ECAC Power Rankings (November)

Time for the first installment of our usually thrice annual ECAC power rankings. We don't publish after October, because the Ivies don't have enough games to fully evaluate, and we don't publish after February, because the league standings are ranking enough at that point.

Generally speaking, these power rankings are a reflection on each team's entire body of work, not just their activity in league play, but there is a premium placed on performance in league games. It's not perfect, but it's at least a generally agreeable method for sussing out who's hard and who's soft when it comes to the ECAC.

Enjoy.

1. Harvard - It's been said for quite some time that Harvard has a talented team, and they're finally starting to prove it. The way they've opened their season, they're not just the best team in the league so far, they're one of the very best teams in the country (and the country should be used to the top ECAC team having that role by now). 6th in the nation in both offense and defense, 2nd in power play and 4th in penalty kill, there's just not too many places where the Crimson are failing right now. Finally, they're living up to the promise of their talent because they're playing like a team.

2. Yale - This may end up being a team that lives and dies with its defense, but if so, they're off to a solid start. The "three-goal" rule has applied very strictly to the Bulldogs. They're undefeated when they give up two or fewer goals, they've yet to nab even a draw when they allow three or more. The offense isn't going to remind anyone of the national championship run, not yet, anyway. That makes this a different Yale team. In the recent past, they've needed to get just enough out of their defense to get by. That's been turned on its head lately. Will it last? We'll see.

3. St. Lawrence - The question marks that this team had to start the season are being filled in, and quickly. Kyle Hayton already has half as many shutouts in 14 games as his predecessor put together in 132. The "scoring by committee" that RPI is seeking is actually taking place in Canton, and in spades: all but six skaters on the team have at least two goals, and one of those six leads the team with 10 assists. That combines to make this young team dangerous. If they keep it up, the future is extremely bright.

4. Quinnipiac - Their thief-in-the-night journey to the Capital District notwithstanding, there's still been a great deal to like about the Bobcats' early showings. While they've turned in some games that leave one scratching their heads, Quinnipiac has proven that they have the chops to compete. While neither the offense or the defense has left anyone dumbfounded yet this season, they've done enough to have themselves in first place by themselves, and that's never a bad place to be. There's room for improvement, but a strong power play and their results thus far have put the Bobcats in a good place moving forward. Right now, that's enough.

5. Dartmouth - Want to turn some heads in college hockey this season? Keep a team with Jack Eichel on it from scoring any goals whatsoever. The Big Green did that last weekend by shutting out Boston University and moved themselves up considerably from where they might have been otherwise on that feat alone. When the offense is clicking, and it usually has been, the Big Green have been winning games. Now the defense is starting to come along as well, and that's always a good combination to have.

6. Colgate - The Raiders' offense has been mostly as advertised (although they've had some rough outings), but the defense, especially since the start of the ECAC season, has been uneven at best. Still, there are a lot of teams that wish they could be playing as well as Colgate has - it's just that expectations in Hamilton were higher than what they've rolled out thus far. Many of the Raiders' victories this season have come against tomato cans - only two of their 10 combined wins and ties have been against teams with records over .500. Not their fault, and it does show they're winning games they must win, but the defense needs to better than its lately been.

7. Cornell - The Big Red are already making some serious strides in the right direction, and in a turn of events that will shock no one, it's defense that is leading the way. As mentioned in our Cornell preview, they played one of the nation's most lowest scoring schedules last year, and only Northern Michigan games have been more low-scoring than Cornell's so far. That's actually been increased in the last couple of weeks - only nine goals were scored combined in the Big Red's first four games of the season. They could be dangerous if they start scoring with some consistency.

8. RPI - Far too wildly inconsistent to be ranked any higher than this. They've been shut out five times and as good as the defense has frequently shown that it can be, they haven't produced any of their own (although they've limited the opposition to a single goal on six occasions). The Engineers walk a razor's edge when they are playing well (they're 5-2-1 in games decided by two or fewer goals) and when they're bad, they're very bad (1-7 in games decided by three or more). This has to improve if they're going to take advantage of their early positioning.

9. Clarkson - Inconsistent is a good word to use for the Golden Knights as well. They've had good nights offensively. They've also been shut out three times. The defense has been on more often than it's been off, but it hasn't strung together any real solid runs outside of ECAC play. Fortunately for Clarkson, they're in a strong position after six games in the league, which gives them something to build upon. If the offense can even get to a point where it, like the defense, is merely on more than off, they're in contention for a top four spot.

10. Union - A strong start to the season has been blunted by a sputtering start to the league schedule. After rattling off five non-conference wins to start the year, the Dutchmen have encountered difficulties on both sides of the puck. They followed up their long winning streak, which included last year's national championship, with a six-game winless stretch, which included a throttling at the hands of RPI and most recently, an 8-2 drubbing by Western Michigan. At the very least, there are signs of potential all around for Union, including the revival of its power play, so they may not stay down for long.

11. Princeton - That the Tigers aren't bringing up the rear based on how their season has gotten out of the gate is more a testament to how badly the bottom-ranked team has played and not a statement on Princeton being better than expected, since they were roundly picked to be the worst team in the conference. They've been on that level, but they've been beaten to the bottom, so to speak. The Tigers have the nation's worst offense and the defense is in the bottom 10. Frankly, if it wasn't for their wins over Cornell and Michigan State, they'd be sitting in the spot most expected of them.

12. Brown - Before the season started, we asked Brown to "show us first" before we placed them as high as some of the preseason rankings suggested they were capable. This is why. The offense is far too reliant on a limited number of players and has been roundly ineffective - only Princeton's goal generating has been worse nationally. Defensively, the puck just isn't being kept out, and the nation's worst penalty kill isn't helping. Put together, only Colorado College has a worse scoring margin differential than the Bears, and they simply haven't been competitive in most of their games.

ECAC Power Rankings - November 2013

As has been mentioned about a million times now, we typically do power rankings at the end of November, December, and January as benchmarks for where teams in the ECAC are during points of the season where it can be fairly accurately determined for all 12 teams (October being out due to a lack of Ivy participation, February out because the standings are all that matters). So here's November's entry. Bottom line? The league's pretty deep.

1. Quinnipiac (13-2-2, 6-1-1 ECAC): Not much to complain about in Hamden for sure. We said before the season started that the Bobcats' loss of a whole host of seniors from last year wasn't likely to be a big problem, and that's pretty much been the case. Quinnipiac has scored more than two goals for every goal they've allowed this season, which more than gets the job done. That fresh, new blue line look? Let's just say it's working. Sophomore Michael Gartieg is 2nd in the nation with a 1.64 GAA, but only 32nd in save percentage at .915. When the top defense in the country is rolling a goaltender ranked that far down in save percentage, you know the defensemen are more than doing their job.

2. Yale (6-2-2, 3-1-2): The questions about Yale's ability to keep the puck out of the net may not have been 100% solved, but it does look like they believe they have an answer in Alex Lyon. The freshman has been between the pipes for each of the Bulldogs' last four games, which have seen Yale go 3-1 while never giving up three goals in a game. Prior to that defensive stand, and during most of it as well, the puck hasn't had much of a problem hitting the back of the net offensively, which is something that'll always give a team a fighting chance even if the defense isn't fully stable.

3. Cornell (7-4-1, 4-3-1): Almost put the Big Red second by virtue of their 2-1 home victory over the Bulldogs, but regardless, this team has bounced back nicely from their early ECAC hiccups. The Big Red had won four straight contests before falling to Boston University on Thanksgiving weekend, during which time they showed the ability to score goals while displaying some flexibility in net as freshman Mitch Gillam got his first start against Niagara, picking up the victory (and, incidentally, scoring a goal). Their October road sweep at Nebraska-Omaha is looking much better now as well, given the hot streak UNO has embarked upon since.

4. Union (8-3-2, 5-1-0): After a shaky start, the Dutchmen have re-established themselves at just about the right time to put themselves in position to take another run at the top spot in the ECAC that eluded them during the regular season last year. A 7-1 record since the start of November will do that, especially since so many of those games were ECAC contests. The goaltending still isn't where the Dutchmen have been used to over the last three or four years, but the defense in front of that goaltending has been superb and the offense is getting the job done, with a huge assist from Shayne Gostisbehere back at the point, who has proven to be a danger to score every time he's touching the puck.

5. Clarkson (10-3-1, 4-2-0): If there's one knock on Clarkson's torrid start to the season, it's the quality of opponent that they've been taking down - KRACH ranks their schedule thus far as the easiest among the teams in the top half of the nation in that ranking nationally. Indeed, the Knights' only true quality win thus far was a 3-2 home victory over Cornell. Two other games against top opponents were losses to New Hampshire and Yale. They'll have the opportunity to prove that their solid defense against weaker opponents is no slouch with some of the games they have coming up - notably, St. Lawrence's dynamite attack and three straight games (yes, that's a thing somehow) against UMass-Lowell.

6. Colgate (7-7-1, 5-3-0): If you saw the Raiders in their loss to RPI, you're probably wondering just how it is that they're in the top half of the league's power ranking. Well, consider the Raiders to be the anti-Knights, because their schedule so far is the 4th most difficult in the entire nation according to KRACH. They've played Ferris State and St. Cloud State twice each, Quinnipiac, and Yale, and yet they still have a .500 record. That doesn't happen by accident. The defense could be better, but Colgate's super sophomores are proving that they do have the ability to carry this team at least somewhat, and the body of work suggests that their stinker against RPI was an exception and not the rule.

7. St. Lawrence (8-6-2, 2-2-2): We warned you not to read into the question marks surrounding Greg Carey's ability without Kyle Flanagan. He's doing just fine, thank you very much, at 1.81 points per game, tops in the country. The Saints may just be one of the most exciting teams in the conference, if only because they've engaged in wild shootouts with almost everyone. As dynamic and strong as the Carey line has been (Greg and his brother Matt, usually paired with junior Chris Martin), the SLU defense has frequently left a lot to be desired. They've limited opponents to less than three goals only five times this season, and the first three were in the first three games (Maine twice, and Ferris State). That contributes to the four losses the team has suffered when notching three of their own.

8. RPI (7-5-2, 2-3-2): Although they boast a strong offense and the nation's leading goal scorer in Ryan Haggerty, the Engineers have played a number of games, especially recently, that were huge let downs. It's hard to say exactly how much of an impact the loss of Jason Kasdorf has played in the Engineers' inability thus far to live up to expectations since Scott Diebold hasn't been terrible, but of late his numbers have dropped dramatically. Many of RPI's wins are against some pretty low-end competition, and some of the losses are against supposedly lesser teams as well (3 of Harvard's 5 points in 8 ECAC games are from the Engineers, for instance). The "three goal" rule has been almost completely hard and fast for the Engineers - 7-1-2 when they score three or more, 0-4-2 when they give up three or more.

9. Harvard (4-6-1, 2-5-1): The Crimson looked like they were pretty game for a decent season after opening up with three excellent showings in their first three games, one against Bentley and two against RPI. Other than a 6-3 victory over New Hampshire, it's been nothing but pain since then, including becoming the first casualty of a Dartmouth team that was struggling something fierce on defense. That one win over an improving Wildcat team gives Harvard the edge over Brown, who plays the Crimson on Friday, but it's a razor-thin difference. Senior netminder Raphael Girard has top 10 numbers nationally in GAA and save percentage, but none of that means anything when Harvard's young, talented forwards just aren't putting the puck in the net enough to produce results. The one goal last Saturday against a Dartmouth team that had managed to keep the opposition under five on only three previous occasions (each time giving up three) is hopefully the bottom if you're a Harvard fan.

10. Brown (3-6-1, 1-4-1): There's little denying that the Lorito-Naclerio-Lappin line has been very good for the Bears early on this season. Unfortunately, defense and special teams have not been able to back up that production, and neither has most of the rest of the offense. The Bears have given up at least three goals in every single game they've played this season, and as time goes by, more and more teams seem to be placing their emphasis on stopping that top line of the Bears and forcing the team to diversify their attack, which hasn't really come to fruition yet. Aside from Brown's upset victory over Yale that got their season underway in New Jersey on October 25, their only two victories are against two other Ivy League teams going through some extreme struggles right now, Princeton and Dartmouth.

11. Princeton (3-10-0, 2-6-0): All is not well if you're an Ivy League team and you're the first one in the conference to 10 losses on the year, although Princeton with their January exam schedule forcing games into November can frequently be a solid candidate for such an honor if it is to be had by an Ivy. Nonetheless, the Tigers have been genuinely bad for just about the entire season so far, led by a defense that ranks 55th out of 59 teams in the country, and an offense that ranks 52nd. They're in the bottom half of the country on the power play and penalty killing. Two of their three victories are against Dartmouth, the only team in the league hurting worse right now. Injuries are a big part of the problem, with star player Andrew Calof out until probably just before New Year's, but there's very little going right anywhere for the Tigers right now.

12. Dartmouth (1-8-0, 1-6-0): Ick. We might have crowed about having predicted Quinnipiac's strong play and Greg Carey's beastly numbers, but we may have screwed up royally with Dartmouth. After nine games, the Big Green have just 22 goals, just 7 more than RPI's Ryan Haggerty has alone. 47th nationally in offense and just two from the bottom in defense, neither side of the puck is functioning right now. That makes it all the more maddening that the Big Green somehow boasts the 2nd best power play in the entire country and has just one win in 9 games to show for it. Pretty much all facets Dartmouth's game have, in the past, shown themselves to be better than they've been so far, but other than on the man advantage (which accounts for 10 of those 22 goals), it's been an awful lot of heartache so far in Hanover.

Our Ballot

This is the fourth consecutive year that Without a Peer has had a vote in the annual ECAC preseason media poll... and by tradition, I usually share my ballot with the WaP readers in the interest of full openness about our little section of the poll.

I've always tried to be very, very serious with my ballot, because frequently as a fan, you always tend to look at your team in the most positive light possible. The worst place is always trying to figure out where to put your own team, because you A) don't want to be overly hard on them, and B) you don't want to look like you're being a homer. B is more scary than A when you're trying to cast off the partisan nature of running a fan blog and be dead-set honest with your assessment on how the league appears ready to turn out before the season begins.

That's why this year's poll may have been the most difficult one to fill out, as you're about to see. Our yearly "Know Your Enemy" series (which concludes tomorrow) helps me put this together, since it takes a microscope to each team in the league to find out what made them work last year, what will be missing, what returns, and what the prospects are, and that was key again this season in being able to rank the teams from 1-12. We don't mean to insult anyone, obviously, this is just the way we see things. Along the way, you find teams that you can't believe you're ranking so low, but someone has to be there, and when you can't find a way to put them ahead of other teams... there you have it.

So without further ado, the ECAC as I see it with the 2013-14 season about ready to get underway...

1. RPI - I tried to not put the bullseye on the Engineers' back. I spent the better part of a month trying to convince myself that someone else needed to be here, especially with two strong teams coming out of the national championship game, but at the end of the day, there's one truth about RPI that I cannot avoid. Simply, there is no other team in the league that returns established scoring ability (and much of its scoring from last year), established defensive capabilities, and has a solid, known quantity in net. Every other team is missing at least one of those. RPI's offense and defense may not individually be the best in the ECAC but as combined, they provide the best balance. Toss in a clear top goaltender heading into the season and we've got the team to beat.

2. Quinnipiac - The knock on the Bobcats from a number of quarters is that they graduated a heck of a lot of seniors last year. True. But they bring back basically all of the offense from last year and even augment it with solid recruits. Their issue is with defense, though they have a number of potential answers all around. This will be a younger team than last year's squad that romped in the ECAC, but there are enough known quantities with this team that they will continue to be dangerous, if vulnerable early in the season until the blueliners begin to gel as a unit. This is where the Q's non-Ivy status helps, as their first month of non-conference competition will help that happen.

3. Yale - The national champions are basically Quinnipiac with a more established d-corps but no immediately obvious answers in net. Practically since Keith Allain took charge in New Haven, the question has been between the pipes, and as we come into this season there isn't a real solid answer. If any of the goaltenders can get hot, however, the Bulldogs are as dangerous as anyone in the nation, as well evidenced by last year's championship run. The core of last year's scoring is back for more this season, which is going to cause headaches for even the best defensive teams in the ECAC. However, if this team gets into track meets repeatedly, that will not be beneficial for their long-term success.

4. Dartmouth - Another case where offense rules. I don't think the Big Green have as big of a problem in net as some have suggested, in fact, they have two very decent options there that really should not be causing much in the way of problems. Dartmouth gets ranked below Quinnipiac and Yale, however, on the explosiveness of their offense. It's a strong unit, it just isn't quite on the level of the Connecticut schools. They make up for that with more balance to that attack. Sometimes, having many skaters scoring a few goals is just as good as having a few skaters with many goals. That's going to be a very underrated element of Dartmouth's game that will probably see them coming away with two points more often than not.

5. Cornell - This is fairly low for the Big Red, but it represents a nexus of the team's late-year resurgence last season, their struggle to score goals, and their usual positioning as one of the league's top teams. Cornell isn't staying down for long, and while they have some questions to answer offensively, chances are pretty good they'll at least find enough answers to finish in the top half of the league for the 14th time in 15 seasons. The defense that has keyed the program's long-term success returned late last year, this ranking is indicative of a need to determine exactly where the offense is going to be coming from. They have many options, which is cause for optimism in Ithaca.

6. Union - Plenty of ability here to fill the gaps on offense, but those gaps accompany a Quinnipiac-level of concern on defense, with a likely competent but mostly untested goaltender and a defensive unit keyed by two of the best d-men in the conference but lacking in experience outside of them. This is not a mediocre team by any stretch of the imagination, however, and that more than anything speaks to the increasing depth in the ECAC that they are here in sixth. Rick Bennett's third season with the reins will be more difficult than the last two, but don't count him out - he's already proven that he can squeeze more from his teams than what appears to exist on paper.

7. St. Lawrence - It's very, very difficult to put a team with a pre-season Hobey Baker candidate this far down the list, but if anything, it's another testament to how good the league may be overall this season. As you'll see below, we've got two Saints in our selections for Preseason All-ECAC, and yet, here they are. That probably means that SLU will have the capacity to surprise, but they need to be able to spread the offense out a little bit more than they have in recent seasons, and they need a better than average performance from their goaltending in order to be competitive on the level that they were for a good chunk of last season - especially last February.

8. Harvard - Word came down in August that the players who left the team last season due to the cheating scandal would be returning this year, which represents a huge shot in the arm for a team that really needed it. The Crimson have a lot of young talent that were the heart of the team last year, but unfortunately that talent had very little in the way of support. The returning players should provide that support, and while this remains a very young, very raw program, it's one that has a bright future. That future should begin this year with a rise out of the doldrums of the league, and while there's likely still a learning curve ahead for Harvard, their special teams should prove considerably more difficult to deal with as compared to last year's train wreck, and that alone will have the Crimson competitive in games that were laughers last season.

9. Brown - This is an increasingly talented Bears team, but the ability to find solid goaltending has, over the years, been the major bugaboo in Providence and it's something that is going to be hurtful for this program again unless they can get it figured out as early as they did last year. It's a team with a couple of very good impact players who should be among the best in the league, and a team with a fairly decent defensive capability overall. The problem foreseen here is the lack of a known quantity in net combined with a lower level of talent among the supporting cast members as opposed to, say, Union or SLU. Still, no one should overlook this team, which does have the capacity to be a solid home-ice team this season if one of the teams above slips up.

10. Colgate - Still a very, very young team that has some growing pains to suffer through before what should be a couple of outstanding campaigns in the near future. In fact, the Raiders have the young offensive punch to potentially do what RPI did last year on the backs of sophomores and freshmen - they simply need the defense and goaltending to come along as well, which isn't a sure bet. It's a feel-good team with a captain who is winning his fight with Hodgkins lymphoma, but that leadership is going to have to be bold enough to translate into hard fought victories in games where the team came up short last year. This squad ran out of gas late last season, the defense is going to need to be strong for games where the goals aren't coming, which will crop up from time to time on young teams.

11. Clarkson - Offensively this team doesn't lose much but they still have a lot to do in that area in order to be a regular threat, as evidenced by the epically bad goal drought that the team ended last season with. Defensively, it's kind of a mess as well, although the Golden Knights do return a more experienced defensive group. However, as with the offense, experience means nothing if it doesn't bring with it improvement, and that's really needed all around in Potsdam, especially between the pipes. Clarkson at their best recently has been just enough to get by, but at their worst, it has been terrible in recent seasons. Without growth in all facets of the game, and the team's depth, this will be another tough season for the Knights.

12. Princeton - There really doesn't seem like there's lots and lots to love with the Tigers right now. Outside of one stud forward (who will steal this team some games on his own), there are question marks abounding with Princeton, more really than with any other team in the league, because the offense, defense, and goaltending is all only slightly above suspect this year. None of them are truly bad, and in that sense, the Tigers are kind of the inverse of RPI in that Princeton's offense and defense are not by themselves the worst in the league, but as combined they really don't rise to the level that would see any kind of guaranteed success. The good news is that they're not a clear-cut last place program, which means there's some room for them to finish out of the cellar.

The preseason poll also includes the all-ECAC selections, and these are the ones I came up with:

G - Jason Kasdorf, RPI: The last couple of years, we've been hesitant on exactly who the top returning goalie in the league is. That's not the case this year - Kasdorf's outstanding rookie season was far better than the campaigns of any returning goaltender last year. The only other netminder with a case, based on his full collegiate experience, is Cornell's Andy Iles. But Kasdorf was the only returning goalie who regularly carried his team to victories last season and had far better numbers in goals allowed and save percentage than any current netminder.

D - Shayne Gostisbehere, Union: While many thought the hard-nosed blueliner who became a revelation in his freshman year in Schenectady was ready to bail out after just two years, Gostisbehere returns for his junior season as the clear cut top defenseman in the ECAC right now. His rough and tumble presence up against some of the top forwards in the league gives the Dutchmen a serious edge, forcing the opposition to be solid offensively across many scoring lines - that alone can be enough to keep a team in games against tough competition.

D - Justin Baker, St. Lawrence: Probably the most difficult decision on this year's ballot was this spot, which was between Baker and Union's Mat Bodie. While Bodie gives the Dutchmen outstanding leadership from the point, Baker's two-way ability was an important link to success for the Saints last year, giving the team a connection for their wildly successful top line. Baker's importance on defense is just as important, and he returns this season as a key element in a SLU team that will be on the razor's edge between a great year and a tough one.

F - Greg Carey, St. Lawrence: Hard not to take the top returning goal scorer in the nation as one of the top three forwards in the league. Some would say that Carey's mind-blowing offensive numbers last season were a function of the graduated Kyle Flanagan's outstanding play. That would be foolish in the extreme - Carey has a prove track record of success across his three years in Canton even when Flanagan is not playing, which was more often than the Saints would have liked over the years. His ability commands absolute attention whenever he's on the ice, let alone carrying the puck.

F - Andrew Calof, Princeton: Easily one of the top talents in the east, Calof is going to be Princeton's best player this season and it's not even going to be close. On another team, with a stronger supporting cast, he'd already be in the discussion nationally for the Hobey Baker Award - ironic, perhaps, since Princeton was Hobey Baker's home - but that doesn't diminish the fact that he's the only individual forward in the league who's in the same area code as Carey in terms of being dangerous to contend with whenever he's on the ice. He's going to keep Princeton from being pushovers, that's for sure.

F - Kenny Agostino, Yale: Another tough call here between Agostino and Brown's Matt Lorito, especially with the strong collection of offense at Yale potentially helping Agostino excel more than he would if he were in Lorito's position. However, it's hard to argue with a guy who's already reached 100 points for his career after just three seasons being in this position. The Bulldogs are national champions in part because Agostino was able to define himself as being one of the best forwards on a team full of good ones, and his return helps keep Yale among the best teams in the nation, to say nothing of the ECAC.

ECAC Power Rankings - January

Here it is, the third and final edition of the monthly ECAC Power Rankings. As mentioned before, we skip October since the Ivies don't get their seasons fully underway until the end of the month, and we skip February because by the end of the month, all that really matters is the standings.

1 (1). Quinnipiac (18-3-3 -- 4-0-1) - Duh. I mean, name me another team on a 17-game unbeaten streak that has lost precisely never in league play heading into February. They're six points up on second place Yale, with a game in hand. They've got ten more games to play, and they've already clinched home ice for the playoffs, and they're about two points away from the number that, historically, is enough to nab the first round bye. Their only blemish on the month was a tie to RPI, still the only point they've lost in ECAC play. They're ranked #1 in the country pretty much everywhere but the human polls, where they're #2 instead. They still have to play Yale twice and Dartmouth once, but the rest of their schedule looks pretty OK from where they're standing, especially given their serious cushion at the top.

2 (4). Yale (12-5-3 -- 5-1-1) - It's a solid bounce back for the Bulldogs, who struggled in December but certainly picked themselves back up in January. If not for Quinnipiac's insane run, Yale would have more buzz nationally, but as it is they're instead a firm second choice right now in the ECAC. Five league wins in a row after tying Boston College to kick off the 2013 has the Bulldogs right back up where they want to be. They'll need to fend off challenges from Dartmouth and Union below them in the standings, and their schedule going forward is not easy by any stretch, but Yale has certainly found their offense again. Defense continues to be a point of contention, which means the offense has got to stay hot.

3 (2). Dartmouth (11-7-2 -- 3-4-0) - A disappointing January has the Big Green back down to earth and back in a maddeningly familiar spot over the last several years - on the NCAA bubble. This time a month ago, Dartmouth was looking very good to break their 33 year national tournament appearance drought, but now they have some work to do after a tough go of things to start 2013. They mostly won the games they needed to win - although losses to St. Lawrence and Princeton were less than optimal - but the Big Green fell to Quinnipiac and Yale in a couple of games they needed points in if they were going to prove their mettle as national contenders. Fortunately, there's still time for Dartmouth to get things turned around and headed back in the right direction so they can avoid biting their fingernails come March.

4 (6). Union (13-8-4 -- 4-4-0) - Union at the start of January and Union at the end of January are basically night and day, although they do have a little more work to do before they can pull themselves back toward the top of the league discussion. The start of January couldn't have been much worse, with a horrifyingly bad outing at Lake Superior State followed up with two losses in their next three league games. One was to Quinnipiac, but the other was to a Cornell team that had no other wins this month. They toughed out a win over Colgate and then squashed a hapless Harvard - then the best thing you can say about their game against RPI is that they found a way to win. Still, that's three in a row, and that's what you want heading into the end of the season. The top spot might be out of their grasp this year, but the Dutchmen still moving in the right direction at this point.

5 (5). Colgate (13-9-2 -- 4-2-0) - Besides a disappointing trip to the Capital District that featured a pair of one goal losses, the Raiders are still pretty much all systems go, at least when it comes to playing at home. They demolished Sacred Heart twice to start the month, then finished things with an impressive sweep of Yale and Brown. Colgate has played very well at home, but when they hit the road things have been a bit more dicey. Other than their December sweep at UMass, the Raiders are 0-4-2 away from Starr Rink since the beginning of November, all but one of which were league games. With five weekends left, only two are at home and both are against some tough opponents, so if  Colgate's going to make a play for a bye, they're going to need to be come road warriors.

6 (7). RPI (8-11-5 -- 2-4-1) - The Engineers continue to slog through what has been the most difficult schedule in the league to date, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Of their five non-wins in January, only one (Princeton) was not a nationally ranked team. Losses to Union and Princeton were certainly let downs, but only the latter counted against them in the ECAC standings, and they did draw blood against Quinnipiac, which is beyond what anyone else has done this year. For RPI, the way forward is much easier than the path behind, with only two more games all year against teams that are currently ranked (Dartmouth on Saturday, Yale in two weeks). They're still sitting down in 11th place, but they have to feel good about their chances of getting home ice as long as they execute down the stretch.

7 (3). Cornell (8-9-2 -- 1-5-0) - January was certainly one of the worst months for the Big Red in recent memory, so bad that they've tumbled from the upper reaches of the league where they're usually found, and it's going to be an uphill battle if they are going to finish in fourth or better for a 14th consecutive year. They had some tough competition, to be sure, having to go out to Denver and then visiting the Capital District, but they finished the month by being swept at home against a team they needed to beat (Yale) and one they should have beat (Brown). Having now played the entire league once (save Colgate, who they've played twice), Cornell is going to need an above average February if they're going to compete for a bye, and that means the return of their usually ballyhooed defense, which seems to have gone missing for the time being.

8 (9). St. Lawrence (11-10-3 -- 4-2-1) - The rollercoaster ride continues in Canton, where the month of January was certainly an up slope, although the Saints probably wish it had been a little steeper. Still, with just one loss in their last six (4-1-1), St. Lawrence is oriented in the right direction and they've got a key four-game league homestand to start February after picking up a huge road sweep at Dartmouth and Harvard. If they want to peg themselves as home ice favorites, it's going to be in the next two weeks against Central New York and the Capital District, teams that, while tough, can be vulnerable, especially in the North Country. That makes these next four games make or break, because after that it's two of their last three weekends on the road, including games at Quinnipiac and the Capital District.

9 (12). Princeton (7-8-4 -- 4-1-0) - The Tigers are on a mini-rollercoaster ride of their own. Couldn't buy a win in October, did well in November, couldn't finish in December, and then got back in the winning ways in January. Playing five games in a row at home will do that for a team, but now it's time to pay the piper as Princeton hits the road for the next two weekends. In many ways, the Tigers are like the anti-RPI - they've played decently in league this season but not so hot outside. That leaves them in a decent position for the stretch run, including a shot at a first round bye if they win on the road like they have at home, but they're going to need to step up their play considerably with two games against Yale and another with Dartmouth on the horizon.

10 (10). Brown (7-9-4 -- 3-3-0) - Still middling, and still 10th for the third consecutive month, the Bears aren't the league's worst team anymore, but they still have work to do if they're going to be mentioned as one of the better teams. They beat Clarkson and Harvard, but those are teams they should beat at this point. The Bears picked up a very impressive win last week at Cornell, but losses to St. Lawrence on the road and Dartmouth at home stung a little. This is a team right on the cusp of being very dangerous, and they're continuing to prove that they're dangerous enough in any single game - the problem is, they need to finish those games better. It won't be easy (especially not with two games against Quinnipiac in the next month), but should those finishes start coming, Brown could be an interesting team to play against come playoff time.

11 (11). Clarkson (5-13-6 -- 1-5-1) - Like Princeton, Clarkson has themselves in a place where they can salvage a difficult season with a decent ECAC finish, but like their travel partners from St. Lawrence, they're going to need to strike now while they're at home over the next two weeks. But besides stomping Harvard and tying St. Lawrence, January was still unkind to the Golden Knights. They have just three wins in 13 games since Thanksgiving, and with the exception of the Harvard game, offense has been hard to come by. Still, if they can muster some goals, the defense has been good enough to get points - since November, the Knights are 4-1-4 when they get to three goals. That is what they need to capitalize on their position in the standings, which is, at this point, still a home ice spot.

12 (8). Harvard (5-13-1 -- 1-8-0) - This is a team in utter freefall right now. Sure, two of their losses in January were in overtime, but so was their only win (albeit, against Boston University on national television). When the epitaph is written for the Crimson, it's going to have a lot to say about the players who had to leave school due to the academic scandal that swept up many other athletic teams as well. Harvard is in a very bad way. Not only are they in last place with three points separating them from everyone else, they also have played a game or two more than everyone else, leaving them with less of an opportunity to get back into things. Harvard has lost nine straight league games, six games in a row overall and 10 of the last 11. Toss in a Beanpot against three solid Hockey East teams coming up, and the future is not looking good.

ECAC Power Rankings - December

Apologies for the relative lateness of these rankings... travel, RPI's odd Thursday/Friday/Monday schedule, and a return to work delayed the weekend recap.

December is a quirky month in college hockey - a lot of teams take most of the month off for the holidays, yet pretty much everyone ends up playing some meaningful games during this transitional period. Despite the low number of games, our power rankings jumbled pretty good, with just one team retaining the same position we had them in after November.

Without further ado, the league as we see it after the third month of the season. Last month's ranking is in parentheses, records are their overall mark followed by the team's record during our December rating period (Saturday, December 1 was counted for November).

1 (3). Quinnipiac (14-3-2 - 4-0-0) - After sweeping Nebraska-Omaha and extending their national-best unbeaten streak to 11 straight games, it's time to put the Bobcats on top. They're ranked fifth in the nation, possess the country's top winning percentage, have five more wins than anyone else in the conference, and they still have a perfect ECAC record after sweeping their travel partners, Princeton. They've set the standard, and they're more than halfway to the 26 points or so history tells us should be good enough for a first round bye. They've got to be on top until proven otherwise at this point. What's more, the Bobcats are at home for all five of their January games, including four ECAC contests. That's a recipe for more success.

2 (1). Dartmouth (8-3-2 - 3-1-0) - Really tough to move the Big Green down here especially after a win over New Hampshire, and it's neck and neck at the top, but it's hard to argue against an 11-game unbeaten streak and an undefeated and untied league record. Nevertheless, good times are largely still underway in Hanover. Dartmouth did fall to UMass in the championship game of their own tournament, but that has been the only home blemish for the league's turnaround team of the year to date. The move down is more about Quinnipiac being good than Dartmouth doing anything wrong, but we'll find out tomorrow if the Big Green can recapture top billing when they travel to face the Bobcats. With nothing but ECAC games left in front of them, it's time for Dartmouth to shine if they want to break their long NCAA drought.

3 (4). Cornell (7-4-2 - 1-1-0) - There's a bit of a gulf between second and third right now, and Cornell's move up in the rankings is the inverse of Dartmouth's move down - it's largely because there was another team that had a rougher December. Granted, the Big Red only played two games, and picked up a win over fading Ferris State, but the loss to a Maine team that doubled its season's win total in Florida and still hasn't won at home doesn't stand out in the "good" column. Nevertheless, the opportunity exists for Cornell to prove its mettle this weekend with a series at Denver before closing out January with four ECAC games - games they will need to excel in if they want to return to their usual "bye favored" status after their early season stumbles.

4 (2). Yale (7-4-2 - 1-2-1) - The Bulldogs certainly had a "blah" December. After being trounced by last place RPI, they needed to come back from a 2-0 deficit to tie Union. A 4-2 win over UMass provided a pick-me-up heading into the holiday break, but a 5-4 loss to Holy Cross that was probably worse than the final score (the Crusaders led 3-0 at one point) provided a bad result bookend to the month. The good news for Yale is that they've still got a solid overall record heading into tomorrow's game at a Boston College team missing Johnny Gaudreau, who will be playing for gold at the World Juniors instead, but they certainly need to better establish themselves to get out of the murky middle of the ECAC when their league schedule picks back up next weekend in the North Country.

5 (8). Colgate (9-7-2 - 2-0-0) - The Raiders tied for the lightest schedule of all in December, but sweeping UMass on the road is fairly impressive, especially considering that the Minutemen later beat Dartmouth. As well, their earlier wins over Niagara (which was a blowout) and Quinnipiac are now looking much better through the lens of the present. Colgate has just one loss in their last seven games, and will tune up for the heart of the ECAC schedule with what should be a pair of home beatings of Sacred Heart this weekend. If their fab frosh can keep up the high scoring pace they've set - and which they needed following the massive loss of offense in the offseason - the Raiders can put themselves in good position to repeat last year's top four finish, something which looked iffy at the start of the year.

6 (5). Union (9-4-4 - 1-1-2) - A combination of a weak schedule and a weak December showing has the Dutchmen slipping down to the middle of the power rankings. After a torrid start to the season against some poor teams, Union has just one win in their last six games, a 4-1 win against Merrimack in Vermont that avenged their 4-1 loss at home to start the season. They lost a night before to a suddenly surging Catamounts squad, but three ties in their last three ECAC games helped stall out an otherwise impressive start to the season. The Dutchmen are still in an OK place to put together a run that would lead them to their fourth straight top three finish (if not necessarily their third straight regular season crown), but the truth is, it's hard to know if they're capable of it based on the teams they've played.

7 (11). RPI (6-7-4 - 3-1-1) - Surging at just the right time, the Engineers still have to dig their way out of the ECAC basement, something their December record shows them as capable of doing, but capacity and result have frequently been different things with RPI in the past. Their thrashing of Yale and their road split with St. Cloud State has them on the cusp of getting back to .500 for the first time since October, but the path back could be difficult. The Engineers have a 5-2-2 non-conference record heading into tough games at Boston University and New Hampshire, but their ECAC record is abysmal, which puts them behind the eight-ball heading into January. While a top four finish is almost certainly going to be too heavy a lift for this team, if they can parlay their recent play into league points in the next few weeks, home ice for the playoffs isn't that far off.

8 (6). Harvard (4-5-1 - 0-2-1) - Only three games in December for a team already light in the "games played" category, the Crimson certainly underwhelmed in basically all three. With the team's roster now squeezed by players leaving school due in all likelihood to the academic dishonesty scandal that swept campus last year, a 2-2 tie at Merrimack proved to be Harvard's best performance of the month. That was very much overshadowed by a combined 10-1 showing at home against UMass-Lowell and Northeastern. Since beating Cornell on November 16 to place their record at 4-2-0, the Crimson have been outscored 13-3 in the last four games, an offensive and defensive outage that the team will have to solve this weekend without their top freshman scorer, Jimmy Vesey, who is in Russia at the World Juniors.

9 (7). St. Lawrence (7-8-2 - 0-3-0) - It looks like the rollercoaster that St. Lawrence was on last year simply continued into this season, only with bigger peaks and lower valleys. Much as with Harvard, the Saints are suffering from a combined inability to score goals or to stop them on the other side, and in December that manifested itself twice in four days in twin losses against Clarkson, as well as a thrashing a week later against a resurgent Vermont. Otherwise, the Saints are developing the same problem Union has - they've got the wins, but except for the season opener at Western Michigan and the team's last win over Colgate on November 30, few of them came against decent teams. Two home games against a downtrodden RIT this weekend will be crucial for SLU to reverse the trend and get themselves back on track for the remainder of the ECAC schedule, where they'll need to get themselves out of the cellar.

10 (10). Brown (4-6-4 - 1-1-2) - The Bears are an odd team to figure out. They win the games they're supposed to win - all four came in non-conference play, three of them against Atlantic Hockey opponents - and they hang in there against pretty much everyone else, but that ability to stick around hasn't turned into wins yet. Their December consisted of come from behind ties against Union and RPI, an empty-netter loss to nationally ranked Minnesota State, and blowing the doors off of usually hopeless AIC, which is apparently only less hopeless than usual this season. There's absolutely a lot of potential for this team to avoid finishing in last place for the second straight year, but they're a bit hampered in being the only team in the ECAC without a league win yet. The four ties at least has them hanging in there, but they need a breakthrough and soon. January is make or break time for Bruno.

11 (12). Clarkson (4-8-5 - 2-1-0) - Any Clarkson alum or even just run of the mill fan will tell you that two wins over St. Lawrence is enough to brighten any year, let alone month... or week, as the case was in December. But when the Golden Knights lost to Mercyhurst at home a week later to complete their Atlantic Hockey-heavy first half with a record of 0-3-4 against that conference, the bloom was certainly off the rose a little. A home series against UMass-Lowell this weekend isn't likely to help matters much, but at least Clarkson can thank their lucky stars for three ECAC wins, which at least gives them somewhere to start if they can make a second half run. Five straight home games to start January (including the Lowell contests) doesn't hurt, either, especially since Brown and St. Lawrence are among the other teams coming to Potsdam.

12 (9). Princeton (3-7-4 - 0-3-1) - Sure, two of the losses were against Quinnipiac, but with the winless streak now at seven straight and the only win since a shock home sweep of Cornell and Colgate a one-goal victory at Sacred Heart, the Tigers are a floundering side. Like their travel partners on the opposite end of the spectrum, they've got the opportunity to feast on five consecutive home games. The only thing they've got going for them is their power play, which is outstanding at 23.5% on the season - their penalty killing isn't half bad, either. Unfortunately, the defense is rough at best when the game's at even strength, and that's what's dragging Princeton down. If they can't get things turned around on this upcoming homestand, it's probably a lost cause for the Tigers.

ECAC Power Rankings - November

Every year we release our power rankings for the ECAC following the months of November, December, and January. We skip October because the Ivy League's delayed start doesn't allow us to get a very good handle on half the league, and we skip February because by the time March rolls around, the league's standings are the effective power rankings. For other months, we factor in non-conference and conference games to determine who's hot and who's not.

As November closes, the league is certainly creating a great deal of buzz. Arguably, a good 2/3 of the league has at least something to be happy with at this point, and there are three teams currently in the top 10 in KRACH and seven in the top 20. That's pretty amazing, although we expect things to calm significantly as the league season kicks into high gear in January. Still, early prospects have the league with a strong likelihood of landing three bids to the NCAA tournament this year - four if the league can land an upset tournament champion, which bodes well for the future.

Without further ado, the league as we see it after the second month of the season..

1. Dartmouth (6-2-2) - The Big Green have practically no pimples on their record. They went unbeaten in their first six contests, lost to Colgate by one goal in a game they led 4-1 in the third period, and lost to the defending national champions, Boston College, in a game that was tied heading into the third period. Other than the last 12 minutes of the Colgate game, the Big Green have very little to be disappointed with at all this season. Their penalty kill is a ridiculous 97.2%, best in the nation by over a percentage point having given up just one power play goal all year long (November 2 against Yale). Just three home non-conference games on tap for Dartmouth in December, and one is huge - a showdown with #1 New Hampshire on December 30. That's must see TV.

2. Yale (6-2-1) - If not for a 1-0 stumble at home against Clarkson in early November, the Bulldogs' record is almost equally spotless as Dartmouth's. The main point of separation is Yale's other loss, a 7-4 defeat in Hanover. Otherwise, a pair of impressive overtime victories in Colorado against Denver and Colorado College have vaulted Yale back into the national discussion after last year's tough season. The Clarkson loss came on a goal in the last three minutes of regulation, marring an otherwise decent outing, but if Yale has one weakness it's that they've been in a lot of close games - only their loss to Dartmouth and a 5-1 win at Harvard were outside the two-goal margin. Yale has ECAC contests at home against RPI and Union this coming weekend, a home game against UMass the following weekend, then hosts the Russian Red Stars in an exhibition after Christmas before traveling to Holy Cross on December 30.

3. Quinnipiac (10-3-2) - Tough to put the undefeated league leaders this far down, but when third is considered low, that's pretty decent. The Bobcats had a far more difficult October than they probably drew up. They won at Maine to start the season before anyone realized Maine was beyond awful. They fell 4-0 against Robert Morris at home, and 5-1 to Colgate on Cape Cod. They bottomed out at the beginning of November with a 2-1 loss to American International, something no team should ever be in a position to need to make excuses for. But ever since that AIC loss, the Q has been on a tear, unbeaten in eight straight with six big ECAC victories. We knew the Bobcats would be good and that appears to be coming true in spades, they boast the nation's top defense. After their home-and-home with travel partners Princeton this weekend, they host Nebraska-Omaha after Christmas as a check on how far they've come as a program.

4. Cornell (6-3-2) - Five-game winless and three-game losing streaks are pretty rare in Ithaca, and the Big Red had to endure just that during November, albeit against some decent competition. After taking three points from Colgate in the yearly home-and-home to start the season, Cornell lost three in a row to Princeton, Quinnipiac, and Harvard before bouncing back with a big tie at home with Dartmouth, a 5-1 demolition of a bad Michigan team at Madison Square Garden, and an important home sweep of Clarkson and St. Lawrence last weekend, which should have the Big Red back on track. They'll look to add to their unbeaten non-conference record after Christmas in the annual Florida College Classic, facing Ferris State and then either Minnesota-Duluth or Maine.

5. Union (8-3-2) - One bad weekend can be all it takes to slip a bit, and that's why Union's down here in fifth. The Dutchmen had an OK November after a very good October. They fell at Dartmouth after beating up on Harvard the previous night, then swept first-year Penn State at home before a rough outing last weekend, picking up just one point against Quinnipiac and Princeton. Truth is, all of Union's non-conference wins and ties are against teams in the bottom 2/3 of KRACH. Their signature win thus far is over Harvard, and the second best team they've beaten is... RPI, who's almost in that bottom 2/3 themselves. So while the record is strong, the schedule certainly isn't and when challenged by Dartmouth and Quinnipiac, the Dutch were not up to the task. An important weekend at Brown and Yale beckons this weekend, followed by Vermont and a rematch with Merrimack in the Catamount Cup after Christmas.

6. Harvard (4-3-0) - Yeah, you're reading that correctly. Harvard has just seven games under their belt, less than half that of Quinnipiac (15). They took the last two weeks of November off, but the Crimson are off to an OK start otherwise. They lost big in back to back games with Yale and Union, then stomped RPI and Cornell in back to back contests, so they aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they're still decent. It's tough to compare Harvard to the rest of the league with such a light resume to date, but all indications point to a very, very talented freshman group that is already pitching in to make the Crimson a dangerous team to play against. Harvard's layover ends on Friday when they visit Merrimack, followed by a home game against UMass-Lowell on Monday of next week. They're then off 19 more days before a home game with Beanpot rivals Northeastern, so in all likelihood we're not going to learn much more about this group until the league schedule in January.

7. St. Lawrence (7-5-2) - Inconsistency crept into the works in November for St. Lawrence after a torrid start to the season, continuing the up-and-down trend from last year. 5-1-0 to start the year, SLU is 2-4-2 since ECAC play got underway and struggling to keep their heads above water on the league table. At the end of the day, they've only lost to teams ahead of them in these power rankings, and they've either beaten or tied the teams below them, so this position certainly makes sense. In hindsight, the hot October was definitely assisted by some weak opponents (Maine, Alabama-Huntsville), but a split at Western Michigan doesn't suck, that's for sure. This is still a team with a great deal of potential and despite some tough losses they, could work their way back into the thick of things sooner rather than later. Tomorrow night they host rivals Clarkson in an ECAC contest, and on Saturday they throw down with the Golden Knights again in a non-conference game in Lake Placid. They finish out December with a home game against Vermont on the 15th.

8. Colgate (7-7-2) - Difficult to put a seven-win team this far down after November, but inconsistency has reigned in Hamilton. Despite a non-conference win over Quinnipiac at the end of October and league wins over Dartmouth and Harvard in the middle of November, the Raiders have generally been all over the map since the beginning of the season. They needed overtime to beat Clarkson last weekend, couldn't match up with Cornell in the yearly home-and-home, and has losses to Bowling Green and Princeton on their record. Both offense and defense, it seems, are either on or off on any given night, creating unpredictability, but Colgate is admirably at a .500 record despite it all. A weekend series at UMass this coming weekend will be their only outing in December, and they kick off January with a home weekend series against last-in-KRACH Sacred Heart.

9. Princeton (3-4-3) - November was semi-kind to the Tigers after a rough first two weeks of their season in October. Princeton lost a pair of exhibitions and lost twice in the Ivy Shootout to start the year, but a 3-2-3 record since then has buoyed the Tigers in the ECAC standings, which is certainly important. They submitted real stinkers against Clarkson (7-2) and UMass-Lowell (3-1), but they've generally hung tough in ECAC games, though they blew the opportunity for a four-point weekend in the Capital District last weekend, losing third-period leads against both RPI and Union to settle for a pair of draws. Still, their home sweep of Colgate and Cornell at the beginning of the month got them off on the right foot, and if they can squeeze points from the home-and-home with Quinnipiac this weekend, the Tigers might certainly be onto something. They join Union at the Catamount Cup in Burlington after Christmas, facing Merrimack and then Vermont to close out the month.

10. Brown (3-5-2) - Brown is a team still in search of a signature victory. The Bears have won the two games against Atlantic Hockey programs that they need to win, and picked up a season-opening 2-1 win over Princeton, but that's where the good news ends. While they've been competitive in every league game they've been in, they haven't been able to get over the hump, with three one-goal losses and two ties in league play - they get the edge on RPI thanks to these close contests. Tack on blowout non-conference losses to Dartmouth and Providence, and there you have Brown. They host Union and RPI this coming weekend, then participate in the UConn Hockey Classic after Christmas with games against Minnesota State and either UConn or AIC, the latter of which they should be able to do well in.

11. RPI (3-6-3) - The Engineers can be thankful they're not last here even if they're certainly last in the ECAC right now. A somewhat more difficult schedule than the other bottom feeders props up the Engineers here, but even that isn't a very good excuse for their poor record, and this past weekend's travails against Princeton and Quinnipiac are a microcosm of the problems they've faced. The weekend sweep of Mercyhurst is fairly unimpressive compared to the rest of the league, with their opening weekend against Ferris State the only really shining element of the team's record. To be fair, they've played most of the top teams in the ECAC already, but with their only point coming against Princeton, it's easy to see that they aren't among the best of what's around.

12. Clarkson (2-7-5) - The Golden Knights are fairly aimless at the present. They have two big wins on their record, the first being a 7-2 home destruction of Princeton and the latter the last-minute win over Yale, but it's difficult to ignore the rest of their schedule, especially the 0-2-4 record against Atlantic Hockey. To their credit, their two wins have come in league play, but defensively Clarkson has been a mess, giving up 3.21 goals per game, taxing a young offense which, with the exception of the Princeton game, hasn't been able to generate the goals necessary to keep pace. The two games with St. Lawrence in the next four days make up the heart of Clarkson's December schedule, a home game against Mercyhurst on the 15th rounds it out.

Our Ballot

Here's our ballot for this year's ECAC media poll. No apologies. Consider this the power ranking for October - our first power ranking typically comes out at the end of November, since half the league really hasn't gotten underway yet by the end of October.

1. Union - Won everything there was to win in the ECAC last year, went to the Frozen Four, and lose very little. Nuff said.

2. Cornell - Really shouldn't have to explain this.

3. Quinnipiac - They look stupid good on paper, and they have a knack for overachieving vis a vis preseason expectations.

4. Harvard - Showed lots of potential late last year but they have to stop living on the edge.

5. Yale - Scoring talent is still there, answering the defensive call could make for an elite squad.

6. Colgate - Possibly too optimistic here, they have a ridiculous amount of scoring to replace.

7. St. Lawrence - Young guns are going to have to be big for the Saints.

8. RPI - Have to prove they're ready to vie for a top end spot again through growth of younger players, trying not to be too optimistic.

9. Dartmouth - Offense is there, but considerable defensive question marks cloud the outlook significantly.

10. Princeton - Much like RPI, a team with a great deal to prove with the capacity to do just that. Possibly too pessimistic here.

11. Clarkson - Some good upside here, but as mentioned Wednesday, painfully young.

12. Brown - A serious case of "show me something first."

As always, there are certain "bands" that teams seem to fit in that could be somewhat interchangeable. I like the top three as the clearly defined top-tier, but to be honest the rest of the league could (and probably will) be a tossup. And of course once the puck drops I'm sure we'll learn things about those top three, too.

Choices for All-ECAC:
G - Andy Iles, Cornell - Always going against the grain with our preseason goaltender selections. Grosenick will be the choice, but Iles deserves respect for the season he had last year.

D - Danny Biega, Harvard - Crimson's MVP, power play quarterback and also an offensive driver.

D - Mat Bodie, Union - Probably the best two-way defenseman in the league right now.

F - Kyle Flanagan, St. Lawrence - Averaging a point per game in his first three seasons. If only he had stayed healthy...

F - Connor Jones, Quinnipiac - Poised for a big year with a juggernaut supporting cast.

F - Andrew Miller, Yale - For three years he's been a top supporting cast member, is it time for his star turn?

Honorable mention: G Troy Grosenick, Union, D Shayne Gostisbehere, Union, F Kellen Jones, Quinnipiac, F Kenny Agostino, Yale.

ECAC Power Rankings (January)

If there was ever a good season for RPI to have a rough year, this one might have actually been it when you look at the league as a whole and compare it to the rest of the country.

This time last year, the ECAC was doing very well. Yale was one of the best teams in the nation. The Capital District duo was the most feared road trip in the league, and both looked ready to end long NCAA tournament droughts.

Today? Union is the standard-bearer, which should historically be starting with the warning bells right off the bat, but the numbers paint the full picture. The Dutchmen sit 21st in KRACH, which is arguably the best mathematical method to compare teams to each other. Union, with the nation's fifth best record, ranks behind Northeastern, a team tied for seventh in Hockey East with a sub-.500 record overall.

The PairWise Rankings don't offer any better outlook. Again, Union is highest ranked in the ECAC, but sit just 15th, a position which would require them to win the ECAC championship in order to reach the national tournament if the season ended today. There are no teams sitting in position for an at-large bid. Union or Cornell could probably put themselves in position for one, but it's unlikely we'll see both, especially since they still have to play each other twice.

Last year, the league scored three NCAA bids - Yale, Union, and RPI. The first two were pretty rock solid by the time March began, and by the start of February last season, all three teams were regularly in at-large position. Additionally, there were two other teams floating on the bubble in Cornell and Dartmouth, and if you throw in Cinderella Colgate, half of the league had a reasonable likelihood of reaching the national tournament in the final week before the field was chosen. This year, unless something extreme happens in February, the four teams in Atlantic City are going to be fighting tooth and nail for what may ultimately become the league's only bid.

No, this certainly isn't the ECAC's year - which means that even if RPI had been more successful, the chances of a repeat bid would be long... then again, if RPI had been more successful, the league as a whole would be that much better, but the basic truths remain. The relative strength of the league last year helped the Engineers get into the tournament. This time around, the team that gets hot and stays hot in March is likely to be all alone on the inside looking out.

That' means everyone is in the same boat - which, depending on how you look at it, can either be a great equalizer, or it could give the top teams more incentive to look out below in the ECAC Tournament lest their season come to an abrupt end.


1. Union (15-6-6) - 21st in KRACH, 15th in the PairWise, 11th in our hearts and 1st in the ECAC. The Dutchmen plowed through January with a 6-1-1 record overall and following Cornell's slip last week against Colgate, sit in first place, in the driver's seat to add a second consecutive season to the quite unique Cleary Cup banner hanging from the Achilles Center ceiling. Union will have to prove its mettle in four games with the Big Red and the Raiders, but they've been pounding opponents lately with the curious exception of Brown, who picked up a season sweep two weekends ago.


2. Cornell (11-6-4) - One moment, you're humming along, sitting in first place, stringing together three straight 3-point weekends (the first coming at Colorado College, not technically three points but a win and tie nonetheless), and the next moment you run smack into a home-and-home weekend, get swept (including blowing a two goal lead on Saturday night on the road), and you're sitting in second place rather than first. That's Cornell - 3-0-3 in the first three weeks of the month (all three wins on Fridays, all three ties on Saturdays), and then swept last weekend by Colgate.


3. Colgate (14-9-3) - If one weekend was enough to judge, the Raiders should be ahead of the Big Red. Completing the weekend and season sweep of their rivals from Ithaca for the first time since 2004, the Raiders definitely injected themselves back into the discussion of the best teams in the ECAC, with the major exception that the rest of January was relatively putrid. The win on Friday at Lynah snapped a six-game winless streak that dated back to the beginning of the month, and the Raiders went 2-5-1 for January with some awful defensive shows during that stretch.


4. Quinnipiac (13-8-5) - Only four games for the Bobcats in January thanks to the class schedule of their travel partners down in New Jersey, but the Q's comeback from a rough November continued with a 2-1-1 record in the first two weekends of the month, picking up five points and ensuring that when the Bobcats return to action this weekend, they'll be right in the conversation for the first round bye. Their last game was an impressive 7-1 drubbing of Colgate, the most goals they've scored in a league game since an 8-3 pasting of Brown in 2010.


5. Harvard (6-6-9) - Somehow, the Crimson continue to find ways to tie. They picked up five more of them in the month of January (including last night's tie at home with Dartmouth), giving them nine for the season in just 21 games. It's technically a .500 record for the month at 2-2-5, but four of the five ties were of the comeback variety, which means Harvard is an exceptionally difficult team to finish off. That makes them a dangerous draw come March, and in a league that's struggling to produce standouts, a .500 record puts the Crimson in the mix for the bye.


6. Clarkson (12-11-5) - The Golden Knights bounced back well in January, dropping a pair of games against nationally ranked opponents in North Dakota and Union, but going undefeated in their other four games (3-0-1). Clarkson's lunchpail mentality has kept them in the majority of their games this year, and as we saw this past weekend in Troy, helps them pick up points even when they are unable to control the flow of the game. Frequently, their defense helps out with that, but on nights when the defense isn't on, the offense has been. That combination can make the Knights tough in February.


7. Dartmouth (9-9-3) - It's been up and down for the Big Green in the last month. Following the team's hold-on victory at the beginning of the month at RPI, Dartmouth lost three straight, including a 7-1 pounding at Union the next night. All told, the Big Green went 3-4-1 in January, blowing a 4-1 lead at Yale last weekend. The offense has been keeping Dartmouth in the hunt, as the defense has allowed 3 or more goals in six of the last eight games - which, as we at RPI are well aware, is typically going to lose you plenty of games, but they're hanging in there.


8. Yale (9-10-2) - The spiral in New Haven looked like it was about to continue last Saturday as the Bulldogs fell behind 4-1 after one period against Dartmouth, following four straight losses and a five-game winless streak, but Yale may well have saved their season with four unanswered goals to salvage a weekend split. That put a happy bookend on a January that started with a win against Bentley on New Year's Day, but featured a 3-5-1 record. The Bulldogs were supposed to be better than their record appears - can their defense, which was ironclad in November, reappear from its slumber?


9. Princeton (7-10-5) - The Tigers emerged from hibernation last night with a come-from-behind victory at home against UConn, not exactly a result that garners lots of confidence. It finished a technically good January at 3-1-1, but the one loss was against a Yale team that has been sputtering, and the big victory was against a suddenly porous Colgate defense just before exams. The Tigers have not been exceptionally brilliant this season, but neither have they instilled a sense of hopelessness, either. Their problem now is the schedule - just seven games left and four of the next five on the road.


10. Brown (8-10-3) - There's little question that the Bears are the most schizophrenic team in the ECAC this season. They picked up a season sweep of first place Union, but were swept by last place RPI. They beat New Hampshire and Providence in three days time, but were shut out at home by American International. In Brown's nine-game January, the 3-4-2 record is equally strange. The three goal rule was hard and fast - they won the games they scored 3, lost the ones they allowed 3, and tied the ones neither got 3. A good February can still snag them home ice.


11. RPI (7-18-1) - Still technically last in the league in KRACH (but closing fast), the Engineers may have seen the worm turn in late January - the question now is whether they have enough juice to make a run of any kind. The schedule may be prohibitive, with four games against Cornell and Colgate yet to come, but RPI has put together four consecutive solid outings, picking up a 3-1-0 record in the stretch to power an optimistic 4-3-1 record for the month. If the Engineers can keep up the momentum, home ice in the first round may not be as far-fetched as it was once thought.


12. St. Lawrence (8-15-3) - 1-5-1 in January, the Saints are in general freefall at this point. They haven't picked up an ECAC win since November 19, with a league record of 0-7-1 since. St. Lawrence was outscored 10-0 in the Capital District last weekend, and has allowed at least four goals in each of its last four games, while scoring only four goals during the stretch. Essentially, the Saints are pretty much back to where they were at the start of the season, only against weaker general competition. They endure their fourth and fifth straight road games this weekend, but they don't have an easy home schedule either.

ECAC Power Rankings: December

Well, it's time to pay the piper. The month of December is over, and with two more months left before crunch time, we take a look at how the league looks at this point in time. Throw the league standings out the window... here's how the ECAC stacks up right now. You'll hardly be surprised by who occupies the basement.

Happy New Year. Let last year be forgot, and never brought to mind.

(Last month's ranking in parentheses)

1 (3). Colgate (12-4-2) - What a month for the Raiders. They steamrolled Clarkson and St. Lawrence for four home points at the start of the month, fought to a 1-1 tie with high-flying Merrimack, then closed out with a solid win over Canisius last night. Colgate is on a seven game unbeaten streak (6-0-1) and have lost only twice since October. This time last year, Colgate was easily the worst team in the ECAC - so cheer up, Engineer Nation.

2 (1). Cornell (8-4-1) - The first two games this month for the Big Red pretty much confirmed our opinion of the Cornell style: boring. They featured a grand total of one goal in 120 minutes of game play - two less goals than the number of ECAC points they got out of those games, since the one goal was theirs. A rough loss on Thursday to UMass (despite the retention of Andy Iles, who was not selected for the World Junior team) was made up by a solid win yesterday over Paul Karpowich-less Clarkson.

3 (2). Union (9-5-5) - Other than a big road win at Merrimack, December was a bit of an injury-induced downer for the Dutchmen. It included a win over floundering RPI, but a pair of losses out in Colorado on the last two days of 2011 were a missed opportunity for Union to make a statement following an otherwise rotten December which got underway with two ties that a healthy team probably could have turned into wins.

4 (7). Quinnipiac (11-7-4) - The Bobcats are righting the ship in a big way following a dreary November. A loss last night at Nebraska-Omaha snapped a six game unbeaten streak, but Quinnipiac does appear to have its mojo back overall. Although most of their opponents were not exactly of a solid stature, the Bobcats did very well, going 3-1-2 in over the month. We'll find out for sure if they're contenders in the second week of January when they host Colgate and Cornell.

5 (6). Harvard (4-4-4) - Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you tie. Harvard has that down to a science at this point, equally dividing the results among their first 12 outings. A 1-1-2 December doesn't seem terribly impressive, but all four games came on the road, and two were at North Dakota Friday and last night, a tough place to play even in a season like this where the Fighting Sioux are struggling.

6 (5). St. Lawrence (7-10-2) - The Saints have bounced back from a horrible start not only to the season but to the month of December as well. They endured a tough stretch at the Central New York teams and then against Clarkson, losing all three to start the month, but they currently ride a four-game unbeaten streak, including a pair of ties (and shootout victories) to claim Dartmouth's tournament, including a rollercoaster affair against Merrimack.

7 (8). Dartmouth (6-5-2) - The slimmest of margins separate the Big Green and the Saints, and right now that margin just happens to be the shootout loss last night in the championship of their own tournament. It was a 2-0-1 December for Dartmouth, but they weren't overly tested - all three games at home, two against Atlantic Hockey opponents. It's too early to know if they've improved from their difficult November.

8 (4). Yale (6-5-1) - Lost here at WaP amidst the Engineers' own struggles is the possible downfall of mighty Yale. Their shocking loss to Sacred Heart was followed up by a miserable December, in which the Bulldogs managed only a split with Brown, and added a loss to UMass to fall to a 1-4-0 record in their last four games. They host Bentley to ring in the New Year this afternoon in New Haven, and if they don't win that one... they're in some serious trouble.

9 (9). Clarkson (9-9-4) - A miserable trip to Florida last week underscores just how much the Knights rely on Paul Karpowich to keep them in games. The senior had previously started every game this year, and his backups were less than stellar, allowing 11 goals in two games. Worse for Clarkson is that they struggled even with the senior netminder in December, picking up a win against their archrivals from Canton but struggling otherwise, going 1-4-1 for the month.

10 (12). Brown (5-6-1) - The Bears move out of the doldrums thanks to a road win against an admittedly weaker than usual New Hampshire team on Friday, but a travel-partner split with Yale was also pretty big for Brown. When you're this far down the chart, a 2-1-0 month can be all it takes to look a little bit better, and they have the opportunity to show that they've put the awful losses of November behind them against Providence in the annual Mayor's Cup today.

11 (10). Princeton (4-9-4) - When your only win of the month is against a last place team, you had a pretty bad month. The Tigers did manage three ties, including a gutsy tie with a solid Northeastern team out in Minnesota on Friday, but just couldn't get over the hump with a second tie last night against Niagara. The offense is OK, but the defense is struggling; Princeton has allowed three goals or more in each of their last six games.

12 (11). RPI (3-15-0) - This is not pretty and it's only getting worse. To wit - with a full month worth of games more, the Engineers have fewer wins on the season than all six Ivies and five more losses than anyone else in the conference, going 0-5-0 in December with the defense going to pot in all five games. The offense is improving with at least two goals in each of the games, but they were outscored 23-11 in December.

ECAC Power Rankings: November

OK, now that every team in the league has at least a month under their belts, it's time for the monthly power rankings, sponsored by... nobody.

The early season rankings take a team's entire body of work into account, not just ECAC games - so just because Cornell is in first in league standings doesn't necessarily mean they're first in the power rankings. These are generally weighted toward more recent results, meaning how the team fared in November is more important right now than how they did in October.

1. Cornell - They didn't have to be number one, but here they are. There's no other team in the league that has been not only consistently in every game they play, but for the most part winning all of those games quite like the Big Red. Only three losses on the year, each by just one goal. The offense has done enough by and large when the defense has struggled, and vice versa (evidenced by three straight shutouts before the loss to BU). That's a recipe for success.

2. Union - If not for one awful home weekend against Brown and Yale, the Dutchmen are probably tops here, especially given their road romp over Michigan last weekend that turned more than a few heads (although the Wolverines are in freefall right now). They pretty clearly have answered the questions they had in net and behind the bench from last season, and the offense hasn't missed much of a beat. This is a team ready to compete for ECAC hardware once again.

3. Colgate - While they've had a few bumps along the way, the Raiders have at least been fairly consistently in the win column all season. The offensive problems Colgate had last season have basically evaporated thanks to Austin Smith and Chris Wagner's breakout performances over the last two months, and the Raiders have bounced back from every single loss this season with a win in their next game. Currently, they're sporting a three-game winning streak with four wins in their last five, allowing just three goals in those wins.

4. Yale - I'm sorry, but if you claim to be one of the best programs in the country, allowing 7 goals against an 0-11-0 team (Sacred Heart) and then losing to boot is not something that's going to bolster that claim in the slightest. Easily the worst loss of the season for the ECAC in its entirety, and that's saying something. That one loss was enough to move them from contention from first or second down to here, but without it Yale has actually done very well thus far, to include a streak of slick goaltending with three straight shutouts. The Bulldogs are still a dangerous team.


5. St. Lawrence - The Saints have bounced back well from one of the worst starts you could imagine (including a 10-3 drubbing at Michigan) to pick up a whole bunch of league points with five wins in their last seven games. That's a serious turnaround from the 0-5 start, but it was a brutal early season schedule - two games against Ferris State (remember them?), at Michigan, at RIT in front of 10,000 fans, and then hosting Union. That's not to say that SLU has necessarily been overwhelming in the last seven, but they've at least found the winning edge.


6. Harvard - The Crimson have been pretty solid of late, a one-goal loss to St. Lawrence the team's only major blemish in the last five games (3-1-1). They have just two more games before going on break, and then comes the opportunity to truly prove themselves with two big non-conference games at the end of December at North Dakota. If they can stay consistent, they can be a threat, but Harvard's biggest problem right now is defense - they don't have much, and their offense may not have the chops to bail the team out with the same level of regularity in the future.


7. Quinnipiac - That the Bobcats are still ranked this high after the troubles they've had recently underscores just how much the bottom half of the ECAC is hurting right now, and how relatively close many of them are. A big pick-me up win at UMass last weekend brought a six-game winless streak to a halt and represented the first time in five games Quinnipiac had scored more than one goal (including a pair of shutouts). So why are they ranked this high? In October, much as they did two years ago, the Bobcats were practically unstoppable, both offensively and defensively. If we'd done an October power ranking, they'd have had a fair shot at number one.


8. Dartmouth - Now that the RPI power play is beginning to find life, attention is starting to focus within the league on just how terrible the Big Green are at scoring on the man advantage - truth be told, it's pretty much always been worse than RPI's, if only because it took them a very long time to notch their first power play goal of the season - they are almost dead last nationally on the power play and it's starting to take its toll. Dartmouth has just one win in their last six games, many of which they probably could have done better in with power play tallies, but the defense has been rough, too.


9. Clarkson - Man, the Golden Knights would be wasting the competition in Atlantic Hockey if that's where they called home. They're 6-0-1 against the conference. Outside? 2-5-2, their only wins coming against floundering Dartmouth and RPI. It's been that kind of night and day for Clarkson thus far. The defense has been relatively inconsistent, but the bigger problem is that outside of playing Atlantic Hockey teams, the offense and the defense just aren't always covering each other when one has a bad night. That's a sure setup for inconsistency, and that's what we've seen.


10. Princeton - Do the Tigers miss Guy Gadowsky? Probably. But they miss consistent goaltending and offense the most. It's Sean Bonar's team this year, and his numbers are down from last year's showing while in platoon with Mike Condon. That by itself probably wouldn't be that bad, except that there hasn't been an awful lot of growth when it comes to scoring, either. Like many other teams in the back end of the conference, Princeton has occasionally found goals very hard to come by, which tends to require the defense to be turning cartwheels to overcome and more often than not, it just isn't the case.


11. RPI - I was very tempted to put RPI last (where they are in the league standings), but some of Brown's more recent games make that really questionable. Let's be blatantly honest here. The Engineers, by the end of the season, may well have some of the most solid all around defensive numbers in the league. But the offense has been remarkably  bad on an epic level, and although most of their games have been low scoring, they still haven't been on the positive side of most of them.


12. Brown - While RPI at least is showing some signs of their offensive funk ending, Bruno is right smack in the middle of theirs - and displaying it against some pretty weak competition. RPI may have had their offensive woes going longer, but the Bears have back-to-back shutouts at the hands of American International and Holy Cross. Yeah. That's AIC's first shutout of a non-conference opponent since they returned to Division I in 1998 - and they played D-III teams early on.

ECAC Power Rankings (January)

Time for our next-to-last (yes, it's getting to be that time) edition of the ECAC Power Rankings. The ECAC standings are starting to congeal into place as schedules start to become more regular, but the power rankings don't go strictly by wins and losses. They play a role, but there's also the national scope to consider.

As we approach February, in a bizarre way it is actually starting to look like the pre-season rankings in some way. You've got the clearly defined top team, and then a number of "bands" in which you can pretty much mix and match the teams therein. Two through four, five/six, and seven through nine seem pretty interchangeable, don't you think? But hey, this is the ECAC.

1. Yale - This one's still a no-brainer, and it doesn't appear to be something that's going to change any time soon. The Bulldogs lost to Brown two weeks ago, and a week later had the most first-place votes they've received to date in the USCHO.com poll (all but four). That tells you just how good this team is. We project them to have locked up a first-round bye and will win the Cleary Cup for the third year in a row.

2. RPI - Call me a homer if you want. The fact of the matter is, the Engineers are 2nd in the league in KRACH, one of the best methods for comparing teams to each other. If you'd asked this two weeks ago or even last week, RPI's probably 3rd or 4th, but they've proven they've got the maturity to make it through bumps in the road.

3. Union - The Dutchmen are doing well in ECAC play and are extremely well positioned for the first-round bye, but need to do a little work to keep themselves in the national picture. Their route is the same as the route for RPI - just keep winning. That'll help them secure a second straight bye and potentially position them for their first ever NCAA tournament.

4. Dartmouth - KRACH would say I've underrated the Big Green, especially in light of their win over New Hampshire earlier this month and their winning streak which was only snapped by their loss at RPI. Dartmouth jumped on Union to win but was swept badly by RPI. Still, they're right there in the thick of things both nationally and in the fight for the bye.

5. Princeton - The Tigers are coming out of their exam period and will be looking to ensure that they stay part of the discussion for the first-round bye, a position many (this observer not included) didn't think they had a prayer for when the season started. Hobey is proud - this is a young team competing well. The challenge comes in having five games against Yale, RPI, and Union in February, however.

6. Brown - The Bears have usurped Quinnipiac as "the most Jekyll and Hyde team" in the league. One week, they're beating the #1 team in the country and giving Boston University fits. The next, they're being sore losers against Clarkson. Fitting, then, that the team that's either very good or horrifyingly cheap lands right in the middle.

7. Cornell - Just when you thought they were going to disappear into the background, the Big Red rattle off three wins in a row and are 4-1-1 for the month of January. The tie, however, was against last-place Colgate and the loss was a bad loss at home to Union. Still, the good month so far has re-positioned the Big Red to at least be in line for home ice and if they keep it up, back into the bye discussion.

8. Clarkson - The Golden Knights, as we predicted, are falling back to earth a bit thanks to their tough January schedule. They do have the one overtime win over RPI and the aforementioned victory at Brown, but they are 2-4-0 this month against some very good teams. They haven't completed their season series against anyone, and play each team in the ECAC one more time.

9. Quinnipiac - Perhaps it's telling about the strength of the ECAC this season when a team with a winning overall record is this far down in the list, but this does seem to be where the Bobcats fit in best. They swept Nebraska-Omaha at home to finish out the month of December, but have been hot and cold since, losing at home to Cornell and settling for a tie in the second game of a two game set at Canisius. Still an unpredictable team.

10. St. Lawrence - There's a pretty marked dividing line between the top nine and the bottom three, but the Saints are pretty firmly ahead of the bottom two as well. Just as we expected, the Saints are a young team that's struggling to survive, but the signs of future potential abound. Even though they'll likely be on the road in the first round of the playoffs, they're building the foundation for a solid team in the future.

11. Colgate - The Raiders are in the midst of a terrible season that was supposed to be exciting, but they've also proven themselves to be ridiculously snakebitten in the last month or so. They've lost an eye-popping 11 games by just one goal and while their special teams are indeed horrible, they've at least proven to be capable of being "in" the games that they play, even though they can't get the win.

12. Harvard - The same can't be said for the Crimson. Frequently, they display poor offense and defense and are simply not competing well within the ECAC. Hope lies on the horizon with a strong recruiting class incoming next year, but it appears to be a lost season in Cambridge. Since starting the season 2-1-0, the Crimson have just five one-goal losses in their current stretch of 13 losses in 14 games.

ECAC Power Rankings (December)

Time for our second round of power rankings - and these serve as a bit of a "first half" power ranking as well, given that only three teams (Colgate, St. Lawrence, and Union) have games that count remaining before Christmas.

1. Yale (11-1-0, 6-0-0 ECAC) - Being that they're the #1 team in the country, the country being a set that includes the ECAC as a subset, who else was supposed to be here? Seriously, given their record, there's no question about this one. Brian Sullivan last week theorized that if this team stays healthy, they have a chance to go undefeated in league play and after seeing them against RPI and Union, I'm hard pressed to say he's wrong. Over the last month, the defensive question marks appear to have been answered by a combination of puck possession and Ryan Rondeau in net.
Next up: Holy Cross on Jan. 2, at Dartmouth/Harvard on Jan. 7/8

2. RPI (9-4-3, 3-3-0 ECAC) - There's still practically nothing between RPI and Union, but the Engineers' results in the last couple of weeks nudges them ahead of the Dutchmen this month. The hard-fought, close game with Yale and the blowout of Brown contrasts with Union's close win over Brown and getting blown out by Yale. Throw in the convincing victory over BU and the reawakening of the offense (4 or more goals in four of the last six) and RPI's just ahead here. Given that the Engineers presently have had the most difficult schedule to date in the ECAC according to the computer rankings, their record is all the more impressive.
Next up: at Alabama-Huntsville on Dec. 30/31, Clarkson/St. Lawrence on Jan. 7/8

3. Union (10-3-3, 3-2-1 ECAC) - Here's the (very) slight knock on Union. Four of their wins have come at home against Army (54th in KRACH), American International (55th) and Sacred Heart (dead last). Now, the Dutchmen righteously destroyed those teams by a combined score of 30-6 in those four games, befitting their status as a top team, but given RPI's recent accomplishments, Union is here this month. But as mentioned above, there's not much between the teams. Their big tests will be coming in the next four games on the road.
Next up: at Western Michigan on Dec. 18/19, at #19 Minnesota/vs. Bemidji State on Dec. 31/Jan. 1

4. Dartmouth (6-4-1, 5-2-1 ECAC) - Any other season, Dartmouth would be under serious consideration as the top team in the ECAC before last Sunday given their resumé and considering nothing else, but this is no ordinary season. As it is, the Big Green are pretty firmly in the fourth position right now behind a monster of a team and a pair of travel partners who have continued to impress. The schedule gives the Big Green ample opportunity to stay among the top teams in the league, with five straight games coming up at home to close out their overall seven-game homestand, but that stretch includes a likely game with Boston College and a matchup with Yale. Their offense has been mostly unquestionable since that RPI/Union weekend a month back, their defense absolutely must keep pace.
Next up: Mercyhurst on Dec. 30, #5 Boston College or Colgate on Dec. 31, #1 Yale/Brown on Jan. 7/8

5. Princeton (8-5-0, 6-3-0 ECAC) - Still holding down the fifth spot a month later, the Tigers have proven that their hot start was no fluke. Winners of 8 of their last 10 games, Princeton has lit the lamp at least three times in each of their last five games while limiting their opponents to two or fewer goals in six of the last eight. The latter stat has been the touchstone for the Tigers of late - they have lost both of the games in which the opponent was able to reach three goals. The best news, however, is the upcoming schedule - the way things are going for the teams they have coming up, the Tigers may not face another tough game until their rematch with Clarkson in late January, certainly an opportune chance for Princeton to pick up some wins and position themselves for the bye.
Next up: vs. Bowling Green on Dec. 29, vs. Holy Cross or UConn on Dec. 30, Quinnipiac on Jan. 3

6. Clarkson (10-5-2, 4-2-1 ECAC) - The Golden Knights are certainly on their way up - for the most part, already having destroyed preseason expectations by reaching the 10-win mark before Christmas and now are in prime position to at least be at home in the first week of March. The reason that Clarkson isn't already ranked higher is fairly simple: they haven't played too many challenging teams yet this season. A 5-3 win over Princeton on Dec. 3 rates as their best win to date, part of a tear of six wins in their last seven games. The Knights have an opportunity to prove themselves in a big way coming in their next five games after the New Year, however - two games at home against recent #1 Minnesota-Duluth, followed by road games at nationally ranked RPI and Union and a road trip to current #1 Yale and Brown.
Next up: #4 Minnesota-Duluth on Jan. 3/4, at #14 RPI/#12 Union on Jan. 7/8

7. Brown (3-4-4, 2-3-1 ECAC) - The Bears have been moderately impressive from time to time this season, but the terrible defensive situation has not changed. Brown was in position to score road wins over New Hampshire and BU in the span of just five days, but defensive letdowns forced them to settle for ties. Then they wilted in the face of tough defenses and offensive outbursts from Union and RPI. The Bears impressed by sweeping Colgate and Cornell on the road, something they don't seem to have done in quite some time, and then reaching at least those UNH and BU ties in four straight games, but those ties now represent the beginning of five game winless streak after tying Providence in the Mayor's Cup.
Next up: vs. #10 Boston University on Jan. 1, vs. Michigan State or #12 Notre Dame on Jan. 2, at Harvard/Dartmouth on Jan. 7/8

8. Quinnipiac (8-9-1, 4-5-1 ECAC) - The best news for the Bobcats in the last month has been in completing the season sweep of Harvard. Besides a home win over Dartmouth on Nov. 19, that's also the only good news they've had, as every other game has been a loss. It's been the defense that has been suspect in that stretch, which includes a tough weekend being swept at home by Clarkson and St. Lawrence. If they can get straightened out, however, the Q does have the possibility of a pair of statement games on the way as they welcome a UNO team that has been surprisingly excellent for much of the year just after Christmas. A good showing in that series could set the tone for the rest of the campaign, in which the Bobcats are likely to be fighting for a home ice berth in the first round.
Next up: #8 Nebraska-Omaha on Dec. 30/31, at Princeton on Jan. 3

9. Cornell (4-6-1, 2-4-0 ECAC) - Any thoughts that Cornell was merely stumbling out of the gate that were prevalent at this time last month have been pretty thoroughly dashed at this point, and it now looks like the Big Red are going to have a difficult season. Cornell is a stupefying 2-5-1 at home this season, including a stretch of four straight ECAC contests in which the Big Red went 1-3-0. Where Brown and Quinnipiac have largely been struggling defensively, offense is the problem in Ithaca. When they score goals, they are usually in good shape despite a less than standard Cornell defense, but when they don't, it's a long night. They're unbeaten in three straight, but those games were against Colgate and two at home against 2-14-2 Alabama-Huntsville, the second of which was a tie. It doesn't get easier going forward, as they will be without top goaltender Andy Iles for the next four games.
Next up: vs. St. Cloud State on Dec. 29, vs. #6 Miami or #9 Maine on Dec. 30, at Princeton/Quinnipiac on Jan. 7/8

10. St. Lawrence (3-8-3, 3-4-0 ECAC) - The growing pains continue in Canton, but the Saints can at least take heart in the fact that this kind of season was practically expected. St. Lawrence has been just about a .500 team in conference, but most of those games have come at home (and one was in Potsdam). Defense remains the issue - freshman Matt Weninger is showing signs of the top goaltender he could grow into, but right now opposing teams continue to feast on him. Freshman Greg Carey is a legitimate contender for Rookie of the Year, but with sophomore Kyle Flanagan, he is shouldering the lion's share of the offensive responsibility. That's rarely a recipe for success. SLU is still looking for its first non-conference win, which they should at least be able to get by their last non-conference game against hapless Sacred Heart.
Next up: Vermont on Dec. 18, at #2 New Hampshire on Jan. 2, at Sacred Heart on Jan. 3

11. Harvard (2-8-0, 2-7-0 ECAC) - Whatever positives the Crimson were working with a month ago seem to have shriveled up and disappeared. After an upset win over RPI and another league win over St. Lawrence in early November, Harvard has proceeded to drop seven in a row, including four at the hands of Dartmouth and Quinnipiac. For a short time, the Crimson boasted the best defense in the nation, albeit with a small sample size, giving up only 7 goals in their first 4 games. The last four games have been especially brutal, as Harvard has been outscored 19-6 in that stretch, meaning both the offense and the defense has been out of sorts. Fortunately, they start out their second half with some lighter fare before jumping back into an ECAC schedule that they've been largely unable to tame thus far.
Next up: vs. Army on Jan. 1, at Vermont on Jan. 2, Brown/#1 Yale on Jan. 7/8

12. Colgate (3-10-1, 0-5-1 ECAC) - The Raiders continue to greatly underwhelm. Their only victories on the season are a pair against Army and one against Sacred Heart - see Union's entry for the magnitude of that truth. In the last month, they've also lost on two separate occasions to Niagara, a team that, while no slouch, Colgate was certainly not expecting to fall to twice. Only Alabama-Huntsville and Sacred Heart are ranked lower in KRACH than the Raiders. That's how rough it's been in Hamilton. Though their last two wins have been via shutout, they've given up four or more goals in eight of their last ten games. The offense hasn't even been that bad, as they've reached three goals in six of those ten games, and yet they're just 1-8-1 during that stretch. This weekend's games in Pittsburgh against Robert Morris need to be the firebreak, or it's going to be a long, long winter for the 'Gate.
Next up: at Robert Morris on Dec. 18/19, vs. #5 Boston College on Dec. 30, vs. Mercyhurst or Dartmouth on Dec. 31