The UConn women’s hockey team will close out the regular season this weekend with a pair of Hockey East home contests.
The No. 6 Huskies (23-7-2, 16-5-1) will take on No. 5 Northeastern University (24-7-1, 9-2-1) on Friday before closing the regular season against Merrimack College (7-21-4, 4-16-2) on Saturday. Both games will take place at the Toscano Family Ice Forum.
UConn rides a four-game winning streak in the final weekend of the regular season. They’ve also earned the chance to return to Toscano for postseason play, as they’ve clinched the two-seed in the Hockey East.
The Huskies will honor seven seniors prior to Saturday’s game, including leading point scorer Kyla Josifovic and star goalie Tia Chan.
Chan is coming off of a dominant weekend in which she allowed just one goal and made a combined 32 saves across two contests.
A pair of wins this weekend would put Chan at a career best 15 victories on the season, tying her with Brittany Wilson for the fourth winningest season by a UConn goalie. The graduate student also has a chance to pass Wilson for an all-time record, as 41 saves would leave her with the third most in team history.
Northeastern won’t make either of those feats easy, as they swept UConn back in late January in a two-game series. That included a heartbreaking loss for UConn in which freshman defender Ella Lloyd snuck one by Chan with 15 seconds left in the contest for the 1-0 win.
Despite dominating Hockey East play for much of the season, Northeastern took a loss their last time out, a 1-0 overtime victory for Boston College. Still, Northeastern has already claimed the Hockey East regular-season crown and the one seed in conference postseason play.
Senior Lily Shannon leads Northeastern with 18 goals on the year, tied with BC’s Ava Thomas for both the Hockey East lead and 15th in the nation. The forward leads an offensive attack that is closing in on 100 goals on the year as a unit and currently sits ninth in the country.
Goalkeeper Lisa Jönsson has also proven to be an elite insurance option. The sophomore has saved 93.6% of shots faced as is in line to win the Hockey East Goaltender of the Year award.
Merrimack should be an easier matchup for UConn, though the Warriors are as hot as they’ve been all season. Over their last three games, they have notched two wins and a draw. Merrimack won the tie in shootouts.
They also took a 2-1 overtime win against the Huskies. However, Chan didn’t play that game, and the Huskies had blown them out, 8-1, a day earlier.
Much of Merrimack’s surge has come courtesy of Madison Vittands. The sophomore forward has three goals since the start of their hot streak. Freshman forward Stina Sandberg had a goal in each win as well.
Friday’s puck drop is at 5:30 p.m. and can be watched on ESPNU. Saturday’s afternoon contest is set to start at 3 p.m. and will stream live on ESPN+.