While the Engineers were busy sweeping the Dartmouth College Big Green out of the playoffs and into the off-season and facing off against Cornell University in the quarterfinals, games took place elsewhere in the ECAC to determine which other teams would move on in the post-season tournament.
Ivy League foes, the Brown University Bears and the Harvard University Crimson, faced off in one best-of-three matchup with a surprising result. Brown freshman goalie Mike Clemente shut out Harvard on back-to-back evenings, resulting in a series sweep for the Bears; Brown later rolled on to meet top-seeded Yale University in the quarterfinals of the tournament. The good fortune for the Brown Bears would not carry over to the following weekend, as they were over-matched by the ECAC regular-season champion Yale Bulldogs, who swept the Bears by tallies of 4-2 and 2-0. In this matchup, Yale senior goalie Alec Richards stepped up, stopping 45 shots on the weekend.
Colgate University, a team familiar with overtime games this season, was matched up against Quinnipiac College in a series that saw all three games go to sudden-death overtime. Though Colgate was able to force a third game in the series by winning the Saturday night game, Quinnipiac junior Brandon Wong proved to be deadly for Colgate’s post-season hopes, as he netted the overtime game-winners in both Friday and Sunday’s games.
By erasing Colgate from the playoff picture, Quinnipiac earned the right to face St. Lawrence University in the North Country in the quarterfinals. The bye week was not lost on St. Lawrence, though, as they eliminated Quinnipiac with a pair of 5-3 scores. St. Lawrence senior Brock McBride keyed the Saints’ offense in the series, contributing a total of 10 points on one goal and nine assists.
The final first-round matchup featured two of RPI’s most intense rivals: Union College and Clarkson University. Coming into the series, the Union men’s ice hockey program had never won an ECAC playoff series since their entrance into Division I. However, change was in the air for the Union Dutchmen, as they dropped the Clarkson Golden Knights in two contests.
Union’s reward for the sweep was a best-of-three series with the Princeton University Tigers. After losing a close 3-2 game to the Tigers on Friday, the Dutchmen bounced back on Saturday, dropping Princeton by a score of 5-2 to force a deciding game three on Sunday. In the rubber-match, Princeton started early and ended Union’s season by scoring three goals in the first 6:34 of the game, the last of which was a deflating short-handed goal by 2008 ECAC Player of the Year senior Lee Jubinville. Princeton junior Dan Bartlett added eight points on the weekend with four goals, including Sunday’s game winning tally.
Yale, St. Lawrence, Princeton, and Cornell move on to the ECAC semifinals and finals held at the Times Union Center in Albany this Friday and Saturday. The winner will advance to the NCAA Division I tournament the following weekend.
