Colgate Preparing For Dartmouth

By CRAIG MUDER
Sports Editor, Utica Observer-Dispatch

           HAMILTON — Don Vaughan’s Colgate University men’s hockey team didn’t get the home-ice advantage it was looking for in this weekend’s ECAC Playoffs.

But the Raiders did get an opponent — Dartmouth University — which on paper provides a favorable match up.

The Raiders travel to Hanover, N.H., this weekend for the best-of-3 first round series. Friday, Saturday’s and Sunday’s games all start at 7 p.m. at Thompson Arena.

“We played Dartmouth pretty hard here,” said Vaughan, whose team dropped decisions to Union and RPI last weekend to fall from the No. 5 ECAC playoff seed to No. 7.  “They’re an experienced team and they’re playing in their home rink. But we proved we can beat them, and I think we’ll be ready.”

The Raiders (13-17-2) have lost four of five after winning six of eight to pull back into the thick of the ECAC race. The start of their recent slide began in Hanover Feb. 16 when a Dartmouth (12-12-5) rally in the game’s final 100 seconds turned a 3-2 Colgate lead into a 4-3 Big Green win.

Colgate beat Dartmouth 3-2 in Hamilton Jan. 11.

“In this league from one night to the next is so close,” said Vaughan, whose team swept just three ECAC teams — Vermont, St. Lawrence and Brown — this season. “We had a chance to get home ice and it slipped away (a win against either Union or RPI would have earned the Raiders the No. 3 seed), but even the games we won when we were turning it around were close. It’s the bounce of the puck and a timely goal.”

Those bounces certainly haven’t been coming on the power play. Colgate has converted just 18 of 139 man-advantage situations this year (13 percent), compared to 29-of-135 (22 percent) for the Raiders’ opponents.

For a team that has won five of its last 10 games by a lone goal, it’s a distressing statistic.

“We’ve tried a lot of different things this year on the power play,” Vaughan said. “I think the guys know what’s going on with the power play and they’re trying to make the perfect play and squeezing the stick a little too tight.

“Our mindset now just has to be to throw it at the net. You score most of your goals on the power play simply because you have an extra guy out there and he bangs in a rebound.”

If the Raiders are to win two games in Hanover this weekend, some of those rebounds will have to find the back of the net.

 “We know we can win on the road,” said Vaughan, whose team is 4-9-1 on hostile ice this season. “And everyone has a chance this year, the way the league is going.”

GATE AT A GLANCE: Vaughan pulled goalie David Cann midway through last Friday’s 5-2 loss at Union, but Cann returned to start Saturday night’s game against RPI. Vaughan said Cann would start tonight against Dartmouth... freshman defenseman Richard Hodgkinson will not play the rest of the season and will be redshirted to preserve all four years of his eligibility. The 6-foot-4, 220-pound Hodgkinson hurt his groin in training camp and did not appear in a game this season... P.J. Yedon leads Colgate with 22 points this season (10 goals, 22 assists) while Rob Brown and Kyle Doyle had 21 points apiece (nine goals, 12 assists apiece)... tickets for this weekend’s games at Dartmouth cost $8 for adults, $4 for youth ages 14-and-under.