College Hockey:

Yale a Consensus Favorite in ECAC Hockey

The coaches and media agree: Yale is the team to beat in ECAC Hockey this season.

The Bulldogs, who won the league’s regular season and playoff titles last season, picked up seven of 12 first-place votes from the coaches and 15 of 25 top spots in balloting by the ECAC Hockey Writers and Broadcasters Association.

Yale returns its top 10 scorers from last season, in which it lost only four times after Jan. 1.

Cornell and Princeton also received first-place votes in both polls and finished second and third, respectively, in both. Harvard got a first-place vote in the media poll and was a consensus pick for fourth.

Forward Sean Backman, who scored a hat trick in Yale’s playoff championship victory over Cornell, is on the media’s preseason all-league team — a group made up of players from six different teams.

Colgate forward David McIntyre, Cornell forward Riley Nash, Dartmouth defenseman Evan Stephens, Harvard defenseman Alex Biega and Princeton goaltender Zane Kalemba also made the all-league team.

Here is the coaches’ poll:

Team (first-place votes) Points1. Yale (7)         1172. Cornell (3)        1133. Princeton (2)       1034. Harvard          875. Dartmouth         646. Union           557. Colgate          548. Quinnipiac         47  Rensselaer         4710. St. Lawrence       4611. Clarkson         4412. Brown           11

And here is the media poll:

Team (first-place votes) Points1. Yale (15)         2752. Cornell (7)        2723. Princeton (3)       2534. Harvard (1)        2245. Dartmouth         1836. Union           1437. St. Lawrence       1348. Clarkson         1259. Colgate          10610. Rensselaer        10211. Quinnipiac        9012. Brown           35