A 2-2 tie

photo courtesy of Clarksonathletics.com

Clarkson rallied and came up with a late power-play goal to earn a 2-2 tie with Canisius on Saturday. The tie snapped a six-game losing streak just one game shy of tying the school record for a single-season losing streak (seven set in the 1943-44 season).

Here were my five things to watch for prior to the game:

Special teams - another win for Clarkson in this category as the power-play continues to show signs of coming around. Clarkson tied the game with a power-play goal from Lauri Tuohimaa and went 1-for-3 while killing two penalties and allowing Canisius only one power-play shot.

Defense - again, more improvement as Clarkson held the Golden Griffins to just 17 shots for the game and only five combined shots in the second and third periods.

Offense - this is still a concern as Clarkson continues to struggle to score goals. Shea Guthrie did get his first goal of the season and it wouldn't surprise me if that leads to more goals this weekend for him. Clarkson did have chances, taking 36 shots, and hit a few posts.

LaVeau - Freshman Richie LaVeau earned his first playing time and played well, stopping 15 of 17 shots. He stopped one breakaway.

Get a lead - again Clarkson struggled in this category. The team has not led after two periods since the season-opener against RIT and it seems like forever since the last time Clarkson scored the first goal of a game. I believe it was in the loss at Dartmouth a few weeks ago.

BONUS COMMENTS
Canisius coach Dave Smith on whether this series will continue. He said Clarkson is not going there next year but will play at Canisius two years from now and added, "We'd really like to play a lot of the New York state schools. It's good for us. We want to play schools like Clarkson, St. Lawrence and Colgate, all those."

13.8 seconds away

It was another tough night for the Clarkson hockey team Friday. This time the end of a five-game losing streak was just 13.8 seconds away before Canisius rallied for an extra-attacker goal and then won the game 4-3 with a goal in overtime.
Clarkson also added to its injury list as Brandon DeFazio suffered a separated shoulder during the game. It's not known how long he'll be out.

Here were my five points prior to the game and how Clarkson did:

Special teams - For the first time in quite a while Clarkson actually won this category. The Golden Knights went 2-for-4 on the power play against a Canisius team that recently set a school record with 38 straight kills. Clarkson also killed 7 of 8 penalties, including a five-minute major to Chris D'Alvise in the second period.

Improve the defense - again, despite the four goals, Clarkson did a good job at this end of the ice, allowing the Golden Griffins only 24 shots. In the first two periods Canisius had only three shots near the net, but in the third they picked up five, including the game-tying goal.

Work ethic - this was off and on. The team was definitely not outplayed, but there were visible spurts where you could see more effort than at other points. What comes to mind is after Clarkson got the 3-2 lead in the third and was rallying, you could see some extra speed in the skates as they tried to get that fourth goal.

Offense - this remains a concern, despite three goals. Bryan Rufenach had a solid offensive day, scoring a power-play goal and picking up an assist and Matt Beca appears ready to return to form, scoring the game-tying goal in the third. How DeFazio's injury affects what had been Clarkson's best line (Scott Freeman, DeFazio and Lauri Tuohimaa) remains to be seen.

Build a lead - again, Clarkson did play from behind for most of this contest. The team has led after the first period just twice all year and has not lead a game after two periods since the season-opener against RIT.

Clarkson Notes

Our paper does not publish on Thursday, Thanksgiving, so we will have no Clarkson notes this week.

I have a few items I'll post here, instead.

*CONSIDER 1999*
After two straight NCAA Tournament appearances it might be natural for Clarkson fans to panic a bit, seeing the team with a 2-6-2 overall record 10 games into a season.
While it is likely that repeating as ECAC Hockey regular-season champions is unlikely, given that five of the losses are in conference play, Clarkson has set a precedent in the past of showing you can overcome a bad start to have a pretty good year.
Consider the 1998-99 squad. That team, too, was coming off two very successful years. The 1997 team was No. 2 in the nation at the end of the regular season and the program had played in back-to-back ECAC title games, although it lost both.
But the 1999 squad, led by sophomores Erik Cole, Willie Mitchell and Kent Huskins, got off to a horrible start. The team lost its first four games (two at home to Northern Michigan and two at North Dakota). It beat Yale in the conference opener, then dropped two more games, losing at home to Princeton then losing 3-1 at St. Lawrence.
So where did that team go after its 1-6 start? Clarkson finished with a 25-11-1 overall record, an ECAC regular season and tournament championship and a spot in the NCAA quarterfinals, where it lost to eventual national champion Maine.
*RANDOM NOTES ABOUT THIS WEEKEND*
-Phil Paquet, who has been injured since the Nov. 24 game against Colorado College, was supposed to begin skating this week but I'd imagine he wouldn't be used for at least one more week.
-Clarkson has an 8-0 record at Cheel Arena against Atlantic Hockey Foes.
-Canisius is a Catholic school in Buffalo. The Golden Griffins are 5-5-2 and are tied for second in Atlantic Hockey with a 4-3-1 record. The only common foe the teams have had is Niagara, which defeated both.
-Clarkson is just 1-3-2 at Cheel Arena so far this season.
-Clarkson has not had a lead at the end of the first period yet this season.
-Coach George Roll could win his 100th game at Clarkson with a weekend sweep.
-These will be the last games at Cheel Arena for Clarkson until the ESPNU game against St. Lawrence University on Jan. 11.

Pro Hockey Notes

Feature on Mike Sullivan, playing his first year in Germany

Princeton Loss

Sorry for delay in getting this up, just about now getting over a really nasty flu bug that kind of wiped me out.

Princeton picked up just its third overall win at Cheel Arena with an impressive 4-2 outing Saturday.

Here were the 5 key points prior to the game:

Special teams: Clarkson only had two power-play opportunities and was scoreless on both. Princeton had six power-play chances, scoring one with an empty-net goal in the final minute.

Good first period: Clarkson had been outscored 12-7 in first periods this year and fell in another hole when Princeton's Mark Magnowski scored 6:28 into the contest. Worse, the Golden Knights were outshot 19-4 in the opening 20 minutes.

Improve defense - this didn't happen as the Tigers sent 47 shots on Paul Karpowich.

Reclaim home ice - enough said.

Get Guthrie going - only one shot, but still feel like he's due for a breakout game.

Brandon DeFazio on this coming weekend's series vs. Canisius, "We're definitely not going to take them lightly. We are looking for wins, no matter who it is."

Home/Road Index

*updated through this weekend.. Two points for road win, one point for road tie, no points for home win or road loss, -1 point for home tie, -2 points for home loss... teams will finish with exactly 22 more points than they have in this stat at end of year*

Princeton 8
Dartmouth 6
Cornell 4
Quinnipiac 3
Yale 2
Harvard 2
Brown 0
Colgate -2
St. Lawrence -5
Clarkson -6
Union -6
Rensselaer -6

Quinnipiac 4, Clarkson 2

Story of Friday's 4-2 loss to Quinnipiac.

Here were the 5 key points
*Build a lead - once again, Clarkson played from behind. The only time Clarkson has led all year after two periods was the season opener.

*Special teams - modest improvement. Clarkson scored a shorthanded goal and went 1 for 4 on the power play, but failed to convert on a five-minute major when it was 3-0 in the second period, including two minutes of a two-man advantage.

*Improved defense - Clarkson gave up 31 shots and two turnovers led to the first two Bobcat goals.

*Guthrie - picked up his first point of the year with an assist. Have a feeling this guy is due for a breakout game soon.

*Bud Fisher - avenged his horrible outing at Cheel last year, when he gave up 4 goals on 10 shots in the first period by stopping 22 of 24 shots Friday

TV weekend games

FRIDAY
7:30 p.m. Michigan at Miami (Ohio), NHL Network
9:30 p.m. Minnesota at Denver, Fox Sports Pacific

SATURDAY
9 p.m. Minnesota at Denver, Fox Sports Atlantic

SUNDAY
4 p.m. Binghamton Senators (Weller) at Syracuse Crunch (Clitsome), Time Warner Sports

Clarkson Notes

This week's Clarkson notes:

Here's one bonus item (statistical)..

I was curious what Clarkson's 1-3 start might mean to its chances of repeating as ECAC Hockey regular-season champion. Clarkson would need to go 14-1-3 the rest of the year to match last year's 15-4-3 record which won the title.

Looking over the last 10 ECAC Hockey champions, I discovered the average point total needed to win the league was 34 points. For Clarkson to achieve that they'd have to go 16-2 the rest of the way.

The last two years 33 points has been enough to win the league title. Two times, in 2005-06 and 2003-04, it only took 30 points to win the league. Clarkson would have to go 14-4 the rest of the way to finish with 30 points.

The big question for Clarkson will be if the league has a dominant team that blows away the competition this year. Four times in the last decade a conference team has finished with 36 points or more, led by Cornell's 39 (19-2-1) in 2002-03. If 36 points is needed to win the title, Clarkson has to go 17-1. The most points Clarkson can earn if it goes undefeated is 38.

Here's the conference records of the last 10 champions
2008 - Clarkson 15-4-3 33
2007 - St. Lawrence 16-5-1 33
2006 - Dartmouth/Colgate 14-6-2 30
2005 - Cornell 18-2-2 38
2004 - Colgate 14-6-2 30
2003 - Cornell 19-2-1 39
2002 - Cornell 17-3-2 36
2001 Clarkson 15-5-2 32
*2000 St. Lawrence 16-3-1 33
1999 Clarkson 18-4 36

*there were two less games played in 2000 because Vermont stopped play early in the season after a hazing scandal*

One stat that caught my attention, besides the point totals, was despite all the turmoil Clarkson has been through in the last decade, including a complete rebuilding of the program, it still is tied with Cornell for the most regular-season titles in the last decade, with three.

Updated Home/Road Index

*see earlier posts for breakdown of this alternate view of conference standings*


Cornell 4
Dartmouth 4
Princeton 4
Yale 2
Brown 1
Colgate 1
Harvard 0
Quinnipiac -1
St. Lawrence -1
Clarkson -2
Union -6
RPI -6