“It’s obviously a huge honor to...have the acknowledgement for having a good year,” Fox said. “That being said...the goal is to have success as a team and obviously win a national championship.”

Harvard and Yale faced off twice in the regular season, with the Crimson nabbing the most recent meeting, 4-2, at the Whale in mid-Feburary. Yale’s 1-1 draw with Harvard three weeks earlier marks the last time the Crimson left its own rink without two points—the only non-win in its past 12 games.

This tie seemed to be the tipping point of the season for Donato’s squad, as Harvard’s current win streak began on the heels of the overtime stalemate. Since then, the Crimson has outperformed its season averages in goals per game, goals against average, average goal margin, penalty kill percentage, and shots allowed per game.

During this five-week window, the Harvard’s 4.8 goals per game ranks best in the nation, and the team remains one of three unbeaten teams since its home matchup against Yale. In the same time frame during the regular season, the Bulldogs underwhelmed at 3-6-1, while their power play slowed to below 17 percent effective. Yale has yet to score a power-play goal this season against the Crimson.

“The first weekend we had after [a bit of a rut] was the Brown-Yale weekend,” remembered Tringale. “We’ve been rolling ever since. Definitely that weekend was one of the turning points in the season and something that we’ve been looking to build on ever since.”

Over the course of the full campaign, the Crimson’s top three scorers, Kerfoot, Donato, and senior forward Tyler Moy, all eclipsed the Bulldogs’ top point-getter, sophomore forward Joe Snively, who finished the regular season with 33. On the flipside, Yale senior John Hayden found the twine 19 times, more than any Crimson skater.

Harvard ended its regular season undefeated at the Bright, an auspicious omen since the superior seed hosts all three games in the ECAC’s quarterfinal series. In order to knock off the top-seeded Crimson, Yale must accomplish something not a single opponent has done all season by winning in Cambridge—not once, but twice.

“We’ve had plenty of this matchup, and I think that it’s always about much more than the records when you play this rivalry.” Donato said. “At this time of year, in order to advance, you have to beat very good hockey teams, and we understand that’s the task for us this weekend.”

As if a heated Ivy League rivalry and the ECAC tournament backdrop do not provide sufficient motivation, February 17’s showdown at Ingalls Rink was laced with post-whistle altercations and physical contact—legal or otherwise—suggesting that this weekend’s series should be intense from the first puck drop to the final horn.

—Staff writer Spencer R. Morris can be reached at spencer.morris@thecrimson.com