Hockey East midseason reports: Connecticut

About three weeks ago, a little last-minute Christmas scrapping amounted to a nice, tangible gift for Heather Linstad’s pupils, if only temporarily.

The 2009-10 Connecticut Huskies garnered their first week’s worth of national recognition when they followed their Nutmeg Classic victory by stalling Boston University for a win and a tie and then glancing at the USA Today leaderboard to see their name in the No. 10 slot, a slot ironically occupied by the Terriers in preceding weeks.

That was in the first week of December, the penultimate week of poll action before the December deceleration took effect. At that point, UConn was 8-5-4, a not-so-small improvement from its iffy 2-3-1 start to the year.

Granted, they descended right back into the honorable mention slab when they lost, 2-1, at Harvard in their first-half finale, but remember that Harvard has been one of the nation’s few consistent achievers this season. And that loss made for UConn’s fourth against a foregone national contender, the others consisting of a 4-0 falter against ex-teammate Dominique Thibault and Clarkson along with identical 3-1 losses at New Hampshire. In both of those cases, they held the Wildcats scoreless beyond the first period and scored the first goal.

Beyond their dignity when facing certified heavyweights, being on the cusp of the national spotlight also speaks to the Huskies’ not-so-shabby 6-3-0 interleague record, the third-best nonconference transcript amongst all eight WHEA programs. And although they need to do a little more maintenance within league boundaries, where they are an iffy 3-3-3, they are in a comparatively favorable position to gain ground with at least two games in hand on five of their adversaries.

As the heir-apparent to Brittany Wilson in her freshman campaign, goalie Alex Garcia garnered some late-season baptism by dry ice when Wilson burned out. Garcia, who by the final weekend of the 2008-09 regular season had not played since before Thanksgiving, would put in a relief appearance versus New Hampshire, and then take on the netminding duties in a quarterfinal loss to Providence.

It probably stung then, but Garcia has since settled comfortably into her new role. She boasts a 1.95 overall goals-against for third place in the WHEA while senior Jennie Bellonio accounts for a 3-1-0 record, coupled with a 1.59 GAA and .926 save percentage.

Garcia and Bellonio, along with a defense that has limited the opposition to a relatively low median of 23.2 shots per game, have at times been difference-makers, particularly in four conference ties and three one-goal victories.

Meanwhile, a bipolar offense has been headed chiefly by Michelle Binning and Monique Weber, who have combined for 15 goals and have logged 81 and 79 shots on goal, respectively. No one else has even half that number, and the likes of Binning and Weber, along with such scorchers and playmakers as Cristin Allen, Rebecca Hewett, Amy Hollstein, and Jody Sydor are all at best a few rungs short of the scoring pace they set for themselves last season.

The shortcoming stats in all of those leaned-on individuals are not exactly to blame on such conditions as sophomore slides, senioritis, or even the loss of Thibault. It’s just infectious inconsistency.

Case in point: as a team, the Huskies have erupted for five four-goal performances and three victories by a five-plus goal differential. But on the flip-side, they have thrice been shutout and settled for merely one goal on another seven occasions.

But maybe a sparkplug called incentive will be the remedy going forward. For five seniors, the winter of 2010 will be the last call to rinse out the vinegar from 2008 –when Providence burst their NCAA bracket bubble in the conference semis, at Freitas Ice Forum no less- and from 2009 –when they coughed up home ice for the quarterfinals in the regular season finale and subsequently lost to the Friars again.

The good news is that the Huskies know what they are all capable of and have grabbed a few savory ice chips to prove it. If they can just elevate those chips into snowballs in Part II of their quest, maybe they’ll tip the scale in regulation a little more often rather than settle for solitary shootout points. And maybe then, they will threaten to pole-vault a few of their conference cohabitants in the polls and in the push for a favorable Hockey East playoff berth.