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After beating Princeton 1-0 on its home ice at Bright Landry, the Harvard men’s hockey team (6-10-6) will head to Ithaca this weekend to compete for a spot in the ECAC semifinals, which are set to be held at Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, N.Y. The Crimson, ranked No. 8 in the ECAC playoffs, will play in a best-of-three series against No. 2 ECAC-ranked Cornell (12-6-4). Coming off of impressive regular season play, Cornell — who is ranked 15th nationally — earned the No. 2 ECAC ranking in the postseason tournament, which afforded the Big Red Bears a brief reprieve from competition with a first round bye.

During the regular season, the Crimson and Cornell split their series with each team dominating on the road. The Crimson won 3-2 in the first matchup of the season back in November, and Cornell shut out the Crimson at Bright Landry, winning 2-0 at the end of January.

Historically, the two teams have only met twice in the postseason in the last ten years, and their matchup this weekend will be just the sixth time the two teams have met in a best-of-three series in the quarterfinals. Last year, the two teams met in the semifinals, where Harvard came out on top with an overtime victory that catapulted it to the ECAC finals for the second year in a row. The last best-of-three series was in 2011, and resulted in a decisive Cornell 2-0 sweep. The Crimson will hope to capitalize on its 2023 tournament momentum, and avenge its January loss.

The rest of the ECAC bracket is stacked with competitive matchups, with No. 12 RPI facing off against No. 1 Quinnipiac, No. 7 Saint Lawrence battling at No. 3 Colgate, and No. 6 Union hoping to topple Ivy League foe, No. 4 Dartmouth. Head Coach Ted Donato’s team will need to play fiercely for a chance at finding success against both Cornell and these other programs.

The first game of the series will commence with a 7:00pm EST puck drop tonight at Lynah Rink, with the second game taking place tomorrow at 7:00pm EST. If needed, the tie-breaking game is set to start on Sunday at 4:00pm EST. All three games will be streamed on ESPN+.
—Staff writer Tommy Branca can be reached at tommy.branca@thecrimson.com