With just two weekends remaining in the SUNYAC men’s hockey regular season schedule, the Oswego State Lakers are in prime position to lock up the No. 1 seed for the upcoming playoffs and secure their second consecutive SUNYAC regular season title.
Each SUNYAC team plays a 16-game conference schedule and has played a different amount of games heading into the final stretch.
The top three teams, No. 4/4 Oswego State, No. 7/7 SUNY Geneseo and No. 13/Unranked Buffalo State, have played 12, 14 and 13 games, respectively. Looking at the matchups on the slate for the weekend of Feb. 9 and 10, there are various scenarios that could play out based on the results.
Oswego State and SUNY Geneseo will square off at the Marano Campus Center Ice Arena on Feb. 9, and the final score can have a major impact on home ice in the SUNYAC playoffs.
If the Lakers are able to knock off the Ice Knights, Oswego State will clinch the No. 4 seed. As it currently stands, the Lakers can finish with as many as 31 points by the end of the season and will need 26 to clinch the top seed.
Despite the likelihood that Oswego State finishes with the top seed, Lakers head coach Ed Gosek expressed his desire for his team to take it one game at a time and just win, with all the extra accolades being part of the process.
“The bottom line is that this time of year, you need to take care of your own business,” Gosek said. “You try not to focus on the rankings or the league, but focus on playing your best hockey.”
The Ice Knights can only finish with 25 points if they win out, so they will need to win against Oswego State in order to have any chance to have home ice in the playoffs.
SUNY Geneseo’s road to the top seed will need to see them win their remaining conference slate and have Oswego State win just one of their final four games, so they will own a tiebreaker with a 1-0-1 record against the Lakers.
For Buffalo State to attain the top seed, they will need plenty to play out in their favor. The Bengals will need to win out, SUNY Geneseo will need to beat Oswego State, and the Lakers will need to lose out.
For SUNY Geneseo and Buffalo State, they are locked into top three seeds, so they are battling to get a first round bye. Whoever finishes third between the Lakers, Ice Knights and Bengals will have to host a playoff game during the week of Feb. 19 against the sixth-place team in the conference.
The bottom three playoff seeds are much more complicated, with just two points separating the four teams vying for the final three spots in the playoffs.
The College at Brockport is fourth in the conference with 11 points, SUNY Fredonia and Plattsburgh State are tied for fifth place, and SUNY Potsdam sits in seventh with nine points.
Each of these teams and SUNY Cortland, who sits in eighth place with seven points, has a chance to step up and claim the final three spots, as they all have four conference games left to play, except The College at Brockport, who has three games remaining.
With the exception of the top and bottom spots, which are all but clinched by Oswego State and Morrisville State, respectively, there are many different combinations of results that could play out heading into the SUNYAC playoffs.
