Three years ago, Clarkson’s Chris Klack scored in overtime to win the ECAC Hockey championship at the 1980 Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid.
It’s been a long wait since then.
For the first time since 2019, ECAC Hockey is heading back to Lake Placid for the league’s championship weekend. The 2020 tournament was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while last year’s abbreviated league tournament was held at campus arenas.
Top seeds Quinnipiac and Clarkson swept their respective series, while No. 3 Harvard and No. 5 Colgate needed three games to reach the semifinals. The Crimson held off Rensselaer, while the Raiders knocked off travel partner and No. 4 Cornell. With the Big Red knocked out, that means that the last time all four of the top seeds made the conference semifinals was in 2012.
The league championship will continue to stay in Lake Placid, as ECAC Hockey and the New York State Olympic Regional Development announced a three-year agreement earlier this season to keep the tournament at Herb Brooks Arena.
The arena will look different than the last time it hosted the ECAC Hockey championship. Updates completed since then include new restrooms, a renovated concourse, and modernized media and concession areas.
But the most important update was to the rink itself, which now has a smaller NHL sized ice sheet as opposed to its larger Olympic configuration.
“I’m excited it’s going to regulation size sheet this year,” Clarkson coach Casey Jones said. “It wasn’t an advantage for anybody, but it was just the fact that no one had played on it all year. There’s no comparison in terms of the venue. You go through town and see all the jerseys walking up and down the street and in restaurants.”
The Golden Knights will play Harvard in the semifinals, while Quinnipiac faces off against Colgate.
Here is a closer look at those matchups:
No. 5 Colgate vs. No. 1 Quinnipiac
Season series: Quinnipiac 2-0
Start time: 4 p.m. EST
Quinnipiac goalie Yaniv Perets has been one of the best goalies in the country. But Colgate’s Mitch Benson has a stalwart for the Raiders after missing all of last season with a concussion.
“The work that he put in to get himself in this position is inspiring,” Colgate coach Don Vaughan said. “He’s earned everything that he’s gotten this year. I’ve never seen him play with this much confidence. He’s got a very calming effect; he doesn’t get fired up and he’s a very intelligent guy.”
Benson stopped 101 of 106 shots in the three-game series last weekend against Cornell, good for a .953 save percentage.
Colgate had consecutive championship appearances in 2014 and 2015. If the Raiders are going to break though this year, they’ll have to do it without leading scorer Colton Young, who missed the final game against the Big Red with an injury and is out for this weekend.
On Sunday, Matt Verboon replaced Young on the top line next to his brother Alex and Josh McKechney, but Vaughan said Colgate could use several players in that spot this weekend.
The Raiders will be facing a Quinnipiac team that has been one of the most dominant in the country this season. Outside of Perets in goal, the Bobcats have been led by an experienced group that includes five graduate transfers.
While the new transfer rules last offseason opened up more player movement, Quinnipiac has had at least one transfer player in all but one season starting with the 2012-13 Frozen Four team, when Bowling Green transfer Jordan Samuels-Thomas led the Bobcats in goals.
One of this year’s transfers who has had the biggest impact is forward Oliver Chau, who won a championship at Massachusetts last season and is currently second in points for the Bobcats.
“He’s one of the best 200-foot players I’ve ever had,” Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold said. “He’s a great teammate, a great leader. He’s a big reason why we’ve been as good as we are this year. He’s great in big games; anytime we’ve played a big game this, he’s been outstanding.”
Prediction: Quinnipiac wins
No. 3 Harvard vs. No. 2 Clarkson
Season series: Clarkson 2-0
Start time: 7:30 p.m. EST
This is the third straight season that these teams have met in the semifinals. The Golden Knights are 2-1 in those matchups, winning in 2019 and 2018. Harvard has made the semifinals in every full league season since 2015, making three league championships in that span and winning two (2015, 2017).
The Crimson have a young and talented forward group lead by ECAC Hockey rookie of the year Alex Laferriere and first-round NHL draft pick Matthew Coronato.
“His game has rounded out; he plays in a lot of situations,” Harvard coach Ted Donato said of Laferriere.
The Crimson will face one of the most balanced teams in ECAC Hockey this season in Clarkson. The Golden Knights were tested by some injuries early in the season but came together in the second half of the season. Clarkson only lost three times December and swept Union in the second round of the playoffs last weekend.
The Golden Knights have a number of options to shut down Harvard’s attack, including graduate student Zach Tsekos, who was named the league’s top defensive forward and a group of defensemen that has a good combination of size and skill.
“If you wanted to win on the big stage, you had to defend big forwards,” Jones said. ‘If you wanted to win on the big stage, I think a differentiating factor for teams is that big skill separates teams. You don’t want to be void of skill, but you want to have long athletic [defensemen] that can move and defend those big skill players if you want to win at the right time of year. It’s a skating game and transition game and I think we have a little complement of both.”
The Golden Knights split Ethan Haider and Jacob Mucitelli in goal throughout the second half of the season, but Jones said it will be Haider in net on Friday.
For Harvard, Mitchell Gibson has been solid in net all season and will lead a Crimson defense that has some size as well.
“You try to play to your strengths and we have good speed and good skill,” Donato said. “Looking at our defense, we actually have some big guys too. It’s a challenge, but I think we’ve got to play to our strengths.”
Prediction: Clarkson wins
