All things considered, the Maine Black Bears are playing close enough for comfort.
After a four-, five-, and six-win season (all in direct succession) under Dan Lichterman, the sparse senior class has welcomed new skipper Maria Lewis and all but instantaneously meshed with her philosophy with a more festive finale in mind.
Already, the Bears have extracted eight wins and are savoring a supra-.500 record at 8-7-4. They finished their interleague slate with at 6-4-2 and shall enter 2011 with precisely two-thirds of the Hockey East schedule yet to come. With games in hand on six of their conference cohabitants, they are afforded more than enough direct control in their drive for the program’s first playoff berth since 2006.
On top of that, Lewis has stressed to every approaching inquirer that neither she nor her pupils are ready to call this a season. Maine’s exponential improvement in the first two-plus months has been watertight, yet it can do much more to garner another layer of esteem.
One of the obvious plus points: the Black Bears started off at 4-6-0, two of those wins being the routine September lashings of Sacred Heart and the losses coming in two sets of three. They have since gone 4-1-4, either wrapping themselves a two-point package in regulation or pushing their adversaries into overtime.
Their lone falter in that recent span, and the only time goaltender Brittany Ott surrendered more than two goals, was a 4-3 sudden death setback to a desperate Vermont team Dec. 4. But it was also one of those nights that could be used to plea for single-point OT losses in Hockey East, seeing as the Black Bears valiantly deleted a 3-1 deficit within the final 14:30 of the third period.
The previous time Maine trailed by multiple goals, Part II of a home series with Northeastern in mid-November, that too wound up going to a bonus round. The Huskies and celestial stopper Florence Schelling hugged a 2-0 edge until there was 9:52 to spare in regulation. In a matter of 16 seconds, it became a 2-2 tie.
Still with a middling offense, the Bears are 1-7-1 when shedding first blood, but their resilience is patently coming along. And while their defense of leads has been periodically pliant, they are a pristine 7-0-2 when scoring first.
If anything is paging for help on the defensive side, it is a reduction in penalty time. Maine leads Hockey East and is second in the country behind Mercyhurst with a nightly average of 13.5 minutes in the box. Translation: the penalty killing brigade is on duty for more than one-fifth and nearly a quarter of the game.
Granted, Maine has abolished a good 102 out of 116 opposing power plays, good for the nation’s sixth-best success rate at 87.9 percent. But simply put, less time and energy spent shorthanded means more time to hone an offense that, while appreciably deeper, more seasoned, and more prolific than in the past, still needs to pursue a sturdier insurance policy.
Out of the Black Bears’ last 15 games, a 4-1 win over New Hampshire was the only three-plus-goal decision. The rest of the time, it has been all ties, close shaves, or clips to the chin. In that 15-game stretch, they have led by three goals on two occasions, led by two merely five separate times, and trailed by two 10 times.
Maine is 5-5 in games decided by one or two goals, has yet to lose when allowing two goals or less, but also has yet to win or tie when the opposition scores thrice.
Between sophomore Brittany Dougherty and senior Jennie Gallo, the Bears have their first pair of double-digit goal-getters since the year before Lichterman arrived in 2007. Dougherty and Gallo, along with Myriam Crousette have all gone no longer than two games without a point. Juniors Danielle Ward and Dawn Sullivan have been suitably consistent.
But the remainder of the playoff derby promises to be more taxing than anything Maine has encountered so far. They still have yet to meet Boston College and Boston University, among other things.
Accordingly, to keep up with the heavyweights’ offense and to penetrate other fortresses, the Black Bears will need to dig up a little more depth –particularly from their young guns and senior Jordan Colliton- if they are to meet their spontaneously elevated standards this season.
But with Lewis’ attitude, it won’t be so startling if they do.
Al Daniel is the Hockey East correspondent to Beyond the Dashers
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