AROUND THE ECAC: Eight Teams Battle for Four Spots in Lake Placid

It’s trophy season in college hockey land. The Minnesota bros are blow-drying their mullets, the Notre Dame gents are hitting the ice baths, and Seb Lloyd and the boys are signing three-year deals with Dunster House. It truly is a magical time.

Last weekend, the ECAC bid adieu to Princeton, Brown, Cornell, and Clarkson as Harvard, Dartmouth, Rensselaer, and Union moved on to face the conference’s top four seeds.

For the sixth-seeded Crimson (17-11-3, 11-8-3 ECAC), a sweep of the Bears marked an important change of pace. After the hottest start in the country propelled Harvard to No. 1 in the PairWise rankings in early January, the Crimson entered last week’s series without consecutive wins in 2015.  The squad led by coach Ted Donato ’91 now carries a three-game winning streak into Ingalls Rink with a chance to clinch a spot in the semifinals in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Although the wins came against the two teams at the bottom of the conference standings, Harvard displayed an electricity on the forecheck that has been fleeting this calendar year. While the Crimson’s top-line constants—juniors Jimmy Vesey and Kyle Criscuolo—turned in one of their best weekends of the season, perhaps the biggest spark came in the form of the team’s biggest unknown: fourth-year forward Colin Blackwell.

Coming back from an injury that left him in the stands for the better part of two seasons, Blackwell has been better than ever in his first three games on the Crimson’s second line.

His numbers—three goals and three drawn penalties last weekend—tell only part of the story; the five-foot-ten San Jose Sharks draft pick is simply the most fun player to watch on the Harvard roster. He brings a Vesey-level skill set yet chases pucks with an extra desperation, stick-handles with an extra flair, and finishes plays with an extra pop.

Between injury and eligibility concerns, nobody can say for sure how many shifts Blackwell has left in a Crimson sweater. Per Ivy League rules, the Class of 2015 recruit would have just one semester of eligibility left after this season unless he obtains a rare medical redshirt. For now, however, Harvard fans can appreciate No. 63 as he flies up the right wing with reckless abandon.

On to the picks:

COLGATE VS. DARTMOUTH

I’d like to take this opportunity to give a well-earned tip of the hat to @Dartmouth_MIH.

If you are not following the official Twitter account of the Dartmouth men’s ice hockey program, then you are missing out on some dank memes. The account delivers the unfiltered observations of Big Green sports information director Pat Salvas in the form of clips, gifs, and sass. Last weekend’s offerings included a scene from Old School (“We gotta keep our composure”), a gif of Guns N’ Roses lead guitarist Slash (Princeton called for slashing), and multiple tweets featuring the phrase “Sooooo.”

Dartmouth will need all the moral support that Salvas can muster in its road date with Colgate this weekend. The Raiders entered the year as the coaches’ and media’s choice to win the conference but struggled to adjust after injuries to key players. Nevertheless, championship expectations have returned to Hamilton in recent weeks with the resurgence of goaltender Charlie Finn, the return of forward Tylor “I’m Not Tyson” Spink, and a 4-0-1 stretch to close out the regular season.

My college hockey spirit animal Josh Seguin, who covers the ECAC for College Hockey News, told me that he thinks the winner of this series wins the tournament. I don’t know about that, but for now, I’m picking the preseason favorite in two close games.

Pick: Colgate in two

ST. LAWRENCE VS. RENSSELAER

According to a quote on its Wikipedia page, Appleton Arena is the most difficult arena in the ECAC to play in after Cornell’s Lynah Rink. I can’t personally attest to that, but I can say that the home of the St. Lawrence Saints (really, guys?) is by far the most difficult venue in which to write about a game.

Journalists must deftly scale a 12-foot ladder to reach the press box—which really is not much more than a rickety wooden box. Once aloft, the scribes must peer around huge ceiling beams in order to see both sides of the rink, taking care not to fall over the hand railing.

Despite its hazards, Appleton has a certain charm. The seats are wooden pew-like structures, and well-groomed co-eds in matching knit sweaters serve as ushers. The vendors hawk the Canadian fast food delicacy poutine, which I rudely discovered before Harvard’s 5-1 loss in North Country is not homophonous with the French slur for lady of the night.

Getting back to the hockey, all eyes will be on St. Lawrence goaltender Kyle Hayton as he makes his first career postseason start. The wiry six-foot, 160 lbs. rookie posted a gaudy .936 save percentage this year to lead the Saints to a surprise second-place conference finish. But Hayton dipped below the 90 percent save mark in consecutive games for the first time this season in losses at Union and Rensselaer in the final weekend of the regular season.

The crystal ball says Hayton and company get back on track in Appleton.

Pick: St. Lawrence in two

QUINNIPIAC VS. UNION

In perhaps the most compelling matchup of the weekend, the regular season conference champion Bobcats will host the defending national champions at Hamden’s famed TD Bank Sports Center, home of luxury boxes and cantankerous broadcasters.

The legend of fourth-year coach Rick Bennett grew last weekend as his 10th-seeded Dutchmen finished Cornell in Ithaca Mortal Kombat-style with a 7-0 thumping in the elimination game. Bennett is now a perfect 14-0 in ECAC tournament play and is squarely in the hunt for an unprecedented fourth straight conference championship in the Hockey East era.

Although his team this season has been less consistent than Sean Malone’s hair color, the Dutchmen have the winning pedigree to make it happen. Union’s top two lines, highlighted by senior Daniel Ciampini and sophomore Mike Vecchione, are among the fastest and highest-skilled combinations in the nation, and the Dutchmen received key contributions from depth players this weekend.

The Bobcats will have to exploit Union’s off-and-on defense in order to get to Lake Placid. Under the leadership of 21st-year coach Rand Pecknold and captain Matthew Peca, Quinnipiac captured exclusive rights to its second Cleary Cup in three seasons with a 5-2 triumph at Harvard on the penultimate night of the regular season. Yet the Bobcats’ overall body of work indicates a team that is highly beatable. Their two wins against Union this season came in tight, 4-3 affairs.

Expect Pecknold to take the “0” from Bennett, but not much more. I’m going with the trendy upset.

Pick: Union in three

YALE VS. HARVARD

Yale coach Keith Allain is the Bill Belichick of the ECAC. He sports a natural scowl, he’s terse with reporters, and you know that he’s smarter than you.

It’s no surprise, then, that Allain remarked during the height of Deflate-Gate that he’d “deflate a puck if [he] could.”

“You can’t argue with [Belichick’s] success,” the former goaltender added.

You can’t argue with Allain’s success against the Crimson, either. Since ending the Bulldogs’ season with an 8-2 rout in Game 3 of the 2012 ECAC Quarterfinals, Harvard has gone 0-9-1 against Allain’s troops. Donato has only coached his squad to one win at Ingalls against Yale—a 5-3 victory in Jan. 2005 in his rookie season—and has yet to beat Allain in the venue.

This season, only Vesey has beaten sophomore goaltender Alex Lyon over three H-Y contests. After an evenly-played Bulldog win at the Bright-Landry, the Crimson’s forecheck looked stilted in a 4-1 handling at Madison Square Garden and a 3-0 shutout at Ingalls.

As Vesey suggested in Saturday’s post-game presser, the visitors can win this weekend if they can find a way to “out-offense” their opponent. Outside the head-to-head matchups, Harvard has consistently displayed more offensive firepower than its New Haven counterpart, yet has struggled at times to field much of an attack beyond its first line.

Blackwell’s line adds a new wrinkle that the Bulldogs haven’t seen yet. At some point, the dam must break. I see the Crimson breaking through at least once this weekend, but I’m not going to bet against Allain at the Whale.

Pick: Yale in three

—Staff writer Michael D. Ledecky can be reached at michael.ledecky@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @mdledecky.