Jokes aside, Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma ought to take a few strides in Heather Linstad’s skates and see what it means to feel genuinely tired of losing.
While the school’s queenly cagers strive for a new mind-boggling win streak and a third straight national championship, the UConn women’s hockey team is already guaranteed its first sub-.500 interleague record since 2006-07, when it went 5-7-1 outside of Hockey East. It is nothing short of an acridly abrupt U-turn away from where this program had been trending since the incumbent senior class went through orientation in the fall of 2007.
After going 9-2-2 in 2007-08, 7-3-3 in 2008-09, and 9-3-1 in 2009-10, this year’s Huskies are a ghastly 3-8-0 beyond league boundaries. Translation: they have already matched their sum of nonconference losses from each of the previous three seasons.
And in this ecosystem, a losing transcript outside one’s own league is always a raring death knell to any NCAA Elite Eight hopes. Hardly the ideal follow-through on two oh-so-close bubble bursts in 2008 and 2010, when UConn finished 10th and ninth, respectively, in the final national polls.
Why, then, might this weekend’s two-game series with Robert Morris contain such telling repercussions as to the fate of this nearly lost cause of a 2010-11 season? Given the circumstances, it is now simply bonus exhibition action before the meaningful schedule resumes next week. It should be used not to spruce up an incurably wrinkled resume, but rather to restore dignity and confidence in advance of a grueling battle just to assure the program’s fifth consecutive trip to the Hockey East playoffs.
Conveniently, their remaining schedule will virtually increase in difficulty at a rate slow enough that, if they can restore a competitive rhythm without fail, the Huskies shall not be defanged in their fight. The Colonials, who visit Freitas Ice Forum both Saturday and Sunday, are hardly pushovers on the UConn barometer. But they figure to be comparatively less capable of overwhelming anybody and there might as well be no tangible consequences at stake for either party.
If anything, Robert Morris, which is 3-13-1 overall and 1-3-1 against fellow College Hockey America teams, is likewise looking for a psychological sparkplug before it resumes its conference competition. The contesting teams are supplying one another’s last set of training blades this weekend. Whoever accepts the offer more graciously will have a little less hassle at their next practice.
Afterwards, Connecticut’s first four games in the Hockey East homestretch will be the most vital solely for the fact that they are, at least as the databases will tell you, the most winnable. An equally luckless and slightly more desperate Vermont squad pays a two-night visit to Storrs next weekend, after which Linstad’s pupils will visit the steadily ascending Maine Black Bears for a pair at Alfond Arena Jan. 21-22.
For those four contests, the would-be value of two or more wins and the potential detriment of one too many shortcomings are virtually multiplied. Given that the Huskies have two games in hand on the 1-6-4 Catamounts, kicking enough ice chips in Vermont’s face could all but shove the Green and Gold out of the playoff derby. And while tripping up Maine guarantees a lot less in the long run, failure to act will only embolden the Bears’ ego and cut a few more inches off of UConn’s brittle ice.
Not to mention, a lack of booty at the expense of their fellow welterweights will do nothing to brace the Huskies for their subsequent battles with those comfortably contending for home ice or a first-round bye. And those are exactly who will constitute the competition for the final eight games of the regular season.
While the Huskies are cozily crammed into playoff range at the moment, tied for fourth place with Northeastern at 4-4-1, they have yet to whittle much off of the Hockey East bigwigs. They are currently 0-3-1 against Boston College, Boston University, and Providence, losing those four games by a cumulative score of 14-3. And the lone point they cultivated from a 2-2 tie against BC on Oct. 30 had to be salvaged by goaltender Alexandra Garcia as the Eagles owned the shooting gallery, 26-5, while they deleted a 2-0 UConn edge within the final 40 minutes.
Odds are the Huskies could not whiff on all of those last 16 Hockey East points if they tried. But to maintain a fighting chance for the postseason, they must be ready to steal a few. And they can only do that if they can endure 60-minute contests, a questionable notion when you consider that, in their last five games dating back to December, they have been outscored, 12-1, in the third period.
The preparation starts with finding their long-lost selves while “margin for error” still has enough space in the team dictionary. Consulting that same dictionary and finding that their definition of “success” has loosened so drastically ought to be enough motivation.
Bottom line: Linstad must see something change for the better this weekend, even if it’s not readily on the scoreboard. Otherwise, her team is as good as another hair-ripping stride behind.
Al Daniel is the Hockey East correspondent to Beyond the Dashers
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