No one should be exceedingly surprised by Boston College’s 7-0-2 start, officially the best start in program history. But the one scary part of this is the Eagles have only played two home games so far and are a sound 5-0-2 away from Conte Forum. Of the 24 regular season contests remaining on their schedule, 13 will be at home, Beanpot included.
After Wednesday night’s 3-1 win at Northeastern, BC now boasts the nation’s best defense, allowing only 1.22 goals per game. Again, nothing that bowls anyone over, but still impressive.
New Hampshire’s embattled point-based puckslinger Courtney Birchard will reach a belated milestone when she plays in her 100th career game against Vermont this Saturday.
The most unusual penalty call –besides, of course, bodychecking- I’ve heard of lately: spraying the goalie. That offense cost Connecticut winger Alexandra Vakos two minutes in last Saturday’s home bout with Boston College.
Unlike the staunch purists, I’m not exactly jubilant to see the shootout go after two years in practice. But then again, I don’t sorely miss it, either. The concept simply has its pluses and minuses.
Maine is the only team in the league yet to have a game spill into overtime this season. Perhaps that is because they have a hard time giving up a lead once they have it or usurping a lead from the opposition. At 4-4-0, the Bears have scored first in all four of their wins and surrendered the first strike in each loss.
The surprising Black Bears also have two players –sophomore Brittany Dougherty and senior Jennie Gallo- who have already broken double-digits in the point column. Border rival UNH still has nothing of the sort. The aforementioned Birchard and Arielle O’Neill are tied atop the Wildcats’ scoring charts with eight points apiece.
And speaking of Gallo, she like Birchard has Career Game No. 100 pending this Saturday when the Mainers visit UConn. This game will also be the ostensibly revamped Black Bears’ first Hockey East test.
Connecticut is last in offense, defense, power play, and special teams’ net. However, Heather Linstad’s pupils can at least claim they are the most disciplined bunch in the New England Eight, averaging a league-low 9.3 penalty minutes per game.
None of Vermont’s eight games have ended in a one-goal or two-goal differential. And yet four have been ties. Otherwise, the Catamounts are 1-3 in games decided by a margin of three or more.
Boston University freshman phenom Marie-Philip Poulin takes off for her Four Nations Cup detour with the best plus-minus among all Hockey East skaters at plus-12. Providence College seniors Alyse Ruff and Amber Yung are second in that category with a plus-11 and their goalie, Genevieve Lacasse, leads all Hockey Easterners with a whopping plus-18.
Things are gradually getting back to normal in the Northeastern cage, at least for the hot-handed starter Florence Schelling, but there will be no exclamation point until the Swiss Save-ior posts her first shutout of the season.
With an empty netter in Tuesday’s nights 3-1 win over Yale, PC junior forward Kate Bacon has already cemented a career year with nine goals. And were it not for Bacon’s equalizer in the Friars’ 2-2 tie with BU last week, Terrier Jenn Wakefield would already have four game-winning strikes on the year.
Wakefield, by the way will join fellow Canadian Terriers Poulin and Tara Watchorn at the Four Nations Cup, thus will be unavailable for Sunday’s visit from her former team.
Boston University, New Hampshire, and Maine are first, second, and third, respectively, in the nation in terms of combined special teams, which is calculated by dividing the sum of a team’s total power play goals and penalties killed by the sum of total power play and penalty killing segments. Hope that explanation didn’t rehash any math class nightmares.
Al Daniel is the Hockey East correspondent to Beyond the Dashers
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