Clarkson travels to Central NY to face the top two teams in the ECAC, arguably the toughest road trip in the league right now. Friday the Knights will pit their 3rd best offense in the NCAA against the 2nd best scoring team in the nation in Colgate.
This series carries the ECAC points which come at a critical time of the season. Clarkson is 10-6 in ECAC play, good for 4th place 3.5 points ahead Quinnipiac. The Knights are 6.5 point behind SLU, and 9 points back of league leading Colgate.
The Knights are lead by
Anne Cherkowski in goals (15) and Anne and
Haley Winn share the lead in points with 36. Winn has 3 goals and 6 assists in her last 7 games. The Knights have out shot their opponents in 25 of 28 games this season and have held teams to less than 20 shots in 18 games. The Knights wear teams down, they have scored 23 goals in the first, 35 in the second, then 48 goals in the final 20+ min.
Last weekend,
Nicole Gosling became the Golden Knights leader in all time points by a Defense, surpassing Erin Ambrose. Gosling has 138 career points on 40 goals 98 assists, Ambrose had 137 points on 33 goals and 104 assists.
Coming into the weekend, Clarkson has the 2nd best power play in the nation scoring 36% with the advantage and the nation's 7th best penalty kill at 86.8%. Clarkson is the 3rd highest scoring team in the nation, with 109 goals and have the 3rd best scoring margin at 2.19 and the Knights are 3rd in the nation with 291 total team points.
Clarkson is 3rd in the nation for shutouts with 8. Minotti has 4 and Gruber has 4 and now Doucette has 1. The crease has become a position that has seen several changes in the previous weeks. Doucette played 3 straight, then Gruber stepped in and posted a shut out vs SLU on the road. Tonight, Gruber will get the start looking to shut down the 2nd best scoring offense in the nation.
Tonight's game can be streamed on ESPN+.
