Hockey East Midseason Awards

Revised Standing Projections
T-1. Boston College
T-1. Boston University
3. Providence
4. Northeastern
5. New Hampshire
6. Maine
7. Connecticut
8. Vermont

Midseason Player of the Year: Kelli Stack, Boston College
A nation-leading 21 goals and league-leading 32 points, a league-best five goals and 12 points on the power play, four game-winning strikes, nine multi-point outings, three hat tricks, only one pointless game, and a plus-17 rating for second-best in the conference.

That’s more than enough as it is to make Stack the front-runner for her third Hockey East Player of the Year laurel, but we can and will go on. Her peerless value to her team is multiplied to the umpteenth power when you plug in her influence on the Eagles’ younger guns.

In 12 games on Stack’s left wing to start the season, freshman Taylor Wasylk logged a 7-6-13 scoring transcript. Another rookie, Danielle Doherty, has been an off-and-on linemate with four out of her first five career points coming with Stack on the ice.

Junior Danielle Welch, itching to resurge from a mild sophomore slide, was assigned to Stack’s left wing before a home-and-home series with Boston University prior Thanksgiving. In the subsequent five games, Welch doubled her point count from six to 12 on the year. In that same span, their right winger, freshman Melissa Bizzari, has gone on a 2-4-6 sugar rush after nailing seven points over 12 games with her old partners.

Midseason Goalie of the Year: Molly Schaus, Boston College
BC’s Comm. Ave. cohabitants are still offensively deeper by at least a few noticeable ounces. They are supreme on both sides of the special teams’ spectrum. And the Terriers look to have contentedly answered their preseason goaltending question.

But the only question that has come up concerning the Eagles’ backstopping backbone is “Can she really be that impassable?” Schaus enters the holiday break tops among Hockey Easterners in both goals-against average (1.37) and save percentage (.940). And if time could skate backwards and avert her one lapse in a 1-0 loss to the Terriers on Nov. 21, she would also be ahead of BU rookie Kerrin Sperry for the league’s best individual winning percentage.

So far, that is the only loss on Schaus’ tab. And her other tussle with the Terriers, a 6-3 win Nov. 20, is one of only two times she has allowed three goals this season. Her praetorian guards have certainly done their part –she has yet to face 30 or more shots in a game- but she is alert at the most pivotal times.

With Schaus in the cage, BC has fallen behind by multiple goals on two occasions and only thrice has the opposition negated a one-goal difference.

Midseason Rookie of the Year: Roxanne Douville, Vermont
So far, Kristen Olychuck’s successor evokes the opening line of that old Police song, “Roxanne, you don’t have to put on the red light.” If anything, her teammates are the ones who need to find some way to ignite the other lamp, because Douville is doing more than enough on her end to put up a winning foundation. She is indubitably the sole reason the 2-8-8 Catamounts have as many ties as they do vinegary losses and why only one of those losses was by a margin greater than three goals (incidentally, Kelci Lanthier was on duty for that one).

Through her first 13 ventures, all of them start-to-finish, Douville has allowed a precise median of two goals per game, charging up seven 30-plus and two 40-plus save performances. Only the reloaded Boston College Eagles have managed to smuggle more than three pucks behind her in a single game.

Although her offensive allies have yet to offer her anything near sufficient compensation, Douville’s valiance has salvaged all six of Vermont’s Hockey East points, four of them via ties and the most recent pair from a 4-3 overtime win over Maine. The mere fact that she has been asked to do so much for a floundering program –and delivered as best an individual can- sets her apart from the statistically superior Kerrin Sperry of the well-rounded Boston University team.

Midseason Coach of the Year: Maria Lewis, Maine
The reasonable approach would have been to give Lewis at least a full year before she started reeling in her own recruits and then put her system to the test. Instead, three months into her inaugural campaign, her tactics and attitude are already spawning the results. And to call those results irreproachable is mild by Maine’s standards.

With an 8-7-4 record at the break, the Black Bears have already exceeded their win total from any of Dan Lichterman’s three seasons. They are 2-3-2 in Hockey East with still two-thirds of the conference schedule yet to come, putting them on pace for their best league finish since their last playoff appearance in 2005-06.

Last year, in the post-Sacred Heart portion of their schedule, the Mainers mustered a mere 43 goals for an average of 1.48 per game. Right now, after heaving 18 pucks past the plebeian Pioneers, they have inserted 36 more in their last 17 games, averaging 2.12 per night.

Twelve of the Black Bears’ regular skaters are in the plus/minus black. Their power play has converted at least once in all but three games and accumulated 21 conversions, already matching its total from last season. And the only time Maine has been shut out was a satisfying 0-0 draw versus Northeastern and its Swiss Save-ior Florence Schelling.

So, you tell us what’s making this sudden net-to-net difference in Orono.

Al Daniel is the Hockey East correspondent to Beyond the Dashers