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Princeton University
Brown
Brown, Yale Ahead This Weekend for Princeton
November 02, 2022 | Women's Ice Hockey
No. 14/13 Princeton (0-2-0, 0-2-0 ECACH) at Brown (3-0-1, 2-0-0), Friday, 6 p.m. | ESPN+ | Int'l Video | Live Stats
Princeton at No. 8/8 Yale (2-0-0, 2-0-0), Saturday, 3 p.m. | ESPN+ | Int'l Video | Live Stats
TESTED FROM THE START
ECAC Hockey has five teams ranked in the top 10 of this week's DCU/USCHO.com and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine polls, and Princeton will face three of them over the first two weekends in Colgate and Cornell, last weekend's opponents, and No. 8/8 Yale, Saturday's opponent. Princeton is No. 14 in the DCU/USCHO.com poll and No. 13 in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine ranking.
THE SERIES WITH BROWN AND YALE
Princeton leads the all-time series 53-29-3 over Brown and is unbeaten in 22 straight against the Bears. A 2-2 tie last season ended a 21-game Princeton win streak in the series since Brown's last win, which came in 2010 in Princeton. Against Yale, Princeton leads 67-17-3, but the Bulldogs have won the last two to make it the first time Yale has won back-to-back games over Princeton since 2007-08. Yale last won three straight over Princeton in 2005. The Tigers' last win over Yale came early last season 2-0 in New Haven. Princeton faced Yale in last year's ECACH semifinal after becoming the first eighth seed to take a three-game ECACH tournament series from the top seed, defeating Harvard.
100 CAREER GAMES
Kayla Fillier reached 100 career games last weekend and Maggie Connors can do the same this weekend, entering the Brown-Yale trip at 98.Â
FAMILIAR FACE
Brown coach Melanie Ruzzi was an assistant coach at Princeton from 2018-20, culminating in the 2020 ECAC Hockey tournament title and NCAA bid. Along with getting the chance to be a head coach, Ruzzi's taking the Brown job brought her back to the city where she was an undergrad, at Providence College.
TOURNAMENT SUCCESS
Princeton made it to the ECAC semifinals for the third consecutive competitive season last winter, making some history in the process. Princeton became the first eighth seed to win a three-game series from the top-seeded team in the quarterfinals since the best-of-three quarterfinal format began in 2002. Princeton made the ECAC semis in 2019 and won it for the first time in 2020.
BETWEEN THE PIPES
Sophomore Jennifer Olnowich has played all but almost eight minutes in goal over the first two games, and rookie Taylor Hyland has played the other 7:40. It'll be the first time since the 2018-19 season, when Rachel McQuigge '22, then a sophomore, started the most of the minutes, that a freshman or sophomore started the majority of the minutes in goal for Princeton.
RETURNERS
Princeton brings back the scorers of 48 of the team's 58 goals from last season, led by Maggie Connors (13) and Annie Kuehl (10). Connors has 61 career goals, good for 14th in program history. A 20-goal season would lift her to eighth. One rookie has already had her first career goal, as Emerson O'Leary scored against Cornell.
NICE ADDITION
Back for her junior season is Sarah Fillier, who last played for Princeton in the 2019-20 season that ended due to the pandemic just before Princeton was due to open the NCAA tournament at Northeastern. In the meantime, Fillier helped Canada to two IIHF World Championships and Olympic gold. Fillier has 70 career assists, more than halfway to the program record of 122 (Katherine Issel '95, only Princeton player with 100 career assists), and 115 career points, more than halfway to the program record of 218 (Issel, one of three players with 200 career points).
Brown, at 3-0-1 overall and 2-0-0 in ECACH after a sweep of Dartmouth and Harvard last weekend, has seen seven players score a goal with rookie Jade Iginla, whose father Jarome Iginla played more than 1,500 games in the NHL, and sophomore Anna Hurd getting two apiece. Junior Kaley Doyle (2-0-1, 1.28 GAA) has played most of the minutes in goal. Yale, at 2-0-0 both overall and in the league, also swept Harvard and Dartmouth last weekend. Sophomore Pia Dukaric (2-0-0, 1.00 GAA) has played every minute in goal. Four players have split the goals with rookies Carina DiAntonio and Jordan Ray at two apiece.
