The Yale women’s hockey team came up with mixed results this weekend, as the Bulldogs extended their winning streak to five games with an overtime win at Dartmouth before falling decisively to Harvard the following night.
Coming off of four consecutive wins, all of which were against league rivals, the Elis (10–14–1, 9–8–1 ECAC Hockey) were on a tear heading into this weekend. Forward Jamie Haddad ’16 scored in overtime to keep that momentum going against Dartmouth (5–16–3, 5–10–3), but in Cambridge the winning streak would cease, as the Crimson (13–9–2, 10–6–2) rattled off three unanswered goals in the final two periods to hand the Bulldogs their first loss since Jan. 16.
“It’s nice to get the [two] points, but overall we didn’t play that well this weekend,” Haddad said. “It’s a little frustrating that this far along into the season we are still not executing as well as we want to and I think this weekend reminded us of that.”
The Bulldogs’ first game of the weekend was a rollercoaster ride, as Dartmouth erased Yale leads at two separate points during the contest. The first part of the back-and-forth action came in the first period, when an early goal from forward Hanna Åström ’16 was matched by a Big Green power-play score 12 minutes into the game.
Yale reclaimed the lead in the final minute of the period, when forward Krista Yip-Chuck ’17 assisted on a goal by defenseman Mallory Souliotis ’18, and further extended its advantage in the second with a goal from captain and forward Janelle Ferrara ’16, assisted by Staenz.
Two minutes later, Yale watched its lead shrink to one when it gave up the second power-play goal of the contest, and only a minute into the third period, another penalty again hampered the Elis, as the Big Green capitalized on its third power-play goal to knot the game at three in the final frame.
“Moving forward we want to avoid penalties, because special teams can be the determining factor between a win and a loss, especially in big games,” forward Brittany Wheeler ’18 said. “Hockey is a sport with contact and things happen, so it’s just about playing smart and avoiding those as best we can.”
Regular time ended with the game still tied, leaving a five-minute overtime to determine the victor. Three minutes in, forward Eden Murray ’18 created the first offensive chance for either team by forcing a turnover in the Dartmouth zone. She sent the puck behind the net to Yip-Chuck, who beat a defender and crisply slid the puck onto Haddad’s stick right in front of the goal. Haddad gave Dartmouth’s goalie no chance, as she slotted the puck into the top corner to silence Dartmouth’s crowd and win the game.
Yale’s contest against Harvard on Saturday also started out in back-and-forth fashion: Harvard started the scoring early in the first period before Staenz tied the game.
From there on out, however, it was all Harvard. The Crimson scored a second goal on another power play — the fourth power-play goal given up by Yale on the weekend — before tacking on another five minutes later. Late in the third period, Yale pulled goaltender Hanna Mandl ’17 while down 3–1, and Harvard added an empty-net goal to ice the game.
“We didn’t play our best hockey, and the outcome showed that,” Wheeler said. “Now we’re just focused on learning from that game and moving forward.”
The 1–1 weekend ended with the Bulldogs in seventh place in the ECAC standings. With only four games left in the regular season, Yale is still in line to gain a seat in the eight-team postseason.
But Yale players said they are not necessarily honing in on the standings, but rather on the caliber of their play.
“Heading into the final two weekends of the regular season, we are most focused on our own team play,” Yip-Chuck said. “We can only control what we can control, and that means playing Yale hockey for a full 60 minutes each game. If we do that, we feel that the results we want should follow and hopefully it pays dividends in the standings.”
Next weekend the Bulldogs return to Ingalls Rink to take on Colgate on Friday night and Cornell the following evening. The puck will drop at 7 p.m. on Friday and 4 p.m. on Saturday.