At 0-5-4, Vermont is lodged in the Hockey East cellar and has the insipid honor of being the last team without a victory in league action. Although those four ties put the Catamounts in a technical three-way knot for sixth place with Maine and New Hampshire, all of their cohabitants with the exception of first-place Boston College have at least one, in some cases four games in hand.
Come Saturday night, when the ice chips settle on a two-night visit from the steadily improving Black Bears, Vermont will have consumed more than half of its Hockey East schedule with but 10 games still to come. Conversely, the Mainers will only be one-third of the way done with 14 league contests left.
Translation: relief can be delayed no more. However voluntary or involuntary the season-long hibernation at Gutterson Fieldhouse has been, it simply needs to end straight away.
If this progressive-minded program does not want a repeat of last season, which saw credible hopes of a playoff spot rapidly rot to waste before the homestretch, it must start stashing precious points now. And that means starting with either three or four points this weekend.
To avoid a dire cramming session on the other side of the December deceleration, the Catamounts cannot afford to still be tied with the Bears when this series is over. Take any fewer than three of the four allotted points, and they will all but be forced to start praying to the freezing rain spirits. Lose the 120-minute battle, and well, the postseason prognosis will be tough for the doctor to deliver to their faces.
To be sure, just one win will be a well-received psychological sparkplug. But if Maine grabs a full two-point package itself, or worse yet stamps a pair of ties, nothing budges in Vermont’s favor.
That is, unless the floundering Wildcats go pointless for the weekend. But as hard as Brian McCloskey’s bygone dynasty has fallen in recent weeks, banking on their postseason absence is like ruling out Kris Kringle’s presence at your local mall this month.
UNH will have two games in hand on the Catamounts to start the New Year. And even if the Wildcats do not have the resources to assure them another at-large NCAA passport, they surely can make up any ground they lose now in time to assure they are still playing on the last weekend of February.
Elsewhere in the standings, everybody has a .500 winning percentage or better in Hockey East play, and the only party in any noticeable danger of tumbling is the underachieving Connecticut. But there is little reason to think that a long, restful and retooling break could not get the Huskies back on track. And even if their nonconference woes do, in fact, presage an implosion for Heather Linstad’s pupils, it still leaves one more team the Catamounts would have to surpass to earn bonus action.
Enter the Black Bears, their fellow designated outcasts since the inception of the six-team playoff format –though maybe no more. Under the first-year coaching administration of Maria Lewis, all is going according to plan in Maine.
The Black Bears are a respectable 6-6-3 overall, a product of reliable production from a multitude of improving skaters combined with keen goaltending courtesy of Brittany Ott. There is too little chance that this steadily ascending team will hit a pothole and squander all of its extra wiggle room. For a change, the opposition needs to work to wrong-foot them now.
Vermont, of course, has Roxanne Douville to counter Ott in the crease. But the offense, which has been shut out four times and scored only one goal in five of the last 11 games, needs to prove it can penetrate Ott. This preferably means putting two, or even three servings of rubber behind her. It would make for an uplifting reference point when the time comes to try their luck against Alexandra Garcia, Kerrin Sperry, Florence Schelling, Lindsey Minton, and Genevieve Lacasse in the second half, all but one of whom are allowing fewer than two goals per game.
And so, this weekend shall either be the test to begin or end all tests for the 2010-11 Catamounts. Celeste Doucet, Teddy Fortin, Peggy Wakeham, and their understudies can either perk up this weekend to grab their much-needed traction, or they might as well set their eyes on another prize pack of pride to define their season.
Al Daniel is the Hockey East correspondent to Beyond the Dashers
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