Backcheck
Accept it. The closure of January and the subsequent duration of February are to the Hockey East postseason what Thanksgiving weekend and the ensuing month of December are to Christmas. The latter, colossal occasion simply cannot wait to let its presence be felt.
How do we know that? Teams are second-naturedly fusing their borders along the blue line and the blue paint, resulting in playoff-like low-scoring outcomes. Over the eight games in last week’s composite schedule, there were only four out of 16 possible instances in which a participating team scored more than two regulation goals.
Interestingly enough, two of those cases happened to be a few offensive uprisings by the New Hampshire Wildcats, who lashed their hosts at Maine, 5-2, on Friday, then paced themselves to a crisp 3-1 triumph on Saturday.
Conversely, for what a single weekend is worth, the University of Connecticut mastered the peerlessly vital defensive aspect, stapling a pair of 2-0 victories against Boston University and Vermont.
In fact, in each of their last seven ventures, the Huskies have allowed no more than one opposing goal per night, leaning on sophomore goaltender Alex Garcia to repel a relatively light 137 out of 141 shots in that span. They have thus elongated their active winning streak to eight games and finished January at 9-0-1 on the month.
With her cumulative 48 saves on the weekend, Garcia ascended to No. 2 among all Hockey East stoppers in the way of goals-against average (1.59) and save percentage (.931), trailing only the immoveable Florence Schelling of Northeastern.
More encouragingly, she only trails the New Hampshire tandem of Kayley Herman and Lindsey Minton under the winning percentage heading and has a league-leading five shutouts to her credit.
Meanwhile, every last one of Garcia’s skating mates has a plus/minus rate of “even” or better, including six who can claim a positive double-digit.
By the way, the third-place Huskies, along with Northeastern and Providence, have all cemented a spot in the Hockey East playoffs as neither Maine nor Vermont are capable of catching them in the standings.
***
May the annual advent of obsessive-defensive epidemia serve as a fair, early warning sign for Boston University, which has lived out too heavily on offense and continues to average more than 2.5 goals-against per night and to sit in the cellar of the penalty kill column.
Saturday’s home loss to UConn, which followed an equally indigestible shootout falter at Northeastern on Tuesday, was the Terriers’ first shutout loss in 27 games all season. Granted, in the past three weeks, they have trimmed their goals-against median from 2.7 to 2.56 per game, but some of their leaned-on strikers have hit an untimely cold spot.
Sophomore sizzler Jennelle Kohanchuk is pointless in her last four games and has not even been available to suit up for the last three games. Lauren Cherewyk has but one assist to speak of in her last four outings. Rookie Jill Cardella scored but two goals in seven games throughout the month of January. Point-based playmaker Tara Watchorn did have two helpful assists against Northeastern on Tuesday, which effectively gave BU a point by virtue of the regulation tie, but has otherwise been scoreless in the last two weeks. And Jillian Kirchner similarly nabbed a goal-assist value pack in a 3-2 win at Vermont on January 23, but has otherwise been silent in a trinity of recent losses.
Perhaps the most frightful segment of woebegone offense was the second period of Tuesday’s tangle, when Northeastern mustered 24 attempted shots while only yielding four to BU. Granted, the defense and goaltending held fort to keep the game knotted 1-1, and in the third period and overtime, the Terriers outshot their hosts by a cumulative 15-4.
The one problem there: they couldn’t finish. And as penance, they settled for their ninth tie of the season and a singular shootout point.
***
It’s a little tough to determine which side was more accurately reflected in New Hampshire’s two-game road sweep of Maine.
The Wildcats, on the one hand, come off as replenished and revamped after a fairly timely 10-day break away from game action. But the Black Bears –losers of their last five games, all within Hockey East boundaries- have apparently regressed to their dollar-a-day offense from October.
In each of the first five of the weekend’s six periods, UNH dished up at least 11 shots while repressing the Bears to less than eight.
Fourteen individual Wildcats combined for eight goals and 14 assists while the Mainers settled for their fourth one-goal game in their last five on Saturday. And even when they mustered multiple goals in a 5-2 loss on Friday, the Black Bears could only boast three individual point-getters.
The UNH power play was a cumulative 4-for-12 between the two games, Maine’s was 1-for-13.
But perhaps most strikingly, the Maine Campus newspaper accounts of Saturday’s 3-1 UNH triumph quoted Wildcats’ skipper Brian McCloskey and three of his pupils, yet nothing attributed to any Black Bear personnel could be found.
***
Anything but catchable for the better part of January, the Providence Friars seemed to trip over their own confidence this past weekend, equaling a frightful crash to their seven-game winning streak in the form of back-to-back 2-1 losses to Vermont and Harvard.
During their 8-0-2 unbeaten streak, the Friars had not scored any fewer than two goals on a given night. That changed with one wrong U-turn en route to Friday’s face-off with Vermont.
More startlingly, while PC remains one of two teams in the league yet to be shut out this season, last Friday and Saturday were the first two games where they remained scoreless after 40 minutes. In fact, both games panned out with sequential similarity, the Catamounts and Crimson smuggling a 1-0 lead into the first intermission, yielding an equalizer to the Friars midway through the third, and then renewing their lead for good within five minutes of that equalizer.
***
Life-giving as their triumph over the Friars may have been, Vermont’s playoff hopes are still in dire peril, as their subsequent 2-0 loss to Connecticut on Saturday would attest.
Granted, the Catamounts put forth a lot of positives that were previously unheard of from their angle. They confined the Huskies to an infinitesimal nine shots on goal, eight of which were within the second period, and they took a mere three minor penalties, two of which coincided with a Connecticut infraction. And in the opening stanza, they only authorized five attempted shots, all of which were blocked or telepathically directed wide before they could bother goaltender Kristen Olychuck.
But UConn was commendably disciplined in its own right and never gave the Catamounts much opportunity to threaten on their two third period power plays. Plus, the Huskies used their only power play of the day to insert the eventual decider with 7:19 gone in the middle frame.
The end result: Connecticut ensures itself a little postseason action, whether that will start with a quarterfinal tilt or a bye into the semis. Vermont, conversely, is one loss –coupled with one more Boston College victory- away from another February spring cleaning session.
Forecheck
By this Saturday, it will have been a long and evolutionary 78 days since the two parties last converged when Providence visits Northeastern. But not unlike their previous encounter, sole possession of first place will be the victor’s loot.
Then again, Connecticut could just as easily help itself to the throne if they vacuumed all four possible points from their home dates with Boston College and New Hampshire this Saturday and Sunday. (In order for that to happen, though, Northeastern would also need to gain no more than one point.)
Either that or –guess who?- the Granite State Goddesses could ascend to the top, albeit in a technical tie, in the event that Providence dumps the Hub Huskies in regulation and UNH wins its games with Vermont on Wednesday and UConn on Saturday.
Weekly scoreboard
Tuesday, January 26
Northeastern 3, Boston University 2 (SO)
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wbu_noe1.j26
http://www.goterriers.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/012610aab.html
http://gonu.com/whockey/2010/wh10-25.shtml
Wednesday, January 27
Dartmouth 6, Boston College 3
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wbc_dar1.j27
http://bceagles.cstv.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/012710aaa.html
Friday, January 29
Vermont 2, Providence 1
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wprvver1.j29
http://www.friars.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/012910aaa.html
http://www.uvm.edu/~sportspr/womens_hockey/?Page=News&storyID=15900
New Hampshire 5, Maine 2
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wmneunh1.j29
http://goblackbears.cstv.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/012910aaa.html
http://www.unhwildcats.com/sports/wice/2009-10/releases/20100129ou6bdl
Connecticut 2, Boston University 0
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wbu_con1.j29
http://www.goterriers.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/012910aaa.html
http://www.uconnhuskies.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/012910aaa.html
Saturday, January 30
Connecticut 2, Vermont 0
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wconver1.j30
http://www.uconnhuskies.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/013010aad.html
http://www.uvm.edu/~sportspr/womens_hockey/?Page=News&storyID=15904
Harvard 2, Providence 1
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wharprv1.j30
http://www.friars.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/013010aaa.html
New Hampshire 3, Maine 1
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wmneunh1.j30
http://goblackbears.cstv.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/013010aab.html
http://www.unhwildcats.com/sports/wice/2009-10/releases/201001308gxcgs
Upcoming schedule
Tuesday, February 2
Northeastern vs. Boston University, 5:00 pm
Boston College at Harvard, 8:00 pm
Wednesday, February 3
New Hampshire at Vermont, 7:00 pm
Saturday, February 6
Boston College at Connecticut, 1:00 pm
Providence at Northeastern, 2:00 pm
Maine at Vermont, 2:00 pm
Boston University at New Hampshire, 2:00 pm
Sunday, February 7
New Hampshire at Connecticut, 1:00 pm
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