Two of the top goal keepers in the country will face off this weekend inside of the Toscano Family Ice Forum as Tia Chan and the No. 5 UConn women’s ice hockey team (18-4-2, 11-2-1) face off against Lisa Jönsson and the No. 8 Northeastern Huskies (18-6, 13-1).
Friday’s game will take place on Friday, Jan. 23, at 6 p.m., with game two following the next day at 3 p.m. Fans can stream both bouts live on ESPN+.
Chan comes into the weekend after stopping 24 shots a little over a week ago in an 8-1 victory over Merrimack before sitting in the game two loss.
It was a continuation of a fantastic final campaign for Chan. The graduate student has averaged just 1.547 goals allowed per game, the sixth lowest mark in the nation. The reigning Hockey East Goaltender of the Year has four games with 40-plus saves and 12 with 30 or more.
Chan will likely need to tap into that stellar play once again this weekend, as Northeastern has scored the 12th most goals of any team this season: 73. Aiding that number is the team’s 126 assists, the sixth most in the country.
However, UConn is right behind Northeastern offensively as they have just one less goal in one more game.
Where UConn outranks Northeastern is in power play goal percentage, with UConn converting shots at a national top ten rate of just over 20%.
Jönsson will play a big role in attempting to put a stop on UConn’s high-powered penalty play attack. The sophomore has let up 1.821 goals per game, good for 12th in the country. The Sweden native has three shutouts against Hockey East teams already under her belt this season.
A Hockey East All-Rookie team member a season ago, Jönsson leads a defense that ranks fifth nationally in killing penalties at over 88%. That bodes well against UConn’s potent power play offense.
The last time these two-star goaltenders faced each other, it was Northeastern who knocked off UConn in the semifinals of the Hockey East tournament last March in a 3-1 victory at Toscano on the back of a 36 save performance from Jönsson.
That has been a common theme of the match up both over the past few years and the historic series. UConn swept all three contests between the teams during the 2023-24 campaign, but Northeastern one-upped them the following season, winning four face offs.
Northeastern has dominated the series since the first face off in 2001. Winning the first game between the pair in November, 3-1, Northeastern hasn’t looked back and holds a 49-21-31 record.
That mark includes a 21-9-8 record on the road in Storrs and a 38-18-13 conference record. With UConn currently sitting in second place, only behind Northeastern, in the Hockey East, a pair of history-contradicting wins would go a long way towards erasing the six-point difference in the standings.
This weekend, a bounce back from leading point getter Kyla Josifovic is integral. The senior leads the team in assists and is tied for second in goals but was held scoreless in two games against Merrimack with a single assist. While it wasn’t a poor performance, it becomes more underwhelming when considering UConn’s eight goal outburst in game one.
Livvy Dewar and Ashley Allard picked up some of the slack, with the Dewar netting a pair of goals and adding one assist while the latter assisted two and scored game two’s sole UConn goal. Both are important contributors to a Huskies offense that has seen seven players reach at least six goals on the season.
The team captains notched one goal and one assist in Northeastern’s most recent game, a 3-2 win over Boston College in the third-place game of the Women’s Beanpot at TD Garden on Tuesday.
Stryker Zablocki and Éloïse Caron also ranked as top 50 scorers nationally.
Prior to the series, the Hockey East association announced a schedule update, moving Sunday’s game that was scheduled to take place in Boston to UConn’s campus on Friday night. The change was made due to expected inclement weather, according to the Hockey East’s announcement. The schedule for Saturday remains unchanged.
UConn’s announcement added that both students and season ticket holders will receive complementary tickets to Friday’s game, with general admission tickets available for $5.