The active generation of Providence Friars has all but been enough to the Connecticut Huskies what the Detroit Red Wings were to the St. Louis Blues in the mid-to-late 1990s.
Between 1996 and 1998, those NHL rivals experienced three consecutive playoff engagements and three triumphs for the Detroiters. And now, the fifth-seeded Huskies are raring to visit Schneider Arena for Saturday’s Hockey East semifinal, a chance for them to rinse out the PC-issued vinegar from both 2008 and 2009.
But Friartownies would be more inclined to compare their team to the UNH Wildcats and the Huskies to, well, the Friars.
There are certainly no guarantees of a fourth consecutive PC-UNH postseason showdown come Sunday. But the Friars are not likely to tire of dumping the likes of UConn en route to such a familiar matchup, as they have already done in the 2008 Hockey East semifinals and 2009 quarterfinals.
It doesn’t get much simpler than that. The notion of unfinished business has become a Zamboni in both the Friars’ and Huskies’ dressing rooms. For as long as their current juniors and seniors can recall, PC has continuously terminated UConn’s season, then gone right on to know how it feels through a New Hampshire Catscratch.
To reiterate an important point, no one can even pretend to be a puck prophet and assume the same events will unfold this weekend as the Southern New England rivals engage once again while UNH and Boston University stage another rematch from the 2008 semifinals. But one need only have taken one semester of Contemporary College Hockey History to understand that the host Friars wouldn’t mind living a rerun in Part I of their 2010 postseason.
As it happens, there are plenty of PC personalities with a favorable history versus the Huskies. Junior forward Alyse Ruff has a team-best 4-4-8 transcript in her career against UConn. In five regulation wins out of 11 encounters, she has had a hand in two clinching goals.
Struggling sophomore forward Laura Veharanta is in midst of a six-game pointless funk and has not garnered a goal in her last 14 outings, her last coming against New Hampshire on December 5. But this is hardly the first time she has had a cold spell and two of her longest previous droughts were splashed at Connecticut’s expense.
In last year’s quarterfinal, Veharanta vindicated herself from another six-game skid in a hurry, planting the Friars a 1-0 lead 14 seconds into the opening frame and adding an assist to seal a 3-0 triumph. Then, on November 1 of this season, after failing to score in her first nine games throughout October, she inserted PC’s lone regulation goal and then pitched in a shootout strike en route to a 2-1 win at Freitas Ice Forum.
And since her arrival on the Divine Campus, sophomore goalie Genevieve Lacasse has averaged 1.52 goals against and a .945 save percentage in seven confrontations with Connecticut. Both of those numbers exceed her career median as a whole –a .927 save percentage and 2.04 GAA. Two of her nine career shutouts have been against UConn, as have two one-goal games.
Lacasse, however, is at best dead-even with Connecticut counterpart Alex Garcia this season. Statistically speaking, Garcia has been a few ice chips better this season, particularly in the homestretch. And Garcia finished second only to Northeastern phenom Florence Schelling in the Bauer Goaltending Championship derby, the title Lacasse claimed as a radiant rookie last year.
Similarly, Huskies’ senior Cristin Allen –the third-best playmaker in the league and one of a dozen double-digit point-getters on her team- is fresh off being named the WHEA’s top defender. Her selection, disclosed in a league press release on Wednesday, was based on her 16 points and plus-6 rating within regular season league action.
Her primal challenger for the award: none other than PC junior Amber Yung, who coupled a plus-7 rating with nine points in her team’s 21 league contests.
But beyond the individual hardware, and perhaps even beyond one program’s incentive to “reverse the curse” against another, the first-place Friars look to have a little more to gain and to redeem in this matchup. For starters, their two shabbiest defensive upshots of late happened to be a 3-3 knot (eventual shootout win) and a 4-1 loss against these Huskies.
More critically, whereas UConn (20-8-7) is comfortably perched at No. 7 in the PairWise rankings, Providence (15-10-9) is in a three-way knot for No. 10, meaning a win Saturday is indubitably pivotal in preserving the Friars’ run.
Although, pending the results in other league tournaments –particularly the ECAC with Quinnipiac and Cornell also within tasting distance of a virtual NCAA playoff spot- nothing is safe for the Huskies if they do not at least advance to the WHEA title game. Their elder players ought to understand that well enough. In 2008, when they hosted the conference tourney, they were No. 8 in the polls, but a 5-1 semifinal loss to the Friars effectively burst their bubble.
So nope, not much is really new here. It’s the same match-up and same basic implications. Only the lessons learned on either side remain uncertain.
No comments:
Post a Comment