The bottom line for Black Bear buffs: at the halfway mark of its Hockey East schedule, the current playoff picture has Maine lined up to partake in postseason action for the first time since 2006, six months before the senior class enrolled and 18 months before head coach Dan Lichterman arrived.
Maine already has 10 conference points to speak of after never finishing with more than 12 in each of the previous three seasons. One could not be faulted for getting a little giddy over that, especially in the wake of two consecutive eighth-place finishes.
On a team that has only dressed two freshmen skaters on a regular basis this season, a corporeal and statistical veteran presence has been a testament to unwavering persistence and is finally lending some validity to Lichterman’s buoyancy.
“We’re at a point where we aren’t relying on freshmen to carry the load,” the skipper had observed three months ago in the Hockey East preseason conference call. “We’ve got some holes to fill, but we’ve got some kids that have been determined since the middle of March last year to make a jump in this league and to put ourselves in a playoff position and not be that eighth place team that everyone thinks we are going to be.”
A measuring pole of perseverance and improvement can be studied from within the 2009-10 campaign alone. After an acrid 0-9-2 overall stretch throughout October and through November 14, the Bears rounded out the first half on a reinvigorating 4-1-3 charge, including three vital league wins and another point earned by pushing Boston University to a shootout.
Furthermore, in their six games between Thanksgiving and a long winter’s nap, the offense ignited for 20 goals after previously scoring 13 in a space of 13 ventures.
But to look at the broader time capsule, in each of his first two years on the job, Lichterman watched a largely inexperienced pack of pucksters as they collected goals like peasants while the opposition would load up goaltender Genevieve Turgeon to the point of collapsing like an overstuffed hot-dog-eating contestant.
Not so this season. Maine already has four double-digit point-scorers, appropriately led by a trinity of seniors in Jenna Ouelette, Taryn Peacock, and Lexie Hoffmeyer and rounded out by junior Jennie Gallo. And in the cage, Turgeon has graduated but freshman Brittany Ott and sophomore Candace Currier have collectively kept the team GAA well below 3.00, something that Turgeon and her colleagues never did in her four seasons.
Of course, to keep things within a rational perspective, anything more than a road trip somewhere else for the quarterfinals is a bit much for Mainers to request at this time. But if they can at least achieve that, the Black Bears’ host will surely keep in mind that this team is capable of pulling a moderate surprise, as verified by a shootout win over Providence and a 1-0 road blanking of the roundly braced Northeastern in November.
All this being said, one principal factor might be inclined to stunt the Bears’ push for a refreshing playoff berth. That hindrance would be extreme rust that comes from 34 consecutive days free of NCAA competition. Maine will thaw itself back out post-New Year’s with a pair of home exhibitions with Moncton University, but even after that, it will be a 12-day layover until they welcome Northeastern into Alfond Arena on January 15 to kickstart their 10-game stretch drive.
Not to mention, when Maine returns to regular season game action, it will have a seventh-place UConn team with two games in hand breathing rabidly right behind them, and during league games, the Bears currently have the worst GF-GA differential at minus-14.
But especially considering recent history, at least the very notion of a relevant chase to a potential playoff spot is actually feasible. A peek from any angle must declare that a plus for Lichterman in his relatively young tenure.
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