The best holiday news for the Lake Whittemore faithful must be that the fast-tracking New Hampshire Wildcats have not skated out of their skins. Rather, the December deceleration has frozen them in a favorable position until play resumes and has granted head coach Brian McCloskey time to assess the hidden smudges that might need a drop of Windex on this otherwise dynamic disk.
The results have not warranted consternation so far, though. The Cats have customarily hung around the mid-to-upper rungs of the Top 10 polls, standing as high as No. 3 and no lower than No. 5 since the preseason rankings were disclosed.
In the league standings, UNH has a savory three games in hand on four of its rivals and four on first-place Boston College, whom they only trail by three points and whom they ceremoniously whitewashed, 4-0, at the Conte Forum not long before the break. The unequaled room to pace themselves is the best gift McCloskey and his pupils can ask for, for it will be useful in making sure all of their splendid data does not deteriorate.
Beneath their solid records (6-1-1 in the league, 12-2-4 overall), the Wildcats hold the league’s best goals-for/goals-against differential. They flaunt a runaway first-place offense that has notched a 3.28 goals-per-game median and power play that has converted 30.8 percent of the time.
Their roster contains two scorers with 30 or more points –those being senior forwards Kelly Paton and Micaela Long- something which no conference cohabitant can speak of at this time. Behind them stands the league’s most prolific puckslinging defender in Courtney Birchard, who has leveled an unmatched 96 shots on the opposing net and perfectly balanced eight goals and eight assists.
The top two point-getters among all WHEA freshmen -in a three-way tie with Boston University’s Jill Cardella, mind you- happen to be Kristina Lavoie and Kristine Horn, who sport an identical 6-8-14 transcript through 18 games and an identical UNH across their sweaters.
To round it all out, the Cats have the league’s most reliable goaltending tandem in Kayley Herman and Lindsey Minton, who have all but evenly split the crease time and are a 1-2 punch in terms of individual winning percentage.
Beyond belief, though, there is definitely room for improvement, particularly in terms of team depth. McCloskey himself has spoken implicitly of a craving for more contributions from a more diverse selection of skaters, 10 of whom have scored five points or fewer. And the skipper has made a few recent moves to achieve that, such as plucking Horn out of the top line with Long and Paton and replacing her with the still-thawing likes of Brittany Skudder and Shannon Sisk. (Naturally, the ideal results will ultimately have the more prolific players graciously distributing some of their invaluable Rainbow Fish scales to their teammates.)
Granted, New Hampshire has survived its share of scares on its own legendary pond before finally surrendering a historic 4-1 decision to rival Providence three weeks ago. But other than that and a 6-2 submission to a quite reckonable Clarkson program, the Wildcats are making things go their way.
For all of the close shaves and the historic defeat, it is worth noting that the Cats still have yet to lose a Hockey East playoff game at the Whittemore Center. And in all likelihood, that will wind up being the site of the main event for the third time in four seasons.
At this rate, the viability of their dynasty is nowhere near in question, but ultimately, come mid-March, they will revisit that still-unanswered question as to how the NCAA trophy might like a summer vacation in the Eastern Time Zone.
Sure, their conference rivals will grind thirstily –and now, in wake of the Friars’ breakthrough, perhaps a tad more confidently- to redirect the Hockey East championship trophy. But regardless of those results, the Wildcats’ viability for NCAA consideration is all but foregone. Therefore, true judgment shall not be passed on them until sometime around March 13.
No doubt that is what McCloskey is really thinking about when he wishes for a few more double-digit point-getters or even goal-scorers. That is what anyone will require to cut off the decade-old WCHA hegemony, a dynasty even more enduring than the Granite State Goddesses’ grip on the Hockey East crown.
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