After graduating the best player in college hockey, it might have been expected for women’s hockey to take a step back from last year’s performance. On the back of Izzy Daniel ’24, the 2023-2024 Patty Kazmaier recipient and 18th overall pick in the PWHL Draft, last year’s team reached a NCAA regional final, allowing the seventh fewest and scoring the seventh most goals in the nation.
Despite the loss of Daniel, the Red sit in a similar position to last season. Cornell is sixth in the NCAA percentage index — abbreviated as NPI, a key determinant of at-large bids to the 11-team postseason tournament — and tied for first in the ECAC standings.
Cornell started off the year slowly, dropping its opening weekend to Mercyhurst (22 NPI) before knocking off then-No. 12 Penn State and falling to defending national champion then-No. 2 Ohio State. The low point of the season thus far for women’s hockey came in its home opener, a 3-2 loss to Union, the first defeat at the hands of the Garnet Charges since 2004 and just the second in program history.
Since then, the Red has been unstoppable. Cornell has won nine of its last 11, with just shootout wins against then-No. 9 Quinnipiac and then-No. 10 St. Lawrence stopping a complete streak. Here are my nine takeaways from women’s hockey’s first half of the season, one for each win since the loss to Union.
- No Izzy?
NoSlight Problem
While this year’s offense ranks ninth nationally, it sits just fourth (out of twelve) in the high scoring ECAC and the drop off from 2023-2024 is worrying at first glance. Last year, the Red averaged about 3.7 goals per game thanks in large part to Daniel, the team’s leading scorer who accounted for almost 17 percent of Cornell’s goals. This year, the offense has taken a bit of a step back, averaging just 3.1 goals per game. The .6 goal per game drop off can be almost completely attributed to Daniel, who averaged .62 goals per game last season.
However, this year’s offense is currently in a better place than the numbers suggest. After averaging just 1.6 goals in its opening five games, Cornell has averaged 3.8 goals per game, which would put Cornell fifth in the nation. This huge difference in play brings me to takeaway number two…
- The Red’s Rust Is Gone
While Mercyhurst is not a particularly great defensive team – giving up 2.1 goals per game, 16th best in the nation out of the 44 Division I programs – when Cornell played the Lakers to open up its season, the Red scored just one goal. There are a plethora of explanations for this, but the biggest is pretty simple: Cornell was rusty.
While the weekend served as Mercyhurst’s seventh and eighth games of the season, they were just the first and second for Cornell. With the loss of Daniel, the offense needed time to sort itself out and find its rhythm. Even head coach Doug Derraugh ’91, not one to make excuses for poor play, pointed to the Red’s lack of games played when I asked him about the struggle to find the back of the net during the 0-1-1 opening weekend.
“You always start behind the ball [when] starting against teams that have already played six games. I would say it would have been a concern if we hadn’t put 85 shots on net over the weekend,” Derraugh said.
The next weekend, Cornell picked up its first win of the season, an impressive 2-0 effort against then-No. 12 Penn State in the first game of the weekend tournament, then dropped the final against the reigning champion Ohio State, 7-3. The game was closer than the score indicated, with the Red trailing by just a goal late in the second period before collapsing in the third.
Cornell’s other early loss, the historic flop against Union, is a bit tougher to excuse. Simply put, the Red just had an off day. I thought the Red looked like the better team for most of the afternoon, but could not find the back of the net until midway through the second period. Instead, Cornell committed multiple frustrating errors, capped off by a misplay from sophomore goaltender Annelies Bergmann that awarded the Garnet Chargers an unearned goal.
Derraugh used the phrase “shot ourselves in the foot” to describe the performance. Interestingly, when I asked him what went wrong, he declined to criticize the team’s defensive effort, despite giving up three goals to a Union team that averages 2.1 per game.
So to recap, the Red went 1-3-1 in the first five games of the season. However, the circumstances surrounding the poor start indicate that these games don’t reflect the current state or abilities of the team.
- The Defense Is Back
Last season the Red’s defense was excellent, allowing the ninth fewest goals per game in the nation. This year? Cornell’s defense is fifth best and has shaved .3 goals allowed per game off last year’s already impressive 1.9.
Plus, since cherry picking stats is already becoming a bit of a theme in this article, if you take out the outlying 7-3 loss to Ohio State, the Red’s goals per game drops to roughly 1.2, which would rank third in the country. There are three main explanations for this season’s elite defensive performance: 1) All defenders from last year’s team returned, 2) freshman defender Rose Dwyer has made an immediate impact, 3) Bergmann is on fire.
- Run it Back!
Outside of Daniel, last year’s two other seniors saw action in just six and 14 games. This year’s squad returns an impressive 23 skaters, including 11 seniors and seven juniors, so it’s not surprising that such an experienced team has been able to continue its success. While multiple skaters have stepped up on offense, the defensive consistency that allowed Cornell to be an NCAA Tournament team last season has only improved.
Along with Bergmann, senior defenders Rory Guilday and Ashley Messier and junior defender Grace Dwyer were named to their respective nation’s national teams for the 2024 Six Nations Cup in December, a testament to Cornell’s defensive firepower (junior forward Avi Adam was also selected).
- This Year’s Freshman: Small in Number, but Big in Impact
It’s not just upperclassmen who have been making a big difference on the ice. Two of the three incoming freshmen have shined thus far this season. On the defensive end, Rose Dwyer has immediately made a big impact for Cornell. The younger Dwyer impressively started conference play as a member of the top defensive pair alongside her sister Grace, leapfrogging multiple seasoned Red defenders. Tied for third-tallest on the team at 5′ 10”, her strength has helped her excel in the physical world of college hockey.
On the offensive end, the class of 2028 is also making a statement. Forward Lindzi Avar has been a revelation for Cornell, with her six goals tied for second on the team. The former Ms. Hockey Minnesota finalist has instantly become a fan favorite, scoring a hat trick in her second ever game at Lynah Rink and posting seven points in the team’s five home games thus far.
While not a freshman, sophomore forward Delaney Fleming has been a huge addition to Derraugh’s roster. The Ohio State transfer notched just two assists last season on the path to winning a national championship and took some time to settle into Cornell’s style of play, posting just two points in her first eight games wearing a Cornell sweater. Since then, Fleming has been on a heater, with three goals and three assists in her last eight games. Fleming is just the second transfer to come through the program during Derraugh’s 18-year tenure, and is a reminder of what the Ivy League often is missing out on when it comes to the transfer portal.
- When Bergmann Gets Rolling, This Team is Scary
The final reason the Cornell defense has returned to form is its netminder, Bergmann. After winning Ivy League rookie of the year and being named to the ECAC Hockey All-Rookie Team in her freshman year, Bergmann looked to begin the 2024-2025 season right where she left off. Instead, like the rest of the team, Bergmann looked rusty to start the year, giving up a career high seven goals to Ohio State and making a crucial misplay in the loss to Union. Since that loss, Bergmann has been among the best in the country.
Bergmann currently sits seventh in the nation in goals allowed per game, averaging 1.56, but incredibly she has given up just 1.2 goals per game across the team’s 11-game undefeated streak. Impressively, Bergmann allowed more than two goals just once in regulation over that stretch, in a 4-3 win against Princeton. So far this season Bergmann has already surpassed her shutout total of four from the year before, she notched her sixth with an 18 save effort on the road against No. 6 Clarkson.
- The Impact of Cornell Women’s Hockey Reaches far Beyond Cayuga’s Waters
Jessica Campbell ’14 — the first female coach on a bench in the NHL — is unsurprisingly killing it for the Kraken. Daniel has two goals and an assist in her first seven games in the PWHL, making her surprising fall in the draft seem foolish. Micah Zandee-Hart ’20, captain of the New York Sirens, has six points in seven games. Alongside Daniel and Zandee-Hart, six other Cornelliens are rostered in the PWHL and current Cornell skaters such as Guilday, Messier and senior forward Lily Delianedis have been listed on 2025 PWHL draft watch lists. As mentioned above, five Cornellians were called up to represent their countries in the Six Nations Tournament in Finland, with three winning gold for the United States and two winning silver with Canada. Most recently highlighted by Campbell’s historic breakthrough, Cornell continues to have an impressive impact on the hockey world at-large.
- The Path to an ECAC Title Is Open
Last season Cornell was consistently a top 10 team in the country on both sides of the puck and featured the best player in the nation. Yet the Red finished the regular season fourth in the ECAC, despite losing just five times in regular season conference play.
This season, it’s shaping up to be a similar story, with the possibility of a different ending. The same five teams (Cornell, Colgate, St. Lawrence, Clarkson and Quinnipiac) entered 2025 battling for the ECAC regular season championship, with the Red sitting second to start the new year.
The start to the second half of the season looked formidable, with a trip to the North Country to battle Clarkson and St. Lawrence followed by a two-game weekend against Colgate.
However, Cornell made a statement on the road, shutting out Clarkson’s offense which entered the weekend second in the nation en route to a 3-0 win, before tying St. Lawrence 2-2. The 4.5 point weekend brought Cornell even with Colgate atop the ECAC standings after the Raiders fell to St. Lawrence.
- The Ghost of Class of 1965 Arena Past
Speaking of Colgate, next weekend’s annual home-and-home matchup with the Raiders may be the most important of Cornell’s season. Colgate was last year’s team’s kryptonite, defeating the Red four times, including in the ECAC Tournament semifinals and the NCAA Tournament quarterfinal. In fact, Cornell has just one win in its last nine against Colgate, a disappointing run stretching back to the 2021-2022 season.
While impressive, this year’s Raider team is not quite the juggernaut of years past, losing 2024 second team All-American forward Danielle Serdachny and head coach Greg Fargo to the PWHL. While Colgate’s offense has continued to thrive without Serdachny, the loss of Fargo might explain why Colgate’s defense is allowing .7 more goals per game than last season.
Last year’s home-and-home sweep was the worst weekend of the season for Cornell, dooming the Red’s chances of hosting the ECAC tournament and an NCAA Tournament region. If the Red can force a split next weekend and take care of business in conference play against what on paper are lesser opponents, Cornell has a real chance of winning its first regular season ECAC title since 2020. I’ll end this mid-season review the same way I ended my season preview: “Just like last year, if Cornell can get by Colgate, anything is possible.”