“Most of the challenge besides Yann Danis is to get to the net,” he said. “They play very, very good team defense. If you’re not taking away his eyes and getting second-chance scoring opportunities, I don’t think your possibilities for success are going to be very good.

“You have to get to the net away from the puck,” he continued. “You’re not going to beat [Danis] with a lot of first-chance scoring opportunities. And that’s something they do well. They limit your ability to get second-chance opportunities.”

Something else Brown does well is play its best hockey at home; this season alone the Bears are 8-3-2 in Meehan, and over the last three season the Bears have gone 26-9-8 on their home ice, meaning Harvard will have its work cut out for it if it wants to take 2a best-of-three series on the road.

“It’s going to be playoff hockey at its finest,” Mazzoleni said. “I think it’s going to be an outstanding series, an outstanding series. We’re going to have to play extremely hard to beat them.”

Grillo agreed: “Our guys are looking forward to it. It’s going to be a great college hockey weekend.”

The ECAC reached an agreement to televise part of the league playoffs on the cable network CN8. The first telecast will be tonight at Brown, with a 7:30 p.m. start. The game may also be viewed via webcast at www.cn8.tv.

—Staff writer Timothy M. McDonald can be reached at tmcdonal@harvard.edu.