The Engineers' big hole is in goal. It graduated a four-year duo of Joel Laing and Scott Prekaski. Laing was a Hobey candidate last year with a 1.82 GAA. Coach Dan Fridgen will try and replicate the formula with rookies Nathan Marsters and Kevin Kurk.

Clarkson

The Golden Knights (17-15-3, 9-8-3 t-4th) have become notorious for starting off slowly the past couple of seasons and this year should be no different, except they should not be able to recover enough to get home ice.

Clarkson should be fine on defense led by First Team All-ECAC Kent Huskins (2, 14), but will have to search the ranks to find goal scorers. It lost top-sniper Eric Cole (20, 10) to the NHL along and some valuable supporting cast. In goal, the Golden Knights have a fine keeper in Shawn Grant, but if he falters at all look for Head Coach Mark Morris to start holding tryouts for the position in Potsdam, N.Y. All this means Clarkson will again take a while to find its stride if the immense talent there doesn't appear to fully recover.

Yale

Putting 1999 Hobey candidate and two-time All-American Jeff Hamilton back in the mix is bound to do good things for Yale (9-16-5, 6-11-4 9th) this season. New Haven fans are touting Hamilton as the panacea for the Elis' scoring woes. And if teams don't zero in on the fact that he's also Yale's only quality sniper, he's likely to do just that.

But don't expect Hamilton to single-handedly work miracles. Deep teams will shut him down and take advantage of the Elis admittedly no-name defense this year. Yale's saving grace will be junior Dan Lombard, who got the nod in the ECAC quarterfinals against Colgate. Hamilton's antics may cause a few upsets, but the Elis should resign themselves to another short post-season without home ice.

Dartmouth

After a few seasons of immaturity, the Big Green (9-17-4, 8-10-3 8th) finally has some veteran experience to fall back on. For the first time in five seasons, Dartmouth successfully made it to the post-season, only to be knocked out by RPI in the first round. Despite the strides it's made over the past few seasons, expect the Big Green to bow out early in playoffs after another 8th place finish.