Playoff spot, home-ice edge on line in league’s final weekend
Courtesy Glenn MacDonald, The Chronicle Herald

The Atlantic University Hockey Conference heads into its final weekend of the regular season with a playoff spot still up for grabs and teams jockeying for home-ice advantage.

The St. Francis Xavier X-Men (10-12-4) are assured of a post-season berth. But what remains unclear is if they’ll have home-ice advantage when the best-of-three conference quarter-finals open next Wednesday.

Mired in a three-game losing streak, St. F.X. has dropped to fifth in the standings. The X-Men are four points back of the UPEI Panthers (13-11-2) for fourth spot with only two games left on the docket.

The fourth-place team gets home-ice advantage in the quarter-final against the No. 5 squad.

For St. F.X. to clinch fourth, the X-Men will have to beat the nationally top-ranked UNB Varsity Reds (26-0) on Friday and the Panthers on Saturday and have UPEI lose to the Dalhousie Tigers on Friday. That would put St. F.X. in a tie with UPEI. But the X-Men hold the tiebreaker based on head-to-head meetings against the Panthers this season.

Confusing? It wouldn’t have been so convoluted if St. F.X. had beaten UPEI at home last Saturday. The Panthers doubled the X-Men 4-2 in Antigonish.

"That was a big four-point game," St. F.X. head coach Brad Peddle said. "We could have evened things up there. Now going into the weekend, we have to get four points and UPEI doesn’t get any.

"It’s going to be a tough weekend. Yes, we recognize UNB’s 26-0. But we have to go into every game thinking that we can win."

A lack of offensive production has been the X-Men’s Achilles heel during their losing skid. They have also been bitten by the injury bug with goalie Joey Perricone, captain Chris Hulit and versatile centre Matthew Bragg all suffering long-term injuries.

"Our scoring has dried up a bit," Peddle said. "When you have a hard time scoring, you can use a guy like Hulit or Bragg in the lineup.

"But at the end of the day, we have to be accountable for our offence. It comes down to execution and we’re not cashing in on our chances."

Dalhousie (8-14-4): It’s not often the Tigers would cheer for the cross-town rival Saint Mary’s Huskies.

SMU plays host to the Moncton Aigles Bleus on Friday and the St. Thomas Tommies on Saturday. Both Moncton and STU are in a dogfight with Dal for the sixth and final remaining playoff spot.

The Tigers, who hold down sixth place and are a point ahead of Moncton (8-15-3) and four up on STU (7-17-2), visit surging UPEI — winners of five straight — Friday and UNB on Saturday.

Definitely not an easy road swing to conclude the regular season.

"It’s a huge weekend for us," Dal bench boss Pete Belliveau said. "Last year at this time, we’re not in the playoffs; this year, we’re in. We have made a big leap, now it’s just a matter of executing."

For the Tigers to reach the post-season for the first time in six years they have to win or, at least, have the teams chasing them lose.

They don’t hold any tiebreaker advantages if they finished deadlocked with either STU or Moncton or in a three-way tie.

"We can’t worry about Moncton or STU," Belliveau said. "We have to worry about ourselves."

Saint Mary’s (14-8-4): The Huskies will have home ice advantage for next week’s quarter-finals.

But it’s still unclear whether they’ll enter the playoffs as a third-place or a fourth-place team.

SMU is currently in third, four points ahead of UPEI. A Huskies’ win or a Panthers’ loss this weekend and SMU clinches third. But if the Huskies were to lose to Moncton and STU and UPEI beats Dal and St. F.X., then the Panthers would take third based on the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Huskies.

Acadia (18-6-2): The Axemen have clinched second and a first-round playoff bye.

The top two teams in the regular season advance directly to the best-of-five semifinals.

The CIS No. 4 squad could play spoiler this weekend with home games against St. Thomas on Friday and Moncton on Saturday.

Notes: UNB, the defending national champions, need two points this weekend to set a new conference mark. . . . Only four CIS teams have recorded perfect regular seasons — the 2002-03 Western Mustangs (24-0); Saint Mary’s (21-0) and the University of Toronto (17-0) in 1972-73 and St. F.X. (14-0) in 1965-66.