Yale Athletics

The Yale men’s hockey team faced Brown on Friday night and secured a 3–1 win, extending its undefeated streak to four games. 

The Elis (10–13–1, 7–9–1 ECAC) defeated the Bears (8–13–2, 6–8–1 ECAC) in a home game at Ingalls Rink with 1,637 fans in attendance. The win marks Yale’s seventh conference win this season, which ranks Yale at seventh in the ECAC and second in Ivy League schools, trailing three wins behind Cornell. 

The Bulldogs entered the matchup coming off of a successful weekend, logging a 3–1 win against Union College (13–13–2, 7–7–2 ECAC) on Feb. 2 and a 1–1 tie with a 1–0 shootout win against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (8–17–3, 5–9–2 ECAC) on Feb. 3. The Bears also faced both teams that weekend, tallying a 3–1 loss to RPI and a 4–4 tie and 2–0 overtime shootout loss to Union. 

Yale had also previously faced Brown, where the Bulldogs earned a 3–2 overtime win for its first game of the 2023-2024 season on Oct. 27. 

Just over eight minutes into the first period, forward Elan Bar-Lev-Wise ’26 took a wide shot on goal that hit the back wall and was picked up by forward and team captain Reilly Connors ’24, who beat Brown goaltender Lawton Zacher, finished off the short-handed goal and earned Yale its first point of the night. 

The goal marked Connors’ first of the season and his second career shorthanded goal. 

The rest of the first period remained scoreless, but 6:54 into the second period, Brown tried to take back the reins by netting an equalizer. Brown forward Ryan Bottrill forced a Yale turnover in the offensive zone and passed to forward Tyler Kopff, who hit a one-timer from the top of the right circle.

To re-establish the lead for the Elis, under two minutes later, forward David Chen ’26 took a failed wrap-around attempt by defenseman Kieran O’Hearn ’25 and forward Niklas Allain ’24 and shot the puck from the top circle and raised the score to 2–1. Chen’s goal was his team-high ninth of the season. 

While the remainder of the second period and the majority of the final didn’t see any scoring, with less than ten seconds left in the game, forward Will Dineen ’25 launched the puck into Brown’s empty goal for the game-ender. Dineen was assisted by forward Ian Carpentier ’24 and forward David Andreychuk ’27. 

The final goal of the contest was Yale’s sixth shorthanded goal of the season. This ties Yale for first in the ECAC conference in shorthanded goals during the 2023-2024 season. 

Over the course of the game, goalkeeper Jack Stark ’27 made 19 saves in goal. This marks Stark’s eighth win of his first season on the team. 

While Brown led the game with five power plays, in comparison to Yale’s two, the Bulldogs dominated in shooting 30–20. Yale also prevailed in the faceoff dot, edging the Bears 33–21. 

Dineen and Chen led Yale’s shooting with four shots on goal, followed by Bar-Lev-Wise and forward Briggs Gammill ’25 with three shots each. Not a single Brown player had more than two shots on goal. 

Dineen also led the Bulldogs in faceoffs, tallying 16 wins and five losses, while the Brown player with the most faceoff success, Bottrill, saw nine wins and 13 losses. 

The game also marks the Bulldogs’ first time since 2018 going unbeaten for four consecutive games. In the 2018-19 season, the Elis went undefeated for six straight contests, logging five wins and a 1–1 tie with Union on Nov. 23. 

While the Elis have had strong performances since their win against Sacred Heart on Jan. 27, they will need to prepare for two big conference opponents next weekend, both of which Yale fell to earlier this season. 

The Bulldogs will next face Colgate (11–13–4, 8–6–2 ECAC) on Friday, Feb. 16 in Hamilton, NY and No. 13 Cornell (15–4–4, 10–4–2 ECAC) on Saturday, Feb. 17 in Ithaca, NY. Both games will be streamed live on ESPN+.