ECAC Monthly Recap: September 2025

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Hello and welcome to the first ECAC monthly recap of the season! Despite only five of the 12 ECAC teams playing games that counted, there is still plenty to talk about. In September, ECAC Hockey helped kick-off the NCAA college hockey season, opened a new rink, faced off against all four other conferences (plus a Canadian U Sports team), and went a combined 5-7-0 (yikes!). Let’s dig in…

September’s Game of the Month: St. Lawrence at Penn State, Sept. 26

If you had asked me at the start of the month which matchup would be the first “Game of The Month,” I immediately would have answered with St. Lawrence’s season opening clash against Penn State. The storyline seemed to write itself: two preseason top-10 programs meeting in the regular season after the Saints had eliminated the Nittany Lions in the previous two NCAA tournaments. And sure enough, after a dominant Penn State win in game one, game two delivered on my prediction. Emma-Sofie Nordström blocked almost everything that came her way and finished the game with a career-high 48 saves. Alexia Côté scored a stunning goal to complete a two goal third period comeback. This was it — the Saints were about to notch ECAC Hockey’s first big out-of-conference win and… oops. Penn State scored three unanswered goals to sweep the series. Let’s try this again.

September’s Game of the Month Pt. 2: Quinnipiac vs. University of Maine, Sept. 27

Quinnipiac entered this season in a bit of a strange spot. Like most of the top tier of ECAC Hockey, the Bobcats lost key contributors from all three position groups in the offseason. Unlike other top conference teams, Quinnipiac retained its leading points scorer and added easily projectable key contributors through the transfer portal. So with the Bobcats squared off against 2024-2025 Hockey East 6th place finisher University of Maine to open its season, a weekend sweep would be a nice proof of concept. Friday night went mostly according to plan. Transfer forward Alex Law scored the game winner and sophomore goaltender Felicia Frank made 17 saves en route to a 3-2 win.

Game two was much more dramatic. Entering the first intermission trailing 2-1, Quinnipiac head coach Cassandra Turner pulled senior netminder and transfer Calli Hogarth in favor of Frank. The move paid off. Frank stopped nine of the 10 shots she faced and the offense roared back to life, outshooting the Black Bears 23-10 over the rest of regulation and scoring twice to force overtime.

After Quinnipiac dominated the opening minutes of three-on-three play, Jade Barbirati collected a rebound and slid it past the lunging Maine netminder to give the Bobcats a season opening weekend sweep. Also, shoutout to Quinnipiac play-by-play broadcaster Phil Giubileo for an epic call of the game winner.

Goal of the Month: Union’s Maddie Leaney vs. Franklin Pierce, Sept. 26

We go from Quinnipiac’s M&T Bank Arena to Union’s M&T Bank Center for a look at the Garnet Chargers’ first goal in their brand new rink. 

Coaches’ Call Quotables

On Sep. 16th, ECAC Hockey held its annual pre-season media call with the conference’s head coaches and commissioner Doug Christiansen. Here are a few of the quotes I found most interesting:

Christiansen on the state of the conference: “Where we are is really great. There have been a couple programs out west in the WCHA that have had tremendous years and have had tremendous success. But on the whole our league is in a great spot. What we want to make sure we are doing is continuing to grow as a league, and focus on the things we are great at. 

Cornell’s Doug Derraugh on the Red’s 21-player roster: “We’re not going to fill out four lines [of forwards] because we don’t have it. We’re going to play probably three and a half lines.”

Colgate’s Stefan Decosse on how the team can recapture the ECAC title: “When you get to that time of year [The ECAC and NCAA tournaments], it gets fairly marginal and within those margins are the little habits that stack up. And those are things we’re talking about today.”

Dartmouth’s Maura Crowell on what she likes about her team this season: “In the spring we hired a new strength coach, Chase Engdahl, who I had worked with at UMD. He has made a massive impact on our program… in a short amount of time. So, I noticed it right away. Our team looks more fit, more in shape, and ready to handle the workload of the season.”

Yale’s Mark Bolding on the goaltending situation this season after Pia Dukarič’s graduation: “It’s going to be different to say the least. She was an older goalie and somebody that we were sure proud of in what she accomplished. But look at it this way, you’ve got a lot of opportunities. I think all three goaltenders are going to get a crack and well see who can rise to the occasion.”

Lake Placid Power Rankings:

With the conference confirming that the women will be joining the men in playing championship weekend in Lake Placid, towards the end of each monthly recap I’ll include a look at which four teams seemed most likely to be headed to Herb Brooks Arena in March. Since Colgate and the Ivy League have yet to play (and I am a big believer that a team’s first weekend sheds little light on what a team will look like in February or March), I’ll defer to the coaches poll for September’s rankings. 


1. Cornell: Yet to play
2. Colgate: Yet to play
3. Clarkson (1-1-0, 0-0-0 ECAC): Obviously losing to Merrimack isn’t great, but when a team’s top defensive line (who made up two of the three leading scorers) graduate, early season defensive struggles shouldn’t come as a surprise. The key for Clarkson will be to figure out its defensive identity before the Golden Knights first top-tier ECAC matchup, which is shaping up to be on the road against Princeton on Nov. 7th. 
4. St. Lawrence (0-2-0, 0-0-0 ECAC): The Saints went on the road and were swept by a good team to open the season. It happens. Giving up five goals while Nordström posts a career high in saves obviously isn’t ideal, but it’s too early to say if there are real cracks showing for Chris Wells’ squad. Still, after what we have seen so far these top four teams certainly do not seem like locks to dominate conference play.

October’s Matchup of the Month: Ohio State at Colgate, Oct. 3 at 6PM and Oct. 4 at 3PM (ESPN+)

The best non-conference game of the season is probably taking place this weekend in Hamilton, New York. No. 2 Ohio State — a perennial national title contender — is traveling to take on a No. 7 Colgate squad who last spring came a period away from the Frozen Four. The regular season opener for both teams, a win in either game would be a big statement for the Raiders who are 2-4-2 all-time against the Buckeyes.

That’s all for now, I’ll be back with updates from around ECAC Hockey before conference play gets started on Oct. 24th. Thanks for reading and as always, all ECAC home games can be streamed live on ESPN+.