With only two games remaining in the ECAC regular season, only two things are certain: Cornell will be the top playoff seed, and Vermont is out of the picture.
The Big Red are nine points ahead of their closest rivals and have locked up this year’s William J. Cleary Trophy. The Catamounts have managed only seven points to date, and their season will end after this weekend’s matches against Clarkson and St. Lawrence.
Those games are extremely significant to the rest of the league though—the Golden Knights are in a three-way tie for second place but have a chance of losing home ice. The Saints are knotted with Yale for the last playoff spot.
Here’s the complete playoff picture:
Brown, Clarkson, Colgate, Dartmouth, and Harvard can all guarantee themselves home ice with two wins this weekend—Clarkson and Dartmouth play each other on Saturday night. Three points will be sufficient for Clarkson, Dartmouth, and Harvard unless the other four teams all perform extremely well.
RPI will need a bit of help to get a first-round home series. In addition to a pair of wins, the Engineers need Brown to lose one of their two games or for Clarkson, Dartmouth, or Harvard to have a zero- or one-point weekend. (Two points for any of these teams would throw things to tiebreakers—the Engineers come up short against the Big Green and the Crimson, but would have the advantage over the Golden Knights.)
If the Engineers manage only three points, then they would need any two of the teams ahead of them to get swept this weekend to pick up home ice.
At the lower end of the conference, Princeton, Union, St. Lawrence, and Yale are engaged in a battle for the remaining three playoff spots. The Tigers can ensure a playoff seat with three points, and a pair of wins by the Dutchmen and the Saints will put each of those teams in. The Bulldogs are worst off, as they lose tiebreakers against St. Lawrence. However, if Yale can tie either Union or Princeton, the Bulldogs would have the advantage.
