“We understand that, every night, we go out there and put our health on the line,” Grumet-Morris said. “[Exter] was in a really awkward position, because whenever goalies come out of their crease, they become very vulnerable. Our equipment isn’t designed for contact—it’s designed to take different types of stress from shots, instead of collisions from bodies. Every time we go out there, we’re taking a risk.”
Exter served as Merrimack’s captain—a rare honor for a goaltender—during this season, which ended when BC won game two of the quarterfinal series on Saturday night.
Exter, who led Hockey East with 736 saves, has been mentioned as a candidate for the league’s Player of the Year award.
Cards may be sent to Exter at the following address:
Hockey Office; c/o Joe Exter; Merrimack College; 315 Turnpike Street; North Andover, MA 01845.
Playoff Notes
The best-of-three ECAC quarterfinals begin this weekend, and, not surprisingly, everyone’s talking about defense.
“You’d better be good in goal this time of year,” said Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni. “If your goalie’s not on his game, you’re not going anywhere.”
That said, two underdogs are still going places because of what their goaltenders did last weekend, and one—Vermont’s Shawn Conschafter—will be in Cambridge on Friday. He stopped 56 of 59 shots in a two-game sweep at Clarkson last weekend.
The other netminder who stood especially tall in the first round was Rensselaer’s Nathan Marsters, who made 66 saves in sweeping favored Union. His reward? A quarterfinal trip to meet Cornell, ranked No. 2 in the nation and the ECAC’s top seed.
Elsewhere, Colgate visits third-seeded Dartmouth, while Brown and Yale will meet in New Haven. The semi-finals in Albany, N.Y., on March 21 await each of the series’ four winners.
Cornell has the clear advantage in net, leaning on Ivy League Player of the Year Dave LeNeveu and his just-plain-unfair 1.16 goals against average and .943 save percentage.
Though not quite LeNeveu, Harvard sophomore goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris is not far behind. He boasts the nation’s second best save percentage (.929) and is fifth overall in goals against average (2.24).
“The old adage that defense wins championships is never more true than in the ECAC tournament,” said Yale coach Tim Taylor ’63, whose team will be challenged by Brown goaltender Yann Danis, an All-American last season. “Team defense and goaltending is going to be the key. If we play loosey-goosey hockey and don’t pay attention to defense, we can get victimized.”
—Staff writer Jon P. Morosi can be reached at morosi@fas.harvard.edu.