Can anyone take down Quinnipiac?: 2026-27 ECAC Men’s Hockey Preview

After last season ended with a trophy for each program, Quinnipiac and Dartmouth are back as the favorites for the top of the ECAC in 2026-27. The Bobcats won the regular season title for the sixth straight year back in March, while the Big Green won its way in with the ECAC Tournament championship.

It was the first national showing for Dartmouth since the 1979-80 season and its first conference title in more than 60 years. Meanwhile, Quinnipiac has been ruling the ECAC of late, with seven straight NCAA tournament appearances, including its first-ever national title back in 2023.

Dartmouth has a chance to dethrone the Bobcats with a star-studded group of returners. The Big Green had three athletes named to the ECAC Preseason All-League Team, including 2025-26 ECAC Player of the Year Hayden Stavroff. The rising junior led the nation in goals per game (0.83) last season. However, after Stavroff’s 29 goals and Hank Cleaves’ 18, production was lacking. It’s a steep dropoff from that 18 to the next player down at nine, and Dartmouth will need to find a way to spread the wealth if it wants to make a deeper run this season.

Meanwhile, Quinnipiac was second in scoring in the country last season, averaging 4.05 goals per game. The Bobcats share their scoring a fair bit more than Dartmouth, but like the Big Green, they’re bringing back all of their top guys. After Ethan Wyttenbach led the country in points per game (1.48) last season, Quinnipiac will look to him to steer the ship and keep the Bobcats on top of the ECAC.

The ECAC Contenders

Just outside of those top frontrunners, and third in the ECAC preseason poll, Cornell remains a fair competitor. The Big Red has been the team battling the hardest against Quinnipiac for years, winning the conference tournament in 2024 and 2025, and while it has plenty of talent on the roster, it doesn't have anyone putting up the staggering numbers of Stavroff and Wyttenbach.

Cornell does still have its captain in Ryan Walsh, who’s been an on-ice leader since his freshman campaign with the Big Red, including 33 points last season, and a strong and relatively intact defensive unit. That core of the players on the back end helped Cornell to a nationally seventh-ranked scoring defense, which also had freshman netminder Alexis Cournoyer. He transferred to Wisconsin during the offseason. The Big Red did bring in a solid replacement candidate in Maine’s Mathis Rousseau, so Cornell will aim to keep that blue line support in place and keep opponents’ scoring down.

Clarkson enters this season ranked fourth in the ECAC standings, but came up with some big wins last season, including knocking Quinnipiac out of the conference tournament. In that stretch, the Golden Knights had a strong group of underclassmen who returned to the team with another year of experience and seniority that should hopefully boost their production. Owen Van Steensel and Remi Gelinas both had successful rookie campaigns, with Van Steensel leading the Golden Knights in goals; however, they were both shut down in the postseason. It opened the door for different personnel, with additional underclassmen in Tate Taylor and Justin Cote each contributing two goals to the ECAC tournament. If those young athletes can continue to hone their raw talent into a cohesive unit, Clarkson could challenge for a top spot in the standings.

Union was all over the map last season, taking down top-10 opponents like Quinnipiac and Cornell, but falling to struggling programs like RPI and Yale. All of their games were high-scoring, but some were high tallies for Union and some were for their opponents.

The Garnet Chargers had the best penalty kill in the country at 90.4 percent, but it seemed like when one goal came, it was a total momentum shift for the scoring team. With that being said, it’s especially unfortunate for Union that a lot of last year’s production departed, losing three of the top five scorers. However, it boasts a strong and young goalie tandem to build around.

The Ivy Leaguers

After last season’s rule change regarding CHL players joining the NCAA, the Ivies are finally joining the party. Last year, Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale opted out of Canadian athlete involvement, with Cornell the lone Ivy taking CHL players. Yale and Brown both finished within the bottom three of this 12-team conference, so maybe some different recruitment strategies will help them to improve their standings.

But they’re not the only ones leading heavily into the Canadian pipeline. RPI was one of the most active teams in the NCAA in terms of CHL recruitment, bringing in nine Canadian athletes this season, including eight of them from the WHL. High turnover is never ideas, but the Engineers lost 10 to the portal and four to graduation. Many of the newcomers are expected to make an immediate impact including Josh Evaschesen, who was fourth in points on the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers last season with 73 (33 goals, 40 assists).

Although RPI is bringing the volume, Quinnipiac is bringing the heat. The Bobcats’ three CHL additions were all selected in the 2026 NHL Draft, including Alex Kostov, who ranked third on the Flint Firebirds in points, with a remarkable 55 from the blue line in 47 games.

With both numbers and talent out of the CHL, it becomes a recruitment strategy that the Ivies seemingly need to stay competitive in college hockey. These elite academic institutions are less likely to make moves in the portal, if any, and rely almost exclusively on newcomers to fill in for increasingly more departures.

Yale and Brown will season in the bottom two slots of the preseason poll, with both teams losing their top scorer. The Bulldogs will turn to returners Ronan O’Donnell and Donovan Frias to leave the hole left by David Chen, but Brown may be a little more at a loss. The Bears will be missing key pieces like Ivan Zadvernyuk and Ryan St. Louis, as well as starter Tyler Shea in net. They set themselves up well with Penicton Vees assistant captain Matteo Danis and senior Ben Poitras positioned to pick up the fallout on the front end and Wisconsin netminder Eli Pulver ready to take over the goaltending duties.

Harvard and Princeton both retain a solid core and boast solid goaltending, with the Crimson’s Ben Charette and the Tigers’ Arthur Smith. However, Smith will have his work cut out for him after a big graduation year from Princeton’s defensive unit, with five blue-liners moving on. Additionally, the Tigers are only holding onto two of their top-six scorers from last season, but one of the returners is Kai Daniells, who will be back on the ice after leading Princeton with a stellar 39-point campaign.

Harvard skated to a break-even 16-16-2 season last year, behind the efforts of forward Mick Thompson and defender Matthew Morden. They were the only two to cross the 20-point threshold on the Crimson’s roster last season, but keep en eye rising sophomores Heikki Ruohonen and Richard Gallant.

The Wild Cards

St. Lawrence struggled last season and could be in for even more of a challenge with both the leading scorer Rasmus Svartström (17 goals, 7 assists) and top points producer Tyler Cristall (10 goals, 21 assists) having departed.

Although scoring will likely be an issue, the biggest place the Saints need to step up is the blue line. St. Lawrence was last in the NCAA in scoring defense last season with an average of 4.31 goals allowed per game. But the Saints didn't adding much on the back end, with no new netminders and just two new defenders.

Colgate didn’t have one person in particular who stood out last season, but it had five 20+ point scorers and retained three of them. Sophomore Isaiah Norlin led in assists with 20 with junior Ryan Sullivan on his heels with 19, while Max Nagel led in goals with 11. The trio is expected to continue making big moves for the Raiders this season, as well as rookie Luke Posthumus, who joins Colgate after finishing second in points on the OHL’s Oshawa Generals with 57 last season.

Between the pipes, the Raiders turned to a rookie, with Reid Dyck earning the starting slot despite an .897 save percentage and a 3.17 goals against average. It’s possible that incoming freshman Andrew Krakora could surpass Dyck for the role, but that’s if his 2.79 GAA and .923 save percentage in the NCDC last season can transition smoothly into college play.

Check out our season preview for the Big Ten, and also the independent programs.

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