The last home weekend for the Dartmouth men's hockey team is a crucial one as the team positions itself for the postseason against two of its toughest Ivy League and ECAC opponents, Harvard and Brown.
In this year's format, every ECAC squad will make the playoffs with the following breakdown: the top four teams receive a bye into the second round, while five through eight play on home ice against nine through 12 in the first round.
The Big Green (14-10-1, 10-8-0 ECAC) is stuck in a bottleneck at the fourth slot entering this weekend. While Dartmouth could secure home ice advantage with at least one tie this weekend, the team could also bypass the first round altogether with a couple wins and a little bit of luck.
Right now, Brown (11-10-3, 9-7-2 ECAC) and Union also have 20 conference points and rest with one eye open in fourth place, while No. 2 Cornell, No. 15 Harvard (16-8-1, 14-4-1 ECAC) and Yale make up the top three.
Dartmouth started its conference season on what was a promising road trip in Cambridge and Providence despite a pair of losses, 5-2 to the Crimson and 4-2 to the Bears. The Big Green freshmen showed immediately that they would have an impact and have not faltered since.
Now it's crunch time, as Dartmouth looks to avenge the gritty games it failed to pull off early in the season with a little help from the friendly home crowd. The Big Green is 11-2-0 at Thompson Arena, boasting one of the finer home records in the nation along with some of the most impressive home wins.
Dartmouth also has an outside shot at the Ivy League crown, sitting in second place heading into the weekend. With a pair of wins this weekend, Dartmouth could sit back and hope for Cornell to slip up against Yale or Princeton next weekend on the road for at least a share of the league title.
Outside of showing up at Thompson Arena this weekend for the 7 p.m. face-offs on Friday and Saturday, Big Green fans can pull for the Empire State that it destroyed last weekend.
The Big Green would not mind a Yale meltdown in the North Country, an unsuccessful visit for Union at Colgate and a disheartening loss for Brown at the hands of the Catamounts prior to the Bears' visit to Hanover.
