After sweeping Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Union at home and clinching a first round playoff bye, No. 6 Cornell (20-6-1, 15-5-0 ECAC) will hit the road for the final weekend of the regular season with the chance to secure the program’s 16th Ivy League title and the eighth under head coach Doug Derraugh ’91. In the Red’s way stands Brown (11-13-3, 7-10-3 ECAC) and No. 14 Yale (14-12-1, 11-8-1 ECAC).
The Red will start its weekend in Providence at Meehan Auditorium, taking on a Brown team it defeated 5-1 in Ithaca in November. That game moved the Red to 8-0-1, its best start since 2019, and featured five different Cornell goal scorers.
Brown currently sits seventh in the ECAC and has clinched a first round ECAC playoff game at home. Brown’s 3-1-2 record over the past three weekends includes an impressive win at home against then-No. 8 eighth Quinnipiac and a tie against No. 12 Princeton.
Brown is powered by forward Jade Iginla who leads the team in points (26) and is coming off a five-point weekend that included a hat trick against Harvard. The other Bear in the news has been freshman Ava DeCoste, who is the reigning ECAC Rookie of the Week after a four-point weekend of her own.
The Bears’ offensive production has struggled, scoring the 7th least goals in the country, and struggle shorthanded, mustering just one goal down a skater this season. On the brightside for Brown, the team is 17th in goals allowed, 18th in penalty kill percentage, and second-best in the country at staying out of the penalty box, averaging just 5.04 penalty minutes per game.
The next day, the Red will travel to New Haven to wrap up the regular season.
Yale –– the reigning Ivy League champion –– has been playing solid hockey, having won four of its last six, including a recent weekend sweep against Harvard and Dartmouth. Yale currently sits sixth in the ECAC and has the chance to move up to fifth this weekend.
Yale is led by senior forward Elle Hartje, who is 18th in the country in points per game and has a point in six of her last seven games. In net, goaltender Pia Dukaric is 11th in the nation in wins with 13, just two behind freshman goaltender Annelies Bergmann for Cornell.
Yale is a strong team defensively, having given up just 52 goals on the season, and is giving up the 11th fewest goals per game in the nation, one spot behind Cornell. The issue for the Budogs has been its offense, scoring just 69 goals on the season, well behind Cornell’s 104. Yale has also struggled on the power play, scoring just eight goals with the advantage this season, only one more than the Red has scored shorthanded. The Bulldogs and the Red have faced each other once previously this season, a 6-1 Cornell win in Ithaca.
Although Cornell has already clinched a top-four seed in the ECAC and the playoff tournament first round bye that comes with it, the weekend is still important. Cornell sits just four points behind St. Lawrence in the standings, and passing the Saints for third in the standings would ensure the Red doesn’t have to face No. 4 Colgate — the only ECAC team to sweep the Red this season — until the finals.
On the other side of the ice, senior forward Izzy Daniel currently ranks third in the nation in points with 51, five behind leader Kirsten Simms and one behind Casey O’Brien, both of Wisconsin. Although catching Simms in total points is possible, a more achievable goal for Daniel may be catching her in points per game, where Daniel’s 1.89 trails Simm’s 2.00.
An Ivy League title is on the line this weekend. Although the Ivy League does not exist as a standalone conference in NCAA hockey, it does still crown a champion, and Cornell currently trails the Bulldogs by 1.5 points. However, Yale has played one more Ivy game than Cornell has. Princeton lurks three points behind Cornell and will look to take advantage if the Red and the Bulldogs both stumble. The only guarantee going into the weekend is that the championship will come down to the final night of the regular season.
Cornell will take on Brown Friday night in Providence at 6 p.m. before traveling to New Haven to take on the Bulldogs on Saturday at 3 p.m. Both games will be streamed live on ESPN+.
Eli Fastiff is a Sun contributor and can be reached at [email protected].