Tonight at 7 p.m., the Harvard women’s hockey team opens a best-of-three ECAC quarterfinal series against Cornell. Game two is tomorrow. Don’t expect a third game on Sunday.

The No. 1 Crimson (25-1-1, 15-0-1 ECAC) has already faced Cornell (4-19-2, 2-12-2) twice this year. Harvard crushed the Big Red 8-0 when the teams met in November. In last week’s contest, Cornell showed little improvement, losing only 7-1. The Crimson outshot the Big Red a combined 107-21 in the two games. Nonetheless, the Crimson skaters are wary.

“It should be a great series and we expect to have to play our best hockey this weekend,” freshman winger Julie Chu said. “It’s easy to look at past results and to see the success we have had. But all season long we’ve focused on preparing for the game at hand.”

Inadequate opposition is a problem the Crimson has faced all year. The Crimson has had seven games decided by a goal or less, in which its record is 5-1-1. In all its other contests, Harvard has won by at least three goals.

There are still lessons to learn this weekend.

“Every time we take the ice, there is an opportunity to improve and fine tune our team play,” Chu said. “Cornell might not be as competitive as a Brown or Dartmouth, but they are a tough team that is willing to be physical, so we know we’ll have to battle.”

The Crimson will do its best not to play down to the Big Red’s level.

“They key for this weekend is not to worry about who we’re playing against,” said sophomore winger Nicole Corriero. “It’s about making the opponents faceless and playing our game so that we can be ready for the big games down the road.”

There are extremely high expectations for this year’s squad.

One alumna, Tammy Shewchuk ’00-’01, said recently that given the way the team has played this year, it has no excuse not to win the national championship.

While Corriero did not necessarily disagree with Shewchuck, she took the former Crimson captain’s comment in stride.

“I don’t think a comment like that changes your perspective,” Corriero said. “We know that we’re contenders and if we play to our potential we can win [a championship].”

Assuming the Crimson defeats the Big Red, they will then travel to Brown for the ECAC semifinals and finals on Mar. 15-16. The NCAA Women’s Frozen Four takes place Mar. 21-23 in Duluth, Minn.

—Staff writer David A. Weinfeld can be reached at weinfeld@fas.harvard.edu.