India McDadi, Jade Iginla, Gali Levy, and formed the nucleus of a transformative class that significantly raised Brown's profile. Thank you, seniors! Photo credit to Friend of the Blog Cier.

I sat down to write a weekend recap on Monday morning and then left the Google doc open for three days without writing anything. Oops! Now this is a recap AND a preview.

This weekend will mark the last home games of Brendan Whittet’s 17-year tenure as head coach of the Brown men’s hockey team as he steps down to focus on a family medical issue. We’ll have a longer postmortem article ready at some point over the next week, but for now, we want to thank Coach for his tireless dedication to the program over the years. No one is a bigger fan, devotee, and lifer of Brown Hockey than Brendan. As the Bears host Ivy rivals Harvard and #7 Dartmouth, we’ll hope for an upset or two, which would be a fitting note to send the venerable coach out on.

Before we get to that, though, let’s take a look at how each team did this past weekend.

Last Week

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Brown’s rough patch has (d)evolved into a season of joyless losing, as the team has unraveled over the past two and a half months after a reasonably good start to the season. This time, they were absolutely dominated by #9 Quinnipiac in a game that was over several minutes in, 9-1. On Saturday, they fell to Princeton, 5-3, in a much closer game that fell apart.

The Bobcats are maybe the hottest team in the country at the moment, and they beat Yale 8-0 the following night, so sometimes you just have to tip your cap. But the results were simply two more data points in Brown’s season-long inability to string together good play away from Meehan Auditorium. They’re now 0-14-0 on the road this year. Their 4-5-1 record at home this year seems (to me, anyway) to be more indicative of the team’s talent level; if they’d even won a handful of those road games, they could be in a home ice playoff position right now in the ECAC standings.

But, alas, the road woes have torpedoed the season. It doesn’t help that Brown has played four more away games than home to date, but regardless, the returns on the season have been disappointing despite an interesting mix of talent on the front and back end, and (mostly) steady play in net from Tyler Shea.

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The Brown women’s team continued their winning ways, sweeping St. Lawrence (3-2) and #12 Clarkson (4-1) at home to improve to 16-10-2 overall, jump into fourth/fifth place in the ECAC standings, and clinch at least a first-round home game in the conference tournament. They’ll have the opportunity to clinch a first-round bye with either a pair of wins or a combination of other results this weekend as they travel to face #7 Quinnipiac and #8 Princeton.

The Bears have now won four games in a row, breaking out of a 1-3-1 slump that had put them dangerously close to the home-ice cut line in the standings. Twelve points later, they sit comfortably in the top half of the standings with the chance to earn a first-round bye if results around the conference shake out in their favor this weekend.

And make no mistake about it: this isn’t some fluke run. Brown was very convincing this weekend, particularly against Clarkson, dominating the Golden Knights in all three zones and on special teams, winning the possession battle (61-41 in shot attempts) and converting on some chances off the rush, as well.

Jade Iginla put on a show for Senior Day against Clarkson, scoring two goals, adding an assist, and ringing the crossbar on a late attempt at finishing the hat trick. It was great to see her dad, NHL Hall of Famer Jarome Iginla, at Meehan to celebrate her terrific career.

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This Week

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Brown really struggled with Harvard and #7 Dartmouth in December, falling 7-3 on back-to-back nights at their New England Ivy rivals’ home rinks. The lone bright spot of the weekend was Andrew King scoring a hat trick in his first game of the season against the Big Green.

Entering this weekend series at Meehan, the hope here is that the Bears can rally around their departing head coach and demonstrate some of the skill and fight that they’ve displayed at home this season. While they don’t have a signature win at home (an early victory over Princeton is by far the best on the resume), Brown hasn’t lost a home game by more than two goals and has played three top-10 teams closely: a 4-3 overtime loss to #9 Quinnipiac, a 4-2 loss with an empty net goal to #6 Providence, and a 4-2 loss to #8 Cornell.

They’ll need things to go close to perfectly to upset talented Crimson and Big Green teams. Harvard is coming off a thorough 4-1 victory over Northeastern in the Beanpot consolation game on Monday, and hasn’t lost to a team ranked lower than them in the NPI since early January. They’ve been in and out of the top-20 all season and currently find themselves at 23.

Dartmouth, on the other hand, rode an electric 11-0-0 start to lock down top-10 position in the NPI that has held up as they weathered the storm during a midseason funk. They have since rebounded, going 5-2-1 in their past eight games and climb back into the two-seed range in terms of NCAA Tournament seeding. The Green have elite scorers at the top of the lineup, a strong defensive unit that chips in offensively, and get very good goaltending from Emmett Croteau (although they inexplicably tend to rotate him with Roan Clarke, whose save percentage is a full 40 points lower).

Can senior co-captain Ryan St. Louis help the Bears play spoiler and send Brendan Whittet out on top? Photo credit to Friend of the Blog Paul Chaunt.

Brown will need a gargantuan effort to knock off Dartmouth. As Brendan Whittet says goodbye to his beloved program, he’ll have a poetic ending against the school where he served as an assistant coach for about a decade prior to landing the head coaching position at Brown.

WIH

Brown upset Quinnipiac in October in a thrilling goalie duel (if you’re into that sort of thing). India McDadi’s power play strike in the third period stood as the lone goal for either team, and the Bears knocked off the Bobcats to make an early statement and gain entry to the USCHO rankings for the first time this season.

Quinnipiac has since proven to be one of the steadiest teams in the ECAC, with the lone blemish on its schedule as far as “bad” losses came at St. Lawrence two weeks ago — and the Saints are much better than their record would indicate. At 22-7-3 and checking in at #7 in the NPI, Quinnipiac is almost a lock for the NCAA Tournament, although a loss to Brown may land them in some murkier waters.

On the other hand, Princeton has surged to the top of the ECAC standings after entering the season with fairly middling expectations. The Tigers’ elite top line and goaltending have carried them to a 20-7-0 record and the #8 position in the NPI, in addition to their top spot in the conference. Princeton dominated the first game between these two teams in October, winning 4-2 but heavily outshooting Brown and smothering them at 5-on-5.

Since then, the Tigers have only gotten better, ranking in the top 10 in possession (57%), team save percentage (.938), and top five in 5-on-5 goals for percentage (a whopping 71%). Make no mistake: this is a very dangerous team, and they’re 11-3-0 at home for a reason.

Brown will need to string together a pair of superb performances if they hope to knock off the Bobcats and Tigers this weekend. The reward for doing so is clear, however: a shot at a first-round bye in the ECAC Tournament would be a tremendous accomplishment for a program that seemed as though it had been left behind as recently as four or five years ago.

Next Up

This is a big weekend for both teams, as the men attempt to salvage some pride against their ancient rivals and send Coach Whittet out with a bang and the women face a pair of daunting opponents on the road in their quest for a first-round bye in the conference tournament. We’ll try to have coverage of games this weekend, but will likely be limited due to other events. In any case, get out to Meehan to support your Bears, and Go Bruno!

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