Author’s note: In a nod to The Hockey News and the current release of its annual “Goalie Issue,” the BTD Hockey East correspondent breaks down the quality of each goaltending guild in the New England Eight.
Boston College
The 2010-11 Eagles are winless (0-2-2) when Molly Schaus, otherwise known as Miss Zero, is unavailable for action. And on a team that is still trying to equate their regal rival Boston University’s offensive depth, Schaus is arguably the sole reason BC has been reckonable on the national landscape.
Only twice in 19 appearances has the senior starter allowed three goals in a game, and two of those were against BU. And at the moment, she is on pace to post a career-best 1.44 goals-against average and .938 save percentage.
If Schaus needs anything more, besides consistent offensive support from more than just fellow U.S. Olympian Kelli Stack, it is simply to let motivation be her compass. She and Stack all but singlehandedly set the new standard in the women’s wing of Conte Forum, but still have yet to stamp it in the form of a conference and/or national crown.
Once she is gone next autumn, it will be on rising senior Kiera Kingston and soon-to-be junior Corinne Boyles to replenish the determination that earned them dignity when they filled Schaus’ pads in her absence all last season.
Boston University
All she had to do was give a satisfactory answer to the defending champion Terriers’ sole question mark. But rookie Kerrin Sperry has chosen to go above and beyond and drag out a long-winded mission statement.
Heading into this weekend’s action, Sperry is the last unbeaten stopper in the nation, boasting a 14-0-2 transcript for a peerless .938 winning percentage. She is tied for second with aforementioned Schaus among Hockey East save percentage leaders and tops the conference with a 1.36 GAA.
More emphatically, after her two colleagues shared the flak in a 6-3 home loss to the Eagles Nov. 20, Sperry proceeded to shut BC out at Conte Forum the following afternoon. And she did it once more less than two weeks ago.
Even the first backup, sophomore Alissa Fromkin, has garnered periodic highlights. Getting the nod at a seemingly unfair time –what with three of her key skating mates away at the Four Nations Cup and her just returning from injury- she withstood a 14-shot first period salvo en route to a 4-1 win over Providence Nov. 6.
Connecticut
In a league that is peerlessly permeated with seasoned and standard-bearing stoppers, UConn junior Alexandra Garcia is one of the few who is not quite performing up to par this season. And she is the personification of the Huskies’ (so far) dubious outlook.
True, within the league schedule, she has taken full credit for an 8-4-1 record and posted five shutouts. But three of those goose-eggs were laid on the bottom-feeders from Vermont while one apiece happened upon the floundering New Hampshire Wildcats and the growingly endangered Maine Black Bears.
Against the certified contenders within her conference, Garcia has allowed 13 goals in four contests. And she went 1-8-0 in her nine interleague decisions, coupled with a goals against average exceeding 4.70 and three early exits.
She will have to relocate her old formula from last season in a hurry to avert an epic downturn. The remainder of the Huskies’ schedule is comprised of a cumulative eight meetings with BC, BU, Northeastern, and Providence.
Maine
No longer are bushels weighing 50-plus pucks a part of the stoppers’ job description in Orono. At least not since the busy puckslingers from Mercyhurst thrust 74 and 51 biscuits at Brittany Ott over two games in early October.
Since then, Ott has been taxed with a workload in the 40-shot range only three times, none of them exceeding 45. And only twice in that span of 19 games has she authorized more than three opposing goals –those being 6-1 and 5-2 losses to BC and BU, respectively, earlier this month.
But things are getting exponentially exigent now. Ott has lost each of her last four and six of her last seven decisions, all of this being in Hockey East action. The Black Bears’ feel-good playoff bid is melting away, and Ott will need to be near-perfect in the next three games against New Hampshire and Vermont to ensure her team vacuums the easiest points still available. (Not to mention, personally shove other lower-class racers to the side.) Because after that, the schedule curtains with four combined dates with the Comm. Ave. cohabitants.
New Hampshire
Since backboning a most misleading six-game winning streak, which culminated in three consecutive shutouts, starter Lindsey Minton has been left alone most nights and gone 2-8-0 in her last 10 appearances. More recently, senior backup Kayley Herman showed no signs of frostbite in her first start of the New Year, repelling a careeer-high 40 shots (her previous high on the season was 27 saves) for an important 4-3 overtime win at Northeastern. It was her biggest and most rewarding sweat since she denied 36 bids to beat Boston College on Jan. 29, 2009.
For what that was worth, Herman just might now usurp the starting position that she has not had for herself since a sparkling rookie campaign. If head coach Brian McCloskey detects anything remotely suggesting a hot hand, he might as well stick with it as the Wildcats do what no one thought they’d ever have to do: battle for their Hockey East playoff lives.
Northeastern
Already, junior Florence Schelling has played more games (23) than in either her freshman or sophomore season. But looking at her last three results, one wonders if she will have enough oomph to bolster the ambitious Huskies through the critical month of February. In each of her first two seasons, Northeastern fizzled in the homestretch and snuffed out in the Hockey East quarterfinal.
And now, this season, Schelling enters the final weekend of January on a season-worst three game losing streak, wherein she has authorized 10 opposing strikes in 178:51 minutes played. Although the playoffs are hardly in doubt, it is on all of the Huskies to resist hibernation if they want to preserve home ice for the wild card game as well as their consideration for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.
As for Schelling, while she will want to fortify the net a little better in the next seven games, real judgment need not be passed until the postseason itself. She is currently 0-2 lifetime in elimination games.
Providence
She is who she is. She’s the quintessential minute-muncher, having consumed 1387:27 worth of crease time for third-most in the nation. She’s the Scarborough Save-ior, with a league-best .945 save percentage, also No. 3 in the NCAA. She is the topmost reason why the Friars recently bumped BC and Northeastern, each bearing their own world-class goaltender.
Upon prevailing in her latest classic staring contest with Schelling, junior Genevieve Lacasse posted her career-high 16th win of the year. Going into this Friday’s visit to BC, she is two saves away from surpassing the legendary Sara DeCosta for No. 2 on the Friars’ all-time saves list. She is one shutout away from surpassing Jana Bugden’s career collection of 12.
In her eight intercollegiate engagements since Thanksgiving, Lacasse has given up no more than two goals per night and the Friars have trailed on only four occasions, never by a multi-goal difference. In between, she partook in a gold medal at the MLP Cup in her first meaningful gig with Team Canada.
Vermont
Like their predecessor, Kristen Olychuck, rookie Roxanne Douville and sophomore transfer Kelci Lanthier have been best defined as sympathetic figures.
In 16 start-to-finish twirls with the Catamounts, Douville has earned merely two victories, but has only endured two losing streaks, including a current three-game skid. During the first two months of the season, her toil helped to salvage six ties –all of which saw her making at least 30 saves, and in two cases more than 40. And the only scorchers she has endured –i.e. four opposing goals- have been issued by the explosive BC and BU strike forces.
Similarly, in her 10 appearances, Lanthier has posted a 2-5-3 record. And although each of her losses, unlike most of Douville’s, saw her authorizing three or more goals, two of the ties could have easily been wins with just one more dollop of offensive compensation.
Odds are Douville –who partnered with PC’s Lacasse at the MLP Cup- is the nucleus of the future, and she should only get sharper as she matures.
Al Daniel is the Hockey East correspondent to Beyond the Dashers
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