With just two regular season games remaining, the men’s ice hockey team has clinched a spot in the playoff spot, and will be playing this weekend to determine its seed and the location of its first-round match-up.
This past weekend, the Cards lost to the league’s top two teams, 4-0 against Bowdoin and 3-2 in overtime against Colby, but managed to earn a playoff spot as ninth and tenth seeds Hamilton and Tufts were unable to pick up enough ground.
Wesleyan now sits in eighth place with a 6-8-3 conference record and 15 points, but could leapfrog all the way up to fifth place with two wins this weekend, as the Cards trail the fifth seed Connecticut College by just three points.
“The league has been up for grabs all year long, upsets occurring every weekend,” assistant captain Mike Dorsey ’08 said.
This weekend the Cardinals travel to play Castleton (9-6-2) and Skidmore (3-13-1). Barring an unlikely collapse by Middlebury, the top four seeds in the NESCAC will be, in some order, Bowdoin, Colby, Amherst and the aforementioned Middlebury. Wesleyan will travel to one of these schools, against which they have a combined 0-3-1 record this season (the tie coming at home against Middlebury on Feb. 1, 2-2).
The Cards have stressed the little things in practice and are hoping to continue to improve as their season winds down.
“In practice we have been going over the basics and making sure there are no loose ends in our systems in all three zones,” Dorsey said. “It is ultimately the little mistakes that are costly.”
The little mistakes have indeed cost the Cardinals this season. They have given their opponent 16 more power play opportunities this season than they have received, and are allowing power play goals at a rate of 15 percent, versus the 12 percent that they are scoring. In conference, this ratio is even more in the opponents’ favor, as they are allowing goals on 17 percent of power play opportunities versus only scoring on 11 percent of odd man chances.
“If we can stay out of the penalty box, we will always put ourselves in a position to win the game,” Jeff Beck ’10 said in between the second and third periods of the 2-2 tie against Williams on Feb. 2.
Coincidently, it was a Cardinal penalty that led to the four-on-four situation in which Williams scored the game-tying goal in the third period.
“Wesleyan hockey has never won a playoff game, and we feel as though this team can change that,” Dorsey said. “It is very possible to win on the road. When it comes to the playoffs it is a brand new season, everybody is undefeated 0-0. It essentially comes down to who works harder and who wants it more.”
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