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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
Cornell
No. 12 Princeton to Host Pair of Top-10 Opponents This Weekend
January 17, 2024 | Women's Ice Hockey
A pair of top-10 opponents, in No. 8/8 Cornell and No. 4/5 Colgate, will come to Baker Rink on Friday and Saturday to face the No. 12/12-ranked Princeton women's hockey team as part of another big ECAC Hockey weekend.
vs. Cornell, Fri., 6 p.m. | ESPN+ | Int'l Video | Live Stats | Tickets | Game Program | Fan Information | Pride Night
vs. Colgate, Sat., 3 p.m. | ESPN+ (USA) | TSN+ (Canada) | Int'l Video | Live Stats | Tickets | Game Program | Fan Information | Salute to Service (click to visit Vet Tix)
In the Rankings: Princeton stands No. 12 in the latest USCHO and No. 11 in the latest USA Hockey/The Rink Live national rankings. ECAC Hockey continues to have seven teams ranked in the 15-team polls, in No. 3/3 Clarkson, No. 4/5 Colgate, No. 6/6 Quinnipiac, No. 8/8 Cornell, No. 10/10 St. Lawrence, No. 12/12 Princeton, and No. 14/14 Yale.
ECAC Hockey standings: Just past the halfway point of the season, Princeton stands sixth in ECAC Hockey with 20.5 points. St. Lawrence is in fourth with the last first-round bye at 28 points and Brown is in eighth with the last first-round hosting spot at 13.5 points. Colgate leads the league at 33 points and Cornell is fifth at 23.
Fillier on Fire: Sarah Fillier entered the week leading the nation in goals per game at 1.06 while also standing fourth in power-play goals (seven) and fifth in points per game (1.65). Colgate's Kristyna Kaltounkova is fifth at 0.88 goals per game and third at 1.88 points per game. Cornell's Izzy Daniel is second at 1.95 points per game. Over the past nine games, Fillier has 13 goals and seven assists for 20 points.
Team Effort: Princeton is up to 15 different goal scorers this season with Sarah Fillier's 18 goals leading the way and Issy Wunder (8G/17A/25P), Fillier (18G/10A/28P), Emerson O'Leary (5G/14A/19P), Sarah Paul (12G/6A/18P), Jane Kuehl (6G/6A/12P) and Annie Kuehl (5G/8A/13P) all with 10-plus points. Already, 20 Tigers have scored a point, the most in a season for the team since the 2021-22 season, also when 20 players had a point. Among Princeton's leading scorers, Wunder, a sophomore with 25 points, has already surpassed her rookie-year point total of 18, fueled by 17 assists that have almost doubled her nine from last year. Sophomore O'Leary has followed the same path, with 14 assists and 19 points outdoing her four helpers and 11 points from last year. Sophomore Paul has bettered her totals in goals, assists and points, with 2-3-5 last season and 12-6-18 already this season. Sophomore Jane Kuehl has surpassed all three stats from last year, with 3-4-7 in 2022-23 and 6-6-12 this year. Among rookies, a blueliner leads the scorers, with Gabby Kim getting her first career goal in Belfast and adding seven assists on the season to stand at eight points.
Fillier Climbs the Charts: Here's an update on where Sarah Fillier stands on Princeton's career points, goals, and assists list:
Points: Fillier stands fourth, with 179. She's the program's highest-scoring player of the 21st century, is 21 points from becoming the fourth player in program history (first since 1995) to reach 200 points, and is 28 points out of a third-place tie.
Goals: With 81 goals, Fillier eighth and sixth out of a tie for seventh (87). To become the highest-scoring Tiger of this century, Fillier would need 15 more goals to pass former teammate Carly Bullock '20 (95).
Assists: At 98 career assists, Fillier is in second place, behind only record holder Katherine Issel '95 (122). Only one player in Princeton men's program history, John Messuri '89 (118), has as many assists as Fillier.
Fillier with Team Canada: Senior Sarah Fillier won an Olympic gold medal with Canada at the 2022 Olympic Games, returning Canada to the top of the podium for the first time since the 2014 Games after the U.S. won in 2018. At the 2022 Games, Fillier scored eight goals to stand second among Canadians as well as among all players in the tournament, and she had 11 points to stand sixth, again both among all players and Canadians. Fillier is a three-time IIHF Women's World Championship medalist, winning gold in 2021 in Calgary, gold in 2022 in Denmark and silver in 2023 in Brampton, Ont.
The Staff: At 100-63-19, Head coach Cara Morey is in her seventh overall year and sixth competitive season (2020-21 lost to the pandemic) leading the program. Her 100 career wins are second-most in program history to predecessor Jeff Kampersal '92 (327). Last Saturday at Harvard, Morey became the second Princeton women's hockey coach and sixth hockey coach between the men's and women's programs to reach 100 wins. The four men's coaches who have reached 100 are Richard Vaughan (158 from 1935-59), Jim Higgins (130 from 1977-91), Don Cahoon (122 from 1991-2000), and Guy Gadowsky (105 from 2004-11). Along with Dan Gould, who returns and coaches the goaltenders, Morey has two new assistant coaches in Jamie Lundmark, who played professionally from 2001-18 including parts of six seasons in the NHL with the Rangers, Coyotes, Flames, Kings and Maple Leafs, and Melissa Samoskevich, who stands among the highest-scoring players in Quinnipiac history after graduating in 2019.
Series History: Princeton leads the all-time series with Cornell 49-43-7 overall and 22-18-5 in Baker Rink. Princeton's 4-3 win on Nov. 18 in Ithaca broke a five-game (0-3-2) unbeaten streak for Cornell in the series since Princeton's last win, in the 2020 ECAC Hockey tournament final. In Princeton, Cornell is unbeaten in the last four (0-2-2) since the Tigers' last home win over Cornell in 2018. Princeton leads Colgate 32-16-5 all-time and 18-7-1 at Baker. Princeton is looking to break a three-game skid in the series since Princeton's last win, in last season's ECAC Hockey quarterfinal series opener. In Princeton, Colgate has won the last two, with Princeton's last home win over the Raiders coming in 2019.
On Cornell: The Big Red are 13-5-1 overall and 8-4-0 in ECAC Hockey and are coming off being swept last weekend by travel partner Colgate in a home-and-home series. Izzy Daniel leads the team with 14 goals and 23 assists for 37 points, tops on the team in all three categories. Annelies Bergmann has played most of the minutes in goal with a 2.04 GAA. Cornell stands seventh in goals per game (3.47), seventh in scoring margin (1.37), and ninth on the PK (.877). Izzy Daniel leads the nation in assists per game (1.21) and second in points per game (1.95).
On Colgate: The Raiders are 20-3-1 overall and 11-1-0 in ECAC Hockey and are riding a three-game win streak since the team's lone league loss, to Clarkson on Jan. 6. Kristyna Kaltounkova leads the team with 21 goals and 45 points, and her 24 assists are just a point short of the team lead held by Danielle Serdachny at 25. Serdachny and Sarah Fillier were teammates with Canada at the 2023 IIHF Women's World Championship outside Toronto, winning silver. Kayle Osborne has played most of the minutes in goal, holding a 1.33 GAA. Colgate boasts the nation's best power play at .370 and with a nation-best 34 power-play goals. The team is also leads the nation in goals (123) and assists (220), is second in goals per game (5.13) and scoring margin (3.79), third in scoring defense (1.33), third in GAA (1.326), fourth on the PK (.899) and sixth in faceoff winning percentage (.556). Kaltounkova leads the nation in power-play goals (11), Serdachny is fifth in assists per game (1.04) while Kaltounkova is seventh (1.00), and Osborne is eighth in GAA (1.329).
Stat Rankings: Princeton is fourth in the nation in faceoff winning percentage (.570), seventh in power-play goals (20), ninth in scoring margin (1.10), ninth in goals per game (3.30), 10th in assists (106), 10th in power-play percentage (.238), and 10th in team points (172). Sarah Fillier leads the nation in goals per game (1.06), fourth in power-play goals (seven), and fifth in points per game (1.65). Sarah Paul is fifth with four game-winning goals and eighth with five power-play goals, and Jennifer Olnowich is ninth with an .833 winning percentage in goal.
Against the top 10: Princeton's Nov. 18 win over then-No. 6-ranked Cornell was the 16th win over a top-10 team under Cara Morey, who is in her sixth competitive season as the team's head coach. It was Princeton's third top-six win of calendar year 2023, as the Tigers beat No. 4 Quinnipiac on Jan. 23 at Baker Rink and No. 3 Colgate to open the ECAC Hockey Quarterfinals on Feb. 24 in Hamilton.
The Ivy title: The Ivy title is looking like a three-team race between Yale (5-1-0, 15 points), Princeton (4-1-2, 15 points) and Cornell (5-4-1, 12 points). If Princeton wins all three of its remaining Ivy games (Cornell this weekend, Yale and Brown next weekend), Princeton would clinch a share of its first Ivy title since 2019 as no other team could get more than 24 points.
