The No. 8 UConn women’s ice hockey team (4-2) will be back on the road this weekend, traveling to Erie, Pa., to take on Mercyhurst University (3-5). The two teams will play a pair of games at the Mercyhurst Ice Center. Game one will be played on Friday, Oct. 24, at 3 p.m., and game two will be played on Saturday, Oct. 25, at 1 p.m. Both games will be available on FloHockey.
The Huskies have gotten off to a hot start in 2025 and are coming off a two-game sweep of then-ranked Princeton. The strong showing is in large part due to outstanding play between the pipes from graduate goalkeeper Tia Chan. The 2024-25 Hockey East Goaltender of the Year has a save percentage of .963 and has made 208 stops. The Ontario native let up just one goal during the Princeton series, including a shutout in game two.
Chan is already halfway to matching her save total from last season. She also has a chance to make program history this weekend. According to the UConn women’s hockey record book, Chan came into the season with 43 wins, four behind 2024-25 graduate Megan Warrener, for second all-time in career wins. She is now tied with Warrener, and one win this weekend would leave her in sole possession of second place and just four wins behind Brittany Wilson for the record.
Chan has also been steadily moving up the career saves leaderboard, already jumping from sixth to fourth. She is now just 12 saves away from passing Wilson to move into third place, a likely occurrence on Friday considering she hasn’t saved any less than 27 shots in a game this season.
The UConn defense as a whole has played extremely well to this point, having let up the seventh-least opposing goals of any team through six games. On average, the Huskies let up the seventh-least points per game. They have also found success in power play situations, killing the penalty 93.8% of the time and ranking inside the top ten in the nation in that metric.
That defense has been key for a UConn team that holds just an 11-8 scoring margin so far. Senior forward Kyla Josifovic now leads the team in scoring with four goals after a two-goal performance in game two against Princeton and three on the weekend overall. After leading the Hockey East in scoring with Boston College in 2024-25, junior forward Julia Pellerin leads the team in shots with 30 but has only placed one into the net. Converting a few more of those opportunities into goals could help to further unlock the Huskies’ offense.
Mercyhurst’s main offensive threat is redshirt freshman forward Julia Perjus. After not seeing the ice as a freshman last season, Perjus has made up for lost time with five goals and a pair of assists over eight games. No one else on the team has scored more than once, while freshman forward Nayeon Kim has been an effective facilitator with six assists.
Despite coming into the series as the projected favorites, the Huskies haven’t found much success against the Lakers in the past. Since 2002, UConn holds a 1-8-2 record against Mercyhurst and hasn’t won since the 2008-09 season. UConn averages just a single goal per game over that time span. The Huskies have never won away from home and hold a 0-4-1 road record. Mercyhurst won the last matchup in 2022 by a score of 3-1.
Both games will be available on FloHockey.