Backcheck
On Saturday, for the first time since the day Minnesota terminated her junior year in the 2009 quarterfinals, Molly Schaus surrendered two goals within the same period of an NCAA hockey game. And all of a sudden, she and her unbeaten Boston College Eagles looked out of character as they trailed the floundering Connecticut Huskies, 2-0.
But ever since Katie King assumed the head coaching post three-plus years ago, these Eagles have repeatedly demonstrated varying breeds of elasticity. No surprise, therefore, that Schaus recovered her Miss Zero persona for the rest of the weekend, shutting out UConn for the next five periods plus a five-minute bonus round en route to a 2-2 tie at Freitas Ice Forum followed by a 3-0 home triumph at Conte Forum on Sunday –the celestial goalie’s 20th college career shutout.
Not that her services were ever summoned on an emergency basis. She faced no more than five shots in each period with the exception of Sunday’s closing frame, at which point her robust team was already subsisting on a 2-0 lead.
After the Huskies snagged their 2-0 edge with 18:08 gone in the first period Saturday, the Eagles took each of the game’s next 18 shot attempts and 12 shots on goal, including a strike by Kelli Stack to saw the deficit at 5:52 of the second.
UConn would not muster another attempted shot until the 13th minute of the middle frame and did not test Schaus again until a power play in the 14th minute. Husky Rebecca Hewett’s stab would be the only bid for her team in the entire period and the thawed-out Eagles kept their momentum going into the third, running up the shooting gallery, 8-2, in the seven minutes and 32 seconds leading up to freshman Melissa Bizzari’s equalizer.
On Sunday, BC carried on a trend that started in Saturday’s first intermission: they outscored the Huskies, 1-0, in each period. Stack’s unassisted shorthanded goal a mere 3:15 into the opening stanza set an ominous tone as the Eagles controlled the shooting gallery, 20-4, receiving at least one SOG from 11 out of 18 skaters.
By day’s end, 14 BC players had taken one hack at a bent-then-broken Alexandra Garcia, who is at the bottom of each Hockey East goaltending leaderboard with a 3.31 goals-against average, .910 save percentage, and .188 winning percentage for the 1-7-1 Huskies.
Conversely, the 6-0-2 Eagles –one of five remaining unbeaten teams in the nation- must stave off defeat for only one more night before they can declare this their best start in the program’s 17-year history.
***
Three weeks removed from enduring back-to-back road dents at the hands of Syracuse and Colgate, the New Hampshire Wildcats have swiftly reaffirmed their viability through a six-game winning streak, albeit against largely softer competition.
The near-peerlessly arid offense of the visiting Niagara Purple Eagles combined with Lindsey Minton’s focused goaltending bolstered 1-0 and 2-0 wins whilst blanketing an array of, at best, medium-sized concerns that will no doubt need to be addressed before the Cats hit the heated phases of the Hockey East schedule.
Four penalties in the first period of an eventual 1-0 OT win? Much more affordable against the likes of Niagara than it will be against, say, one of the three Hub clubs, or Providence, or even Maine, whose power play has remarkably converted at least once in all eight of its games this season.
Not a single power play drawn at the opponent’s expense, as was the case in Saturday’s 2-0 triumph? The oft-infamous Lake Whittemore doesn’t really come off as treacherous when visitors aren’t resorting to infractions and conceding shorthanded time.
Outshot by a 3:2 ratio? It happens to most anybody anywhere. But on Saturday, UNH allowed 24 shots to the Eagles while it mustered only 16 stabs at a team that, in each of its previous seven games, had allotted no fewer than 23 SOG to its opponents.
With a few more 5-on-4 segments and more hacks at the visiting cage, the Wildcats could have run off with 3-0, 4-0, or 5-0 triumphs this weekend.
No definite telling whether this was a sign of mild lethargy or of the “cycle theory” working against them to give them a shallower roster than in their recent dynasty. Either way, the Cats will have to seek some quick means of honing their blades if they are to return to familiar territory in the national polls and the melting pot of Hockey East title contenders.
***
The more a select few push against the Green Mountain gale, the more valiant they appear. But so long as their act is going to be the Peggy Wakeham and Goalie Show, don’t expect the Vermont Catamounts to make substantial strides as a team.
The senior Wakeham nailed both goals while Roxanne Douville and Kelci Lanthier took turns stopping 30- or 40-plus shots in a 1-1 tie and 4-1 loss at Northeastern over the weekend.
Granted, as a program, the Huskies are more advanced at every position, and their backbone stopper Florence Schelling has steadily regained her groove after a choppy first three weeks. But Vermont could, at the very least, have usurped a full two points instead one on Friday.
Douville, appearing in her fourth collegiate contest, turned in a milestone 43-save dolphin show Friday, including 17 out of 18 shots faced in the first period and all 15 in the third. But her skating mates offered less compensation than she could have requested, particularly seeing as they went 0-for-9 on the power play, whiffing on 10 aggregate shots in that scenario.
In the wake of those missed opportunities and the single point that pined for a partner, Wakeham finally gave her team a power play strike at 5:44 of Saturday’s second period. But that was only after the recharged Northeastern offense had scorched Lanthier for three first period goals.
Forecheck
Moments after his potent team arm-wrestled to a not-so-surprising, but thoroughly entertaining 2-2 tie with the similarly stocked Providence squad on Friday, Boston University head coach Brian Durocher noted that the rematch this Saturday will be a challenge. After all, the Terriers will be missing Marie-Philip Poulin, Jenn Wakefield, and Tara Watchorn as they all fulfill their Team Canada obligations at the Four Nations Cup.
“I expect both teams to be playing hard and we’ve got to ramp it up right from the get-go,” he said. “We’re going to have to play a smart game, an intelligent game, and make sure we match their intensity.”
For the Friars, depending especially on how much the tie did for their national stature this week, Saturday’s excursion to Walter Brown Arena could be a critical opportunity to latch on to a position in the Top 10 polls.
Meanwhile, Boston College will likewise be strained by temporary international exports, particularly on the backend, for its Wednesday visit to Northeastern and Sunday bout with Vermont. The Olympic veteran Schaus will once again be off to don the Star-Spangled Sweater and shall have Eagles’ freshman Meagan Mangene for one of her blueliners.
So far, apart from one period of action for Kiera Kingston against Brown last week, neither of BC’s backups has had a chance to build on their growing season that was 2009-10. Will Kingston and/or Corinne Boyles be ready to thaw their gametime mood back out?
Weekly scoreboard
Friday, October 29
Vermont 1, Northeastern 1
Boston University 2, Providence 2
New Hampshire 1, Niagara 0 (OT)
Saturday, October 30
Boston College 2, Connecticut 2
New Hampshire 2, Niagara 0
Northeastern 4, Vermont 1
Sunday, October 31
Boston College 3, Connecticut 0
Upcoming schedule
Tuesday, November 2
Providence at Yale, 7:00 pm
Wednesday, November 3
Boston College at Northeastern, 7:00 pm
Saturday, November 6
Maine at Connecticut, 1:00 pm
Yale at Northeastern, 2:00 pm
Providence at Boston University, 3:00 pm
Vermont at New Hampshire, 5:00 pm
Sunday, November 7
Maine at Providence, 2:00 pm
Vermont at Boston College, 2:00 pm
New Hampshire at Boston University, 4:00 pm
Al Daniel is the Hockey East correspondent to Beyond the Dashers
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