Too pumped for blogging!

First, we owe you all an apology. We've been pretty quiet on the blogging from for a variety of reasons, much of which have to do with us trying to cover the entire NCAA situation over at College Hockey News. The other part is that so much has been said, it's just tough to say it again. Brett and I are incredibly excited about this weekend. Brett just hit the road at noon to drive his way through a snowstorm to get to Albany. I will be heading immediately to the nearest bar after work to piss off basketball fans by switching their game to CSTV's semi-final coverage. I should be heading out to Albany tomorrow morning.

Instead of trying to preview the entire tournament, I'm just going to run through a bunch of the big points heading into this weekend.

ECACHL Tournament. It's ours is if we want it bad enough.
Clarkson has defeated each of these teams this season, and while not the #1 seed, they're considered the favorite by most. The tournament is theirs to win or lose, but Clarkson is also running into two very hot teams in Dartmouth and potentially SLU. Victories over these teams would be a huge boost going into the NCAA tournament.

Clarkson fights for a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, but where will they be?
With some help from SCSU and UNH, Clarkson could rise to a #1 seed in th NCAA tournament if they can win the ECACHL title. Yet despite this, Clarkson may not end up in the Rochester regional and may get shipped out to Manchester, NH to be in UNH's bracket where they're the host. Clarkson fans are struggling with this because, they feel Clarkson should have geographical preference in this situation, where Rochester is essentially a home-game and Manchester is very rough territory. No bracketology article that I have seen has placed Clarkson as a #1 seed in Rochester, but have placed them there as a #2 seed. We've also seen bracketology place them in Denver as well. We'll find out on Sunday for sure.

Leggio wins Dryden Award, other Knights honored.
You'd be hard pressed to say at the beginning of the season that David Leggio would be receiving the Dryden Award for Goaltender of the Year, but here he is after a spectacular season. As Brian Sullivan at USCHO pointed out, Leggio has let in two goals or less twenty-two times this season. Unbelivable.

David Leggio and Nick Dodge were also named to the ECACHL first-team, but fans are in an uproar for leaving Steve Zalewski and Shawn Weller off of any of the three teams, and Matt Beca from the All-Rookie Team. I chalk it up to being such a strong team from top-to-bottom splitting votes, and just some blind choices.

Get them in the box... Get some goals...
Clarkson has third best power-play conversion rate in the country, and is tops amongst teams that will head to the NCAA tournament (barring a miracle for Maine) with a 22.8% conversion rate. The Knights need to maintain their cool, and let their opponents take the penalities, and do whatever they can to avoid the ECACHL tradition of matching minors so they can be a man-up. If this happens, we should be seeing red lights.

SCORE FIRST.
Clarkson is 18-0-2 this season when scoring first. That is all that needs to be said.

Brett will be live-blogging from the Times Union Center. Keep tabs on him over at http://blog.collegehockeynews.com. If you're heading to Albany be sure to seek us out over the weekend and say hello. Safe driving everyone!