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) Points
1. Yale (7) 117
2. Cornell (3) 113
3. Princeton (2) 103
4. Harvard 87
5. Dartmouth 64
6. Union 55
7. Colgate 54
8. Quinnipiac 47
Rensselaer 47
10. St. Lawrence 46
11. Clarkson 44
12. Brown 11
And here is the media poll:
Team (first-place votes) Points
1. Yale (15) 275
2. Cornell (7) 272
3. Princeton (3) 253
4. Harvard (1) 224
5. Dartmouth 183
6. Union 143
7. St. Lawrence 134
8. Clarkson 125
9. Colgate 106
10. Rensselaer 102
11. Quinnipiac 90
12. Brown 35
