A few comments:
Mike pretty much told the story at Harvard. We certainly had our chances and the Harvard goalie stood on his head at times and was just lucky the others. He did give up some juicy rebounds and then made the stops on the second, third and fourth shots. I have to say, although he was clearly the #1 star of the game, with rebounds like that and some more puck luck I could see him getting shelled some nights. Obviously, Friday night that did not happen. It was just one of those games really. We did not have the jump I expected we would and it was not our best effort, but we still had more than enough good chances to put the game away early. Harvard's goals - 1) weak shot from the point that changed directions about 3-4 times, 2) a bit lucky in that shot was deflected and ended up by the side of the net where a Harvard player was standing all alone he picked it up and stuffed it home, 3) beautiful wrister on a bad SLU turnover and then an empty netter. Harvard is decent but beatable. I am stunned that H and Q-Pac got byes. I have a feeling this will be the year where the bye doesn't guarantee anything.
The Dartmouth game was pretty even. SLU's first goal was a beauty, good head man pass from Martin to Carey, who hit the line at high speed, Carey sent the puck all the way across the ice to Flanagan who one-timed it five hole. Second one was a drop pass from Essery to George Hughes who put it in off the post. Third was as pretty of an empty netter as you will ever see - we iced the puck and Chris Martin took off like a rocket (he was probably 10 feet behind the guy at the blue line and beat him to the puck to negate icing and he tapped it in the corner over to Gunnar Hughes who brought it out front and slammed it in. Extremely even game. SLU had the edge in play in the first. Dartmouth had the edge in play for the first half of the second and then it was even the rest of the time. Only one minor penalty called in the game. It was a week tripping call on Carey who actually made a nice check, and there were two pretty blatant interference penalties on Dartmouth where Essery got pulled down at center ice and where Carey got picked hard on the forecheck late in the 2nd, but by ECAC standards that was about the best officiating I have seen in the ECAC in a while. At Harvard it was so bad it was comical - both ways. At least they made the right call on the major to Harvard to start the game as the guy went for Gunnar H's head plain and simple. So some ECAC refs know that rule, just not the refs we had the weekend before.
Some standouts from the Dartmouth game - Wenny made some great saves, Mobley had the jets on, Gunnar Hughes was outstanding, Martin continues to impress me, Doherty had a great game but I thought was forcing it a bit at times in front of his hometown crowd, Essery is so steady and makes such key plays at both ends of the ice and Flanny is just Flanny who can dangle with the best of them and on D I thought Baker, Austin and Hughes had good nights. Austin absolutely demolished a kid with a hip check in the first. Very clean game, very little BS, Kudos to Dartmouth for playing hard and with class and going an entire game without a penalty called.
Some comments on how the league ended up:
For us, 8th is disappointing but we were so close to 3rd, given some of our struggles at times in the season, that is a good finish. If that Cornell game had gone the way that it should have (I now know the disallowed goal was pure horse****), we would have been playing for a bye on Saturday.
For Union, congratulations!
For Cornell, Saturday night proves karma is a *****.
For Q-Pac, I will wonder for a while how that team got the bye. They are not as talented as some teams below them but luck was on their side (and RPI).
For Harvard, ditto from Q-Pac but they did outplay us on Friday and they beat Clarkson when they had to.
Colgate has not picked a good time to hit a wall. Falling from controlling their own destiny to get third to fifth and losing four in a row is not the way any team wants to go into the playoffs.
Clarkson - who knows what happened there. Did not expect them to get swept this weekend after three points the weekend before. Now they face a desperate RPI that has gone on a tear. That could be interesting.
Yale - These guys are playing better lately. But I hope Princeton finds a way to win.
Dartmouth - I think these guys are better than 9th and they play us very tough. They prove parity is alive and well.
RPI - may be the hottest team in the league at the moment and are playing with desperation. Good luck to them.
Princeton - I hope they win, but need to pick it up a notch.
Brown - I am glad we will not be playing them any time soon...they gave Colgate all they could handle at Starr, wouldn't be surprised to see them do it again.
Parity is alive and well. There is very little separating any team from another on any given night. The playoffs makes me miss the old days were you could take certain nights off and still expect to win. Now it just comes down to who wants it more, who wins the little battles, who has more jump and sometimes gets a lucky break.
The only good news is we got home ice and we earned it with a good, tight win at Dartmouth. Need two more games in a row just like last night.
