyfest '91 festivities, the ECAC semifinal round games
will take place on Saturday, March 9, with the championship on Sunday after
the Hockey East final game. Previews of the weekend's games:
St. Lawrence vs. Cornell:
SEASON SERIES: Cornell won both games, 7-4 at St. Lawrence and 3-1 at
home.
OUTLOOK: First, a flashback to last season's quarterfinal series
between Cornell and Harvard. After Cornell beat the Crimson, the
players and fans had a wild celebration on the ice -- but the season
wasn't over, and the Big Red went on to lose its semifinal game to RPI.
Now, a look at what happened after this season's big quarterfinal
victory: there was a short celebration at center ice, some of the
players skated around briefly to acknowledge the screaming fans, and
that was it. An emotional team, the Big Red has been known to get
complacent after big wins, and the players seemed determined to avoid
the kind of letdown they suffered last year against the Engineers. If
Cornell does play well, they ought to be able to handle the Saints, who
struggled against Vermont in the quarterfinals after a big Friday night
victory and who have had trouble against solid defensive teams. St.
Lawrence has had a good run recently at Boston Garden, though: the
last three times they advanced to the ECAC semis, they wound up playing
for the championship, winning it twice (1988 and 1989).
PREDICTION: Cornell.
Harvard vs. Clarkson:
SEASON SERIES: Clarkson defeated Harvard at home, 7-5. Harvard beat
Clarkson at home, 5-3.
OUTLOOK: Clarkson fans have every reason to feel proud of their team's
16-0-1 record at home this year, but the flip side of that statistic is
that the Golden Knights are only a .500 team (7-7-1) away from Walker
Arena. Included in this is a pretty dismal showing at Harvard and
Dartmouth in the last weekend of the regular season (though the one
point they got was good enough to take first place). In addition,
despite boasting a solid and physical defense, Clarkson allowed the
fast-skating Crimson to score five goals in both their games this
season. Harvard's strength is obviously its offense (led by Peter
Ciavaglia, Ted Donato, and Mike Vukonich, all of whom scored 50 or more
points in ECAC games), but they also have goalie Allain Roy, who was
just .01 behind Clarkson's ECAC-leading Chris Rogles in goals-against
average (2.99 to 2.98) and who had a slightly better save percentage
(.898 to .895). Against RPI, the Crimson showed that they could beat a
physical team, and the combination of offensive firepower and good
goaltending may be a little too much for the Golden Knights to handle.
PREDICTION: Harvard, in a close one.
This would set up a match between arch-rivals Cornell and Harvard for the
championship, the first all-Ivy final since 1980. While I feel a lot better
about the Big Red's chances for a title than I did a week ago, things almost
always seem to go awry for Cornell when these two meet. Again I have to
point to the Crimson offense, which has been causing trouble for the Big Red
for years, and to likely starter Allain Roy, who has lost to Cornell only
once in seven games. Also, the Cornell players always seem to get more
caught up in the hype for games between these two than the Harvard players
do. My ECAC championship pick, for what it's worth (not much, considering
my prognosticating record), is Harvard.
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86
LET'S GO RED!!
"My brother was on Wheel of Fortune once -- and he embarrassed the SH** outta
us, man: 'Yeah, Pat, I'd like to buy a vowel... lemme have a K.'"
-- Paul Rodriguez
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