CHF's ECACHL Women's Quarterfinals Preview - Part 3

#6 Dartmouth at #3 Brown

Dartmouth has been there before. A traditional powerhouse in the ECACHL, they've appeared in the NCAA Frozen Four the past three years. The Big Green does not like ending their season in any tournament other than the one that says NCAA in front of it. Dartmouth's season has been average at best, plagued with inconsistency, much like the other teams in the bottom half of the seedings in the conference tournament. One day they can crush a ranked team like Clarkson 6-2, and the next they get blown out by St. Lawrence 5-1. According to their record, they're actually in better shape heading to Meehan this weekend, as they have a losing record at home and a 7-5-2 record on the road, where they'll likely be the rest of the tournament.

Unlike teams like St. Lawrence and Princeton, Dartmouth lacks standout scorers. The top of Dartmouth sheet features four forwards above twenty goals in Shannon Bowman, Danielle Grundy, Maggie Kennedy and Caroline Either. After that there's a severe drop in production, with the next closest scorer having eleven points. All of these forwards have the bulk of the assists as well, which on paper says that they work hard for their goals in the offensive zone once they get there, but not as many breakouts as past Dartmouth teams may have seen. Fortunately for Dartmouth, their defense has picked it up only allowing 63 goals on the season. Senior Kate Lane has been getting the bulk of the time in net for Dartmouth, and along with freshman Carli Clemis keeps Dartmouth in pretty much every game. Lane has a 2.40 GAA and a .909 save pct.

We're not really sure what to make of Brown, but they can be best explained as a team that makes the most of their opportunities. When we saw them at Cheel in January, we declared them as a very lucky team. They were outshot 26-5 in that game, but came away with a 1-0 victory. After that they took another 3-1 victory from Clarkson at home, but that was their only victory in a seven game stretch. Despite giving up more goals than they've scored this season, they've earned a three seed in the conference playoffs and that's pretty much unheard of.

When there's a team that doesn't score often, but still remains successful, you can always look towards the net to start. O'Hara Shipe is no exception. In her senior season she has a 2.16 GAA and a .924 save pct. Not top-tier, but very solid and more than enough to win games. Hayley Moore has 37 points, and Keaton Zucker has 28 points, which accounts for 41% of Brown's total scoring offense. Moore also has five game winners, and three shorties on the season.

We should expect a pretty tame affair scoring wise in Providence when these two teams face each other this weekend. In many ways these teams feel almost identical, having low scoring offense, good defense, good goalies. On top of this both have very strong records in one goal games. If Dartmouth can have an offensive explosion, I don't see Brown being able to keep up as they've only scored more than three goals in three games this season. This is especially true if Dartmouth is able to shut-down Keaton Zucker and Hayley Moore. I see these two as being the keys to this weekend's matchup. Keep them off the sheet, and you're going to the next round.

Ron's Prediction:

• Dartmouth 3 - Brown 1
  
• Brown 1 - Dartmouth 0 (ot)
  
• Dartmouth 3 - Brown 2 (ot)
  

Dartmouth wins series 2-1