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With postseason play comes new life for the Clarkson University Hockey team. Looking for redemption for a disappointing regular season, the Golden Knights open the ECAC Hockey playoffs at archrival St. Lawrence University in a best-of-three games first round series. Clarkson will face off against the Saints on Friday and Saturday at Appleton Arena, beginning at 7:00 p.m. If the series is tied after two games, the North Country foes will play again on Sunday in Canton, also at 7:00 p.m.

ECAC Hockey First-Round Playoff Series

The Knights finished the regular season with an 8-22-4 overall record and a 12th-place 4-15-3 ECAC Hockey mark. Guided by seventh-year head coach George Roll, associate coach Greg Drechsel and assistant coach Chris Rogles ’93, the Green and Gold will look to carry over the momentum generated from a strong finish to the regular season into the postseason. Clarkson, which is the healthiest is has been all year, has been playing its best hockey of the season down the stretch and completed the month of February with a 3-4-1 mark. The Knights finished the 2009-10 home campaign with a 7-7-2 record in Potsdam. Clarkson is 1-15-2 away from Cheel.

This past weekend, the Knights gained three of four points in a pair of overtime games at Cheel Arena. On Friday, freshman defenseman Andrew Himelson (Monroe, NY) tallied his first collegiate goal 3:11 into the extra session to lift the Green and Gold to a 2-1 triumph. On Saturday, junior assistant captain Brandon DeFazio (Oakville, ONT) and freshmen Adam Pawlick (Utica, NY) and Markus Piispanen (Vantaa, Finland) scored goals, and sophomore Paul Karpowich (Thunder Bay, ONT) put in another solid effort in the crease with 38 saves in a 3-3 tie against Dartmouth.

Senior Matt Beca (Mississauga, ONT), who has recorded at least one point in each of the past six games, leads Clarkson in scoring with 35 points, including a team-high 19 goals. Karpowich, who has started 28 games, posts a .895 save percentage, a 3.33 goals against average and a 7-17-4 record.

Clarkson has been a force in the ECAC since the league was formed at the start of the 1961-62 season. The Knights, who have participated in 48 of the conference’s 49 postseason tournaments, have won five league championships (1966, 1991, 1993, 1999, 2007). Clarkson owns an 80-61-5 record in the conference playoffs, and is 3-2 in first-round series (6-5). Last season, Clarkson lost its first-round series at Union (5-3, 7-2). The Knights played in four straight first-round series from 2003 through 2006. Clarkson lost its first ever first-round series, falling to Vermont 2-0 (3-2, 6-1) at Cheel in 2003, but defeated Union on the road 2-0 (8-3, 5-2) in 2004, and again in 2005, 2-1 (1-0 ot, 1-2 ot, 4-3 ot). The Green and Gold also swept Princeton in Potsdam 2-0 (2-1, 5-0) in 2006. The Knights have advanced to 31 league championship tournaments and have skated in 13 title games.

While Clarkson was playing its best hockey in the final month of the regular season, St. Lawrence suffered through a terrible month of February, going just 1-4-3 in its last eight games. Guided by veteran head coach Joe Marsh, now in his 25th year behind the SLU bench, the Saints put a stop to a seven-game winless skid (0-4-3) with a 4-3 victory over Harvard in Canton on Saturday. On Friday, St. Lawrence fell to Dartmouth 3-2. St. Lawrence owns a 15-13-7 overall record and tied for fifth in the ECAC Hockey standings with Rensselaer, owning a 9-8-5 league mark. SLU won the tie-breaker against RPI to gain the fifth seed. The Saints are 8-3-4 at Appleton Arena this season.

The Series:
The Golden Knights hold an overwhelming 110-62-9 series lead against the Saints, which began with a 1-0 Clarkson victory during the 1925-26 season. The rivalry has been even in the 2000s, however, with the North Country foes going 13-13-2 this decade. The teams went 1-1-1 in three games this season. Clarkson won the first meeting, a non-league affair at Cheel Arena, 4-1 on October 24. The rivals battled to a 3-3 draw at Appleton Arena on December 4, and St. Lawrence won the last game 4-3 in Potsdam on December 5. Clarkson is winless in its last five games in Canton. The Knights’ last triumph at Appleton Arena was a 6-2 victory on January 23, 2007.

Clarkson is 11-4-1 against St. Lawrence in the ECAC playoffs and has won eight straight league postseason games against the Saints. The foes last played in postseason in 2002 with the Knights claiming the quarterfinal series in Potsdam 2-0 (3-1) and (6-1). This will be the rivals first ever meeting in the first round, and first playoff games between the two at Appleton Arena in 27 years, since the Saints broke a 1-1 tie in the quarterfinal series with a 3-0 victory in the deciding 10-minute min-game on March 5, 1983.