Strata

Something to consider as the men head into a weekend against Yale and Brown.

The top five teams in the ECAC are separated by five points. In fact, it goes right down the number line - Union has 22, Quinnipiac 21, Cornell 20, Colgate 19, and Clarkson 18.

The bottom four teams in the ECAC - St. Lawrence, Harvard, Dartmouth, and Princeton, are all at least 4 points out of the final home playoff spot in 8th.

That's three teams that haven't been mentioned. Oh, look at that, and it's the three teams we're looking at this week - RPI, Yale, and Brown. As a group, they're four points behind that collection of five teams fighting for a bye, and they're four points ahead of the teams scraping to get out of the basement.

That makes it a weekend of destiny coming up. Yale has the edge coming in as they're two points up on RPI and Brown, but it's easy to see what the difference between success and failure will mean, especially for the Engineers. Four points, and it's potentially an opportunity to claw back into the top-end discussion. Fail, and those four teams that would be on the road for the playoffs are going to get a whole lot closer.