↑ St. Michael's – The Purple Knights did not win a game last season, going 0-35-1. They won their fourth game of the season on Friday, defeating Sacred Heart, who is fighting with LIU to win the NEWHA regular season title. St. Michael's also pushed LIU to overtime in both games of their series a week ago, meaning the conference's last place team has been the one affecting the standings at the top of the table in the final weeks of the season. You can see they team has put in the work and improved so much already this season. With 11 freshman on the roster, the foundation is being laid on the possibilities seem huge.
↓ Minnesota – After a weekend split with #2 Ohio State last weekend, the Gophers hit a wall in Madison this weekend, losing to their border rivals, #1 Wisconsin 8-2 and 6-1. The Badgers swept the season series for just the second time in program history. Additionally, the Gophers' NPI lead over Cornell is just .110.
↑ Milestones – Wisconsin's Casey O'Brien earned her 250th career point on Sunday. Colgate's Alexis Petford reached 100 points on Saturday. Anna Bargman scored her 50th career goal with Yale on Friday.
↓ Colgate – The Raiders dropped a game to RPI on Saturday, their first loss to the Engineers in 17 games, dating back to February, 2015. They are now 3.5 points behind Cornell at the top of the ECAC with just two games left in the regular season. Both teams are hosting Yale and Brown this weekend to close out the year.
↑ Olympic qualification – Congratulations to Germany, Sweden and Japan who all punched their ticket to the 2026 Winter Olympics by winning their group qualifications this weekend. France has a chance to make their first-ever Olympics as they await the IOC's decision on whether or not Russia will be allowed to participate. If not, France's results have them in line to take the spot.
↓ Different playoff formats and point structures – I do this for a living and today I had to make a cheat sheet for each conference's tournament format and frankly, it's all a bit nuts. Single-elimination one round, best-of-three the next, back to single-elimination? It's all very unnecessarily convoluted and confusing.
↑ Goalie of the Year semifinalists – Congratulations to Cornell's Annelies Bergman, Connecticut's Tia Chan, Penn State's Katie DeSa, Quinnipiac's Kayle Doyle, Minnesota Duluth's Ève Gascon, Northeastern's Lisa Jönsson, Wisconsin's Ava McNaughton, Colgate's Hannah Murphy and St. Lawrence's Emma-Sofie Nordström on being named semifinalists for the Women’s Hockey Commissioners Association Goalie of the Year Award.
(Photo: Tony Schnagl)
