The volcanic jubilation that the Boston University Terriers centered on their newly awarded Hockey East championship trophy Sunday was hardly unexpected. All of the active circumstances –the sudden honor of snapping the league-old Providence/New Hampshire dynasty, the forward stride for their still-relatively new varsity program, and the knee-jerk euphoria that always accompanies any overtime triumph- made the typical on-ice fiesta wholly understandable.
Yet it took less than half an hour for head coach Brian Durocher to put the revelry in sleep mode and treat the conference hardware like the Prince of Wales Trophy. His team’s victory has, after all, directly earned it another week of practice to tune up for its first NCAA playoff bout this Saturday.
“Our task now gets tougher because we have to maintain standards,” he said at the conclusion of Sunday’s post-game presser.
“Fortunately,” Durocher continued, “we’re looking forward to that challenge.”
The specific challenge they have garnered comes as no more a surprise as their celebration at Schneider Arena after Tara Watchorn’s goal not only gave them a pennant, but outright salvaged the previously unranked Terriers’ bid to the Elite Eight. Assigned to the No. 8 slot by the selection committee, they shall visit the almighty Mercyhurst Lakers, last year’s national finalist and the consensus top dog in the polls for 20 weeks running.
At 29-2-3, including a 13-1-2 transcript against interleague opponents and a 4-1-1 mark against fellow ranked teams, the Lakers’ winning percentage of .897 dwarfs even the .763 success rate of No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth. No other team in the nation has lost any fewer than seven games or failed to win any less than 10.
Mercyhurst brandishes a similarly peerless average scoring margin at 3.15, having scored a median of 4.76 goals per game while letting 1.62 into its own net. It has the NCAA’s second-best power play and fourth-best penalty kill.
The Lakers have five forwards with more points on the year than BU’s top gun, Melissa Anderson. That includes the top three point-getters in the nation in Jesse Scanzano, Vicki Bendus, and Bailey Bram. Scanzano’s 42 assists make her the nation’s best playmaker and, combined with her 20 goals, make her the only Division I competitor to be averaging two points per game.
Bendus and Bram alone have combined for 20 of the team’s 49 power play strikes. Bendus, Bram, and Scanzano top the charts with a combined 14 shorthanded goals, followed immediately by teammate Jess Jones, who along with four other individuals has three shorties to her credit.
Mercyhurst also has two of the top 10 most productive point patrollers in Melissa Lacroix and Cassea Schols.
Still, there are a few areas where one may argue the Terriers have a slight upper hand. They, along with fifth-seeded Cornell (9-0-1), have the country’s second-longest active unbeaten streak going for them at 7-0-3. Although, the Lakers remain no stranger to momentum seeing as they have won nine straight.
BU goaltender Melissa Haber, who has performed substantially better in the latter phases of her senior campaign, actually bears a slightly healthier save percentage (.924) than the Lakers’ Hillary Pattenden (.921). Again, that is not a substantial edge, and probably not relevant anyway. But at the very least, it indicates that the Terriers can sculpt a competitive contest this Saturday.
But if anyone is looking for a surefire strength that belongs exclusively to the Bostonians, it has to be their now-proudly-scarred resume. There is little evidence to refute the argument that Hockey East was the nation’s most competitive league this year. Just look at the latest revisions to the PairWise rankings, which show that three of the top four schools who barely missed out on the dance hail from the WHEA.
Conversely, the Lakers’ closest conference cohabitant is Syracuse, which finished 18-17-1 overall and several strides shy of any Top 10 lists.
Then there is all of that overtime the Terriers have worked through -15 games to be exact- which just might have tipped the scale their way when they zapped Connecticut at 9:52 of Sunday’s bonus round.
Not to mention, BU has been forced to make major modifications to its depth chart at various points in the season. The point-based playmaker Watchorn was missing for a total of seven games between November 18 and January 19. But upon her return, she proved not to have lost much of her touch, ultimately charging up six helpers plus that season-stretching goal in her last 16 appearances.
Similarly, slick sophomore Jenelle Kohanchuk was deleted from the lineup after a January 22 game with a dislocated thumb and, hours before Part I of the Beanpot on February 2, was ruled virtually done till next September. Yet she returned for the postseason, wherein she has contributed an assist in all three games along with a cumulative 14 shots on goal, including seven in the Hockey East title tilt.
And now, with an experienced, roundly braced, and trophy-starved Mercyhurst program to confront, the Terriers’ continuous adversity shall not let up. All that in mind, neither dignified defeat or surprise victory this Saturday will hurt the new standards Durocher speaks of.
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