Last Modified: 2019 July 24
Joe Schlobotnik / joe@amurgsval.org
URL for this frameset: http://elynah.com/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?1998/ecac.980128.shtml
(scores are linked to box scores and recaps on US College Hockey Online, which is not affiliated with The Big Red What? or Joe Schlobotnik)
The ECAC's week began with one battle of travel partners and ended with another. On Monday in Hamilton, Cornell and Colgate played their third game in ten days, and as in the first two the score was tied 2-2 at the end of regulation. But this time it was the Big Red who broke the deadlock, with Ryan Moynihan lighting the lamp nearly four minutes into overtime to give Cornell the 3-2 victory, their first league points since their 4-0-1 start in November. Five days later Division I hockey returned to the North Country for the first time since the Ice Storm of '98 as Clarkson visited St. Lawrence. The old adversaries battled for 58 minutes before Erik Cole scored to give the Golden Knights the 1-0 win. Eric Heffler stopped 36 shots in a losing effort for the Saints, while Clarkson's Dan Murphy was named ECAC goaltender of the week for his 26-save shutout. It was Murphy's 81st victory, tying the ECAC career mark set by Vermont's Tim Thomas last year.
Brown opened the week's nonconference slate Tuesday with a 4-2 loss at Northeastern. Jeff Holowaty, who normally posts deceptively good numbers in goal, gave up three Husky goals on ten shots before being pulled early in the second.
Over the weekend, RPI and Cornell each split nonconference series in Michigan, the Engineers falling 3-2 to Ferris State and rebounding to edge Western Michigan 2-1, while the Big Red blanked WMU 2-0 before dropping a 5-3 decision to Ferris. Back East, the WCHA continued its dominance of the ECAC as first Vermont and then Dartmouth went down to the Denver Pioneers, 5-3 and 3-2, respectively. And finally, a couple of ECAC schools picked up wins against former ECAC member Army, with Union triumphing over the Cadets 6-3 and Yale trouncing them 5-1. The other scheduled nonconference game, Brown at New Hampshire, fell victim to a lack of power.
Despite only two conference games, we see some movement, as Clarkson overtake Colgate to move into second place, while Cornell climb all the way into fourth place in winning percentage. SLU, meanwhile, drop two places to tenth.
ECAC Ivy
W-L-T PF-PA Pct W-L-T PF-PA Pct
1 Yale 9-2-0 18-4 .818 3-2-0 6-4 .600
2 Clarkson 7-2-1 15-5 .750
3 Colgate 7-3-0 14-6 .700
4 Cornell 5-4-1 11-9 .550 4-1-0 8-2 .800
5 RPI 5-4-2 12-10 .545
6 Harvard 6-5-1 13-11 .542 3-2-1 7-5 .583
7 Princeton 4-4-3 11-11 .500 2-2-1 5-5 .500
8 Brown 4-7-1 9-15 .375 2-4-0 4-8 .333
9 Vermont 3-6-2 8-14 .364
10 St. Lawrence 3-6-1 7-13 .350
11 Dartmouth 3-7-1 7-15 .318 1-4-0 2-8 .200
12 Union 2-8-1 5-17 .227
Not much to write home about on the interconference front this year. Hockey East clinched the season series with the ECAC with Northeastern's victory over Brown, and the ECAC remained winless against the WCHA as Dartmouth suffered their first non-conference loss.
Hockey Major Minor non- Total
ECAC East CCHA WHCA Indy Indy DivI N/C
Brown 0-3 0-1 0-1 0-5
Clarkson 1-1 2-1-1 0-1 1-0 4-3-1
Colgate 0-0-1 3-1 1-1 0-1 1-0 1-0 6-3-1
Cornell 0-0-1 1-0 2-1 0-1 1-0 4-2-1
Dartmouth 1-0-2 1-0 0-1 1-0 3-1-2
Harvard 0-3-1 0-1 0-4-1
Princeton 3-0-1 1-0 2-0 6-0-1
RPI 1-0 1-2 1-2 2-0 1-0 6-4
SLU 0-2 0-3 0-2 1-0 1-7
Union 0-1 0-4 1-0 1-2-1 2-7-1
Vermont 2-4 1-2 0-1 3-7
Yale 2-1 0-1 3-0 5-2
ECAC HE CCHA WHCA Major Minor Non-I Total
Totals [1-1-2] 14-21-4 8-12-1 0-9 9-0 7-2-1 1-0 40-45-8
"Major Indy" refers to Division I Independents who are eligible for
the NCAA tournament, namely Air Force and Army. "Minor Indy" teams
are the remaining D1 independents, games against whom do not count
towards NCAA tournament selection criteria. All of the ECAC's "minor
indy" games this year are against the "emerging programs of Niagara,
Mankato State and Nebraska-Omaha.
After over six weeks in ninth place in the US College Hockey Online Poll, Yale drop a place to tenth. Colgate, Clarkson and Cornell were the other ECAC squads to receive votes in the poll. Colgate has the best Ratings Percentage Index of any ECAC team, while Yale is the top ECAC squad according to the pairwise rankings, based on the NCAA selection criteria:
Team RPI Rk PWR Rk Colgate .555 #9 14 #10 Yale .552 #10 17 #7 Cornell .523 #16 7 #16 Clarkson .520 #18 6 #17 Princeton .511 #23 4 #22 RPI .488 #26 1 #23 Harvard .481 #27 Vermont .426 #33 Dartmouth .424 #35 Brown .416 #36 St Lawrence .415 #37 Union .359 #40
If the season ended today, Colgate and Yale would be the only two ECAC schools to make the NCAAs, unless a different team won the conference tournament.
This weekend sees one full travel-partner series, as Cornell and Colgate entertain Clarkson and St. Lawrence. In addition, Saturday sees three games between travel partners, with league-leading Yale returning to ECAC action to host Princeton in an afternoon game, Dartmouth heading up I-89 to face Vermont, and RPI entertaining Union in the capital district.
Both interconference games this week feature some pomp and circumstance, as Dartmouth travel to Lowell Tuesday for the inauguration of the new Tsongas Rink and Brown visit Providence Saturday in the annual Mayor's Cup game.