Harvard-Dartmouth Trip Up Next for No. 11 Princeton

Friday, January 12

Hanover, N.H.

6:00 PM

Princeton University

Dartmouth

Photo by: Shelley M. Szwast

Harvard-Dartmouth Trip Up Next for No. 11 Princeton

January 09, 2024 | Women's Ice Hockey

Coming off the team's Friendship Series win, the No. 11-ranked Tigers will head to Dartmouth and Harvard to resume the ECAC Hockey season Friday and Saturday.

at Dartmouth, Fri., 6 p.m. | ESPN+ | Int'l Video | Live Stats
at Harvard, Sat., 3 p.m. | ESPN+ | TSN+ (Canada) | Int'l Video | Live Stats

In the Rankings: Princeton jumped up a spot in the latest USCHO and USA Hockey/The Rink Live national rankings, standing at No. 11 this week. ECAC Hockey continues to have seven teams ranked in the 15-team polls, in No. 4/4 Clarkson, No. 5/5 Colgate, No. 6/6 Quinnipiac, No. 8/9 Cornell, No. 10/10 St. Lawrence, No. 11/11 Princeton, and No. 14/14 Yale.

ECAC Hockey standings: Half of the league season is still to be played, and Princeton stands seventh in the league with 16 points. Princeton is three points clear of ninth-place Union to host a first-round single game, and the Tigers are seven points back of fourth-place Quinnipiac to get a first-round bye.

Fillier on Fire: Princeton won the Friendship Series in Belfast last weekend, 6-1 and 2-1 over Providence, in no small part to the efforts of Sarah Fillier, who had a point on six of the eight goals on the weekend with two goals and four assists. That helped net Fillier the honor as the Player of the Game for game two (scored first goal, assisted on second in 2-1 win), Player of the Tournament, and ECAC Hockey Forward of the Week. Fillier has 12 points over the last four games on seven goals and five assists. Princeton went 3-1 in those games with wins over LIU, Providence (two) and an OT loss to Quinnipiac.

Team Effort: Princeton is up to 15 different goal scorers this season with Sarah Fillier's 16 goals leading the way and Issy Wunder (8G/17A/25P), Fillier (16G/9A/25P), Emerson O'Leary (5G/13A/18P), Sarah Paul (12G/5A/17P), Jane Kuehl (6G/5A/11P) and Annie Kuehl (3G/8A/11P) 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 13 assists and 18 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 12-5-17 already this season. Sophomore Jane Kuehl has surpassed all three stats from last year, with 3-4-7 in 2022-23 and 6-5-11 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.

Points for Kim: Rookie defender Gabby Kim has scored five of her season's eight points over the last four games, with her first career goal coming in the first Providence games and four assists across the four games.

Fillier Climbs the Charts: Here's an update on where Sarah Fillier, the reigning ECAC Hockey Forward of the Week, stands on Princeton's career points, goals, and assists list:

Points: Fillier stands tied for fourth, with 176. She's the program's highest-scoring player of the 21st century, is 24 points from becoming the fourth player in program history (first since 1995) to reach 200 points, and is 31 points out of a third-place tie.

Goals: With 79 goals, Fillier is eighth-most and eight out of a tie for seventh (87). To become the highest-scoring Tiger of this century, Fillier would need 17 more goals to pass former teammate Carly Bullock '20 (95).

Assists: At 97 career assists, Fillier is now alone 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 99-63-18, Head coach Cara Morey is in her seventh overall year and sixth competitive season (2020-21 lost to the pandemic) leading the program. Her 99 career wins are second-most in program history to predecessor Jeff Kampersal '92 (327). With one more win, Morey would become 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 series with Dartmouth 53-32-6 all-time, but the Big Green lead 20-14 in Hanover. Princeton has won the last 11 games overall in the series and the last six in Hanover, with Dartmouth's last win both at home and overall coming in Nov. 2016 in Hanover. Harvard leads the all-time series 53-38-6 overall and 32-18-2 at home. Princeton has won the last three games against the Crimson, with Harvard's last win overall and at home coming during the 2022 ECAC Hockey quarterfinal series, which Princeton won in three games. If Princeton wins on Saturday, the four-game win streak would be Princeton's longest against the Crimson since an eight-game win streak to begin the series that lasted from its inception in 1980 through 1984.

On Dartmouth: Head coach Liz Keady Norton is a 2008 Princeton alumna, scoring 79 points on 38 goals and 41 assists as a Tiger and captaining the team as a senior. As a sophomore, Keady Norton was an All-ECAC Hockey honorable mention and a second-team All-Ivy pick. The Big Green will be looking to snap a 10-game ECAC Hockey winless skid since opening the league season with a win over Harvard on Oct. 13. Dartmouth has lost its last eight in the league since an Oct. 21 tie against Union. Shae Messner and Cally Dixon co-lead the team with seven goals apiece, and Jenna Donohue has a team-best 18 goals. Eleanor Rogers has played almost all of the minutes in goal, holding a 4.37 GAA.

On Harvard: Though carrying a 3-12-1 overall record and 1-9-1 in ECAC Hockey, Harvard has won two of its last three, including a 1-0 win over then-No. 8 St. Lawrence on Dec. 1 in its last ECAC Hockey weekend before the finals/holiday break. The team was a 2-1 winner over Sacred Heart in its first post-break game on Jan. 2. Gwyn Lapp leads the team's 11 goal scorers with seven goals, and Lapp leads the 16 point scorers with 10 points. Alex Pellicci has played most of the minutes in goal, holding a 3.45 GAA.

Stat Rankings: Princeton's .575 faceoff winning percentage stands third in the nation, the 19 power-play goals stand seventh, the .257 power-play percentage stands eighth, the 3.39 goals per game stands eighth, and the +1.06 scoring margin stands 10th. Sarah Fillier ranks second in the nation in goals per game at 1.07, fourth in power-play goals with seven and sixth in points per game at 1.67. Sarah Paul's four game-winning goals are fourth and her five power-play goals are sixth.

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.