Here is a simple token of hope for the Huntington Hounds: even with a 10-4-4 record, a passably productive strike force and an otherworldly goaltender as reliable as ever, they still have yet to play up to their potential.
The top five point-getters, all in the double-digit range and with at least four goals apiece, are freshmen and sophomores. Freshmen Katie MacSorley (team-leading 11-3-14 totals) and Claire Santostefano have wasted little time making ripples in head coach Dave Flint’s frozen pond. Sophomores Brittany Esposito, Casey Pickett, and Rachel Llanes –who has already surpassed her freshman output with 14 points- are all acceptably following through on their rookie campaigns.
That certainly doesn’t instill apprehension about Northeastern’s long-term future, but for the immediate future, something should be said about the veterans’ comparative and inexplicable lack of output.
The better part of the senior class, which started its career on a team with an abysmal 7-24-3 record as freshmen, has yet to elicit its craving for a fireworks finale. Or, at least, it has yet to translate that hankering into the unprecedented results most observers were raised to expect.
Kristi Kehoe has led the team in scoring in each of her first three seasons, never finishing with any fewer than 25 points in a season. And all the while, the team has accelerated its final winning percentage –from .250 to .386 to .621 last year.
So far this season, despite a .667 success rate for her team in the standings, Kehoe boasts a feathery 2-2-4 transcript through 17 appearances. Classmate Lori Antflick has the exact same scoring totals, coupled with the team’s worst plus/minus rating at negative-8.
At midseason, Alyssa Wohlfeiler’s productivity rate is roughly the same as it was in her sophomore and junior year. But after charging up six points in her first seven games, she has mustered a mere three in her last nine. Likewise, blueliner Julia Marty nailed nine points –including eight helpers- in October, but has since cultivated nothing but one solitary goal in the last nine games.
If Northeastern wants to finish what it tantalizingly started in the previous two seasons this time, it will need all of its aforementioned veterans to thaw out. Logically, both turns can be expected.
With his team lodged at No. 10 in every major national poll, Flint has aptly stressed the need to hunt bigger game, something the Huskies failed to corral in its last outing, a 3-0 loss at Boston University Dec. 7.
On the other side of the break, they will have another important encounter with an established heavyweight, that being a New Year’s Day bout with almighty Wisconsin. It will be their last foreseeable chance to mooch some loot off an interleague powerhouse, which tends to help one’s cause when vying for a coveted NCAA passport. That is, unless the 5-6-2 Harvard turns a sharp, positive pivot between now and the Beanpot semifinals Feb. 8, in which case they’ll have two more shots at invisible, but invaluable, nonconference points.
Come what may, the seniors will most need to be at their peak when the Huskies encounter these fellow aspirant or established heavyweights. The puckslinging pups, as commendable as they have been in the first half, might not be ready to take the pilot’s seat when the stakes are elevated and the opponents more testing. They can take the aforementioned BU game as a fair warning to that notion.
At the rate they have been playing as a whole, and based on the strength of their remaining schedule, the Huskies should have little difficulty reserving an extra home game for the Hockey East quarterfinals. And they should at least continue to hover around the borderline in the polls. But where this program is now, having prudently and patiently rebuilt at every position from the goal out, definitive judgment shall not be passed until that first postseason bout.
It will be on Swiss Save-ior Florence Schelling, 0-2 lifetime in elimination games, to prove she has learned from past shortcomings. And it will be on the elder skaters to sculpt a decent cushion for their goalie to work with.
But first, they will need to rev up with a more assertive finish to the regular season. Antflick, Kehoe, and Wohlfeiler have buoyed their class’ and offense’s steady ascension from humble beginnings. They are now on the clock to put a Sharpie-strong stamp on it.
Al Daniel is the Hockey East correspondent to Beyond the Dashers
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