Look for the faces of the three most important players at this weekend’s ECAC men’s hockey championship, and you won’t see them.

They’ll all be wearing masks.

“This is a very exciting weekend,” said Harvard sophomore goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris. “Goaltenders have so much to do with a team’s success during the playoffs.”

It is particularly true in the ECAC.

“This league has a lot of strong goaltending,” Grumet-Morris said.

That is a bit of an understatement.

The top three save percentages in the country all belong to ECAC goaltenders, so it is no surprise that all three have advanced to Friday’s semifinals at the Pepsi Arena in Albany, N.Y.

Cornell sophomore David LeNeveu leads the pack with a .943 save percentage, while Grumet-Morris and Brown junior Yann Danis are second and third with .930 and .929 percentages.

After splitting time in goal last season, LeNeveu has emerged as the top goaltender in the country this year. His 1.14 goals against average is a full goal per game better than his nearest competitor, while his eight shutouts broke the single-season record at Cornell previously held by Montreal Canadiens legend Ken Dryden.

In 27 games this season, LeNeveu has posted a 24-2-1 record and surrendered three or more goals on only two occasions—Nov. 16 to Dartmouth and Feb. 15 to No. 12 Harvard.

“Cornell is almost in a world of its own,” said Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni. “But we’ve been able to generate offense against BU, Maine and BC—and those teams all play good defense.”

Although LeNeveu is the focal point, the No. 2 Big Red is known for its team defense.

“We are a good defensive team, but we are not Cornell,” Mazzoleni said. “We don’t play that game. We play a much more offensive style.”

Given the Crimson’s reputation for putting the puck in the back of the net, it is somewhat of a shock to learn that Harvard has the nation’s second-ranked team defense, led by Grumet-Morris’ 2.19 GAA.

Both LeNeveu and Danis have received more attention than Grumet-Morris, but Harvard’s top goaltender has quietly built himself a reputation for consistency and playoff performance, at least among his coaches and teammates.