The ECAC is perhaps the NCAA's deepest conference in women's hockey, which creates a number of interesting game, and even more burning questions.
The ECAC is deep and talented this season with six teams legitimately vying to win the conference, and another handful sniffing at national rankings. It's making for exciting games, plenty of attention to the league and players, and struggle for teams outside of this top tier to challenge for their place.
Here's a look at five burning questions from early in the ECAC season:
Who will challenge the WCHA?
Clarkson is the only non-WCHA team to ever win a national title since the NCAA took over the tournament in 2001. They're a contender again this year, but the ECAC has several other programs that look like legitimate threats. While the WCHA has held a national stranglehold, the ECAC has built a strong lineup top to bottom as well headlined this season by Clarkson, Quinnipiac, Yale, Cornell, Colgate, and St. Lawrence. Toss in strong starts from Princeton and RPI and the ECAC offers almost no easy games. From the top tier of six teams, it's a coin toss who will win on any given night, and even more of a question mark on who will emerge from the league and challenge the WCHA's top teams in Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Minnesota. This will be a long season likely featuring a sprint to the finish in the standings.
Can Harvard Regain Credibility?
It's been a difficult year for Harvard in the wake of the Katey Stone scandal, which was called a "culture of complete fear." The program lost many players due to the abundant allegations of hazing, abuse, body shaming, and detrimental actions related to athletes' mental and physical health. What remains is a program at a storied academic institution looking to regain credibility both on and off the ice. With key remaining players like Kristen Della Rovere, Kyra Willoughby, and Anne Bloomer gone, Harvard's on-ice success looks to be at least a full recruiting class away from being competitive in the ECAC, but what remains of their roster is certainly in better hands moving forward. They've certainly taken the off-ice moves hiring the likes of Laura Bellamy and Venla Hovi to guide the program as coaches.
How long will RPI remain a sleeper?
With six big teams ahead of the them, RPI is being overlooked by opponents, but they're also scaring teams with some hard fought games. It's a tale of two teams at this point, as RIT had perplexing ties against RIT and Bemidji State, and went to overtime with Harvard, results that a contender would not endure. That said, RPI also gave scares to Cornell and Colgate, losing 2-1 and 4-3 respectively. Netminder Amanda Rampado has been a big part of that success, as has leading scorer Ellie Kaiser and first year defender Andrea Trnkova. The team lacks the star power of other ECAC clubs, but are showing a distinct ability to keep games close against top programs. Can they continue that over the course of a season? That will be the question. If they can, RPI will be on a positive path for the future.
Can Princeton sustain the loss of Fillier?
It's only November, but with Sara Fillier destined to make a splash in the PWHL next season, it's hard not to think about the future of Princeton. Right now, Fillier has scored 33% of Princeton's goals, and is in on 46.7% of all Princeton goals this season. That's an extremely large chunk of offense to replace. Perhaps the most promising point for Princeton is rookie goaltender Uma Corniea, who if she continues to develop in the way she has, Princeton might not need to score often to win. While Fillier's shoes are oversized to fill, Princeton is set to welcome one of the best recruiting classes the program has seen in years including Canadian U-18 standout Mackenzie Alexander and USA U-18 member Lucia DiGirolamo up front.
How many ECAC stars will jump to the PWHL?
The ECAC is certainly loaded with individual stars this year who will have PWHL team drooling heading into next season. One intriguing question will be, how will those teams pay these athletes as clubs will be locked into the only three-year $80k plus deals they can hand out in the foreseeable future, despite the fact there will be an abundance of worthy players coming to the league, including from the ECAC. Sarah Fillier, Danielle Serdachny, Julia Gosling, Anne Cherkowski, Elle Hartje, Kalty Kaltounkova, and Izzy Daniel are just a few of the star studded cohort capable of making an immediate impact at the pro level, up front, not to mention the depth of defenders like Mae Batherson and Nicole Gosling, and goalies including Logan Angers and Michelle Pasiechnyk. The extra year of NCAA eligibility from COVID has created a talent backload with no where to go.