Brown and Playoffs

Not much to say about the Brown game. It was a poorly-played event from both sides. We "put in the scrubs", so to speak. No Scali, no Barlow, still no 22 Devin. In was Kary, 7 Davenport moved to forward, in was Whitney. I'm sure our team assumed that Brown would be a pushover. I assume they were tired from playing hard against a much faster team the night before. I assume some combination of these 3 facts combined for our slow start, but I wasn't worried.

PLAYOFFS

The ECAC regular season has finally reached an end. Next week will see Yale, Cornell, Princeton, and St Lawrence resting, courtesy of their top-4 standings and the corresponding bye. The rest of the league will look like this (with my predictions)

(12) Brown at (5) Harvard. This matchup is a no-brainer. Brown has had only 3 wins on the entire year. Harvard has come up with upset wins over both us and Princeton at Lynah East. I would bet the house on a 2-game sweep.

(11) RPI at (6) Dartmouth. Also pretty obvious. Dartmouth spent most of the season in the top-4, and also managed to upset both us and Princeton at home. RPI is pretty hapless. Big Green in 2.

(10) Colgate at (7) Quinnipiac. This is where things begin to get interesting. Colgate this season has had some surprising wins against some talented teams, notably Mass-Lowell, Maine [to reach us in the finals of the Estero classic], and an overtime winner in the Whale today. Yet they haven't done so excellently otherwise. This matchup could go either way, but I'm going to call it for Q in 3 games.

(9) Clarkson at (8) Union. This series is full of intrigue. The two teams ended the regular season tied for points, with the tiebreaker decideing home ice for the playoff bouts. In fact, the two teams ended the season against each other, with Union pulling out a 2-1 win on home ice. Yet the Dutchmen still have never won a postseason game, and Clarkson has been improving since starting league play with 6 straight losses. I know its easy to call the 8-9 game an upset, but I'm going with the Golden Nights in 2.

ROUND 2

The league re-seeds teams after the first round, making it impossible to predict who we will play the following weekend. For example Yale will play the winner of the Clarkson/Union matchup...UNLESS Colgate beats Q. In that case, Colgate goes to New Haven, and we see the winner of CCT/UC. As my predictions have it, we will be seeing Quinnipiac in the 2nd round.

The only thing worth pointing out are the teams that it is impossible for us to see. We will not see Harvard or Dartmouth [if either or both of them win, they will play SLU and Princeton]. We cannot see Brown, and [assuming Brown loses], we will not see RPI. We can see Colgate, only if either Brown or RPI also wins

My prediction: 60% chance of seeing Quinnipiac here for round 2, and then 15% for each of Union/Clarkson.