The First Round, March 3, 4, and hopefully that's all!

[Goldie Knight]

Saturday, February 25, 2006 3 PM

We are assured of having the Clarkson Golden Knights play at Cheel next weekend for the first round of the ECAC playoffs.

We will soon know later toknight just who our opponent will be. The following is a summary of Clarkson's record against the four teams which currently rank in 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th place in the standings.

QUINNIPIAC #9

November 19, 2005..Clarkson WON 4 ~ 3.......at Cheel Arena
February 3, 2006.....Clarkson LOST 6 ~1

PRINCETON #10

November 18, 2005..Clarkson WON 4 ~ 3..OT..at Cheel Arena
February 4, 2006.....Clarkson LOST 4 ~ 2

YALE #11

November 12, 2005..Clarkson WON 4 ~ 2
February 17, 2006....Clarkson WON 3 ~ 2......at Cheel Arena

BROWN #12

November 11, 2005..Clarkson LOST 4 ~ 3
February 18, 2006....Clarkson WON 8 ~ 2.....at Cheel Arena

The good news is that Clarkson has beaten all of its probable opponents at Cheel Arena this season.

As of right now before the games toknight, we are guaranteed a minimum of being in 8th place. The Golden Knights have 20 points. Both Union and RPI have 22 points and are tied for 6th and 7th places. I realize that we would lose a tie breaker to RPI because we tied them at Cheel and lost to them at RPI. Clarkson defeated Union 4 ~1 at Cheel and then lost to Union 5 ~ 0 in Schenectady....so I don't know how that would be calculated.

My guess is that we will play Quinnipiac next weekend, and thank goodness, we will play at home.:) ...something we have not done for two consecutive years for the first round of playoffs.

[daredevilcu]

Essentially, a best case scenario tonight is a Clarkson win, Union loss, Yale win, and a Princeton loss. That would result in the Knights hosting Yale in the first round, the only potential opponent that they swept this season. Clarkson takes the tiebreaker over Union due to a better record against the top 4.

[chuck]

I think we need a Union loss and an RPI win. If it's a 3 way tie the tiebreaker would favor Clarkson.

[Todd '86]

After such a promising start to the season, the slight improvement in standings is a real disappointment.

Tonight's scores:

CLARKSON 1 Harvard 2
cornell 2 Union 1 (FINAL)
Quinnipiac 3 Brown 5
Princeton 4 Yale 2
SLU @ Dartmouth (late start)
Colgate def. Rensselaer

[Todd '86]

I think the pairings for the first round are:

Princeton @ Clarkson
Quinnipiac @ Rensselaer
Yale @ Union
Brown @ SLU

[vicb]

I think the pairings for the first round are:

Princeton @ Clarkson
Quinnipiac @ Rensselaer
Yale @ Union
Brown @ SLU

You got it Todd. And I think this is probably the best opponent Clarkson could have gotten (other than Brown). Yes we lost to Princeton at Hobey Baker but I was there and the best team did not win that knight. We blew a ton of chances and quite frankly did not play well defensively and McNulty was not particularly sharp. I like Clarkson's chances with Leggio to survive Round 1 in a sweep with this team vs playing Quinny or Yale. Now we gotta hope we win and Quinny, Yale or Brown pulls an upset so we don't end up in Hanover in ROund 2. LGT.

[Stemmer]

From what I saw at Hobey Baker, my take is that we didn't work hard enough to take advantage of some of those opportunities at Princeton. Too often, our guys wanted to make pretty plays to set up or score goals rather than getting their noses dirty and working hard to win the battles for loose pucks and rebounds. That;s how you score "ugly" goals that win close games.

The team needs to show more grit against Princeton this weekend. And no soft goals allowed!

[Goldie Knight]

Saturday, March 4, 2006 10:35 AM

Congratulations to the Clarkson Golden Knights on their victory against Princeton and John Murphy last knight. They faced a tough senior Princeton goaltender, Eric Leroux, but Mike Sullivan was able to somehow find a way to beat him. Here is why we won the first game of this first-round of the playoffs.

Goal #1 Mike Sullivan with help from Nick Dodge and David Cayer.

Goal #2 Mike Sullivan with help from Tyrell Mason.

The excellent goaltending from David Leggio.

_________________________________________

I told Mike after the game that I although I don't own a hat, I was going to throw someone else's on the ice if he had earned a hat trick....he just smiled. Talk about stepping up your play.....Mike did that and just look at the results of his hard work. Does anyone remember when any Golden Knight last scored at hat trick?

It was awful to watch Captain Chris Brekelmans looking down on the game from the press box, especially knowing how much Chris wanted to be in the lineup. On the other hand, Matt Curley played a great defensive game replacing Chris. And it was good to see Mike Arciero and Jamie McKinven back with the defensive corps too.

Former Golden Knight Chris Line drove up for the game from Vermont, and he was good to talk with him again.

Although the win wasn't pretty, the Golden Knights are halfway towards their weekend goal of winning the first round of the playoffs. Evidently, we won't know until all of the first-round winners are determined just where we will go next weekend. A CU victory toknight assures us of going to any one of the following places: Colgate, Dartmouth, Harvard, or Cornell. How about those Quinnipiacs and those Bulldogs from Yale? Even Brown took SLU to a 25 second overtime last knight....the game was won by SLU, but it was not an easy victory, nor was Clarkson's.

SCORE EARLY, SCORE OFTEN, CLARKSON GOLDEN KNIGHTS.:)

[GoldenKnight08]

Does anyone remember when any Golden Knight last scored at hat trick?
Jay Latulippe in a game against Dartmouth last year.

[Goldie Knight]

Saturday, March 4, 2006 12:45 PM

Thanks, Golden Knight '08.

That reminded me of our most recent game against Dartmouth on February 24, 2006, in Hanover when Darmouth's David Jones scored a hat trick against US....and he only took three shots on goal that entire knight.:mad:

Maybe we will have a Golden Knight get a hat trick toknight against PU.:cool:

I would like to think that Clarkson Rules Princeton about 9:20 this evening.:)

[Stemmer]

What is the nature of Brekelman's injury? Is he expected to play Saturday night?

[Goldie Knight]

Hi Rich,

I don't think so, and I believe Chris suffered a knee injury at Harvard last weekend.:(

His presence was missed last knight....what a hard worker he is.

BEAT THE TIGERS.:)