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­While most of its ECAC opponents were competing in the first round of the conference tournament last weekend, the No. 2 Harvard men’s hockey team was enjoying a well-deserved bye week—its first week off since winter break gave the Crimson a four-week hiatus between games.

“I think the challenge is always trying to stay sharp,” Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91 said. “We went very hard when we did go, but I think we mixed in plenty of days off...I thought it was well-earned for the guys and we wanted to make sure they were rested and fresh.”

Among the teams in action was Yale (13-13-5, 7-11-4 ECAC), whose 2-0 sweep of Dartmouth earned the Bulldogs a best-of-three series this weekend at the Bright Landry Hockey Center. The two historic rivals will play games 255, 256, and—if needed—257 of their all-time series in what will be their fourth ECAC playoff meeting over the past six seasons.

In its most recent playoff clash with the Bulldogs, the visiting Crimson (22-5-2, 16-4-2) stole a double-overtime victory in Game 3 and bounced then-third seed Yale from the tournament as part of its 2015 ECAC championship run.

“I would put [that Game 3] up there...amongst [my] top most memorable moments,” Donato noted nostalgically. “The length of the series, the closeness of the games, all the emotions that were at stake…. Familiarity breeds contempt, as they say.”

By Sunday night, the teams will know which foe is headed to Lake Placid to vie among the ECAC’s final four for a Whitelaw Cup and an automatic NCAA tournament bid.

This weekend’s matchup was made possible in part by Princeton junior Eric Robinson, who scored a last-second goal with the Tigers on the brink of elimination in Game 2 of their first round series against Colgate. The strike forced overtime, and Princeton, after forcing a third game with an extra-frame winner, seized the deciding contest from the Raiders.

Because the Bulldogs finished behind the other three first-round victors, Princeton included, they head to Cambridge this weekend for a dance with the well-rested Crimson, owners of the top seed in the ECAC tournament for the first time since 1994.

“We tried to find a good balance, I think. We definitely got some rest days,” said co-captain Devin Tringale about the team’s bye week. “But we did put in some good work…. It wasn’t too much of a rest week, but we definitely were smart and are a little bit healthier because of it.”

Harvard has reached the ECAC finals in each of its past two campaigns, emerging victorious over Colgate in 2015, and looks to return to the big stage at Herb Brooks Arena once again. The Crimson owns a 10-4 overall record against the Elis in the tournament and an 8-1 mark when hosting the ECAC playoff matchup. But before this year, Harvard had not beat the Bulldogs during the regular season since 2012.

“In the past, [Yale] has had some really good defense and goaltending,” Tringale reflected. “I think that our strength and our depth allows us to infiltrate that a little more than we have been able to in the past. Having said that...when it’s Harvard-Yale, anything can happen.”

Concluding the campaign with a 10-game winning streak and over a month of unbeaten play, the Crimson finished the regular season with the NCAA’s highest winning percentage at .793 and posted a league-best goal margin of +57.

Harvard’s sheer dominance this season was further underscored when it swept the Ivy League end-of-season awards: sophomore forward Ryan Donato earned the Player of the Year accolade, freshman blue-liner Adam Fox received Rookie of the Year honors, and Donato was recognized as the Ivy League’s premier bench boss.

Co-captain Alexander Kerfoot and junior netminder Merrick Madsen joined in the ceremony of the Crimson’s regular season, as they earned spots alongside Donato and Fox on the All-Ivy first team.

“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