By: Alex Faust

I’ll admit it:  I overreacted.

When Northeastern’s men’s hockey team started this year with an 0-2-1 record, it was hard not to panic – the last time the team started a season with a record like that was 2005-06, an infamous, lost year when the team dropped eight times as many games as it won. Commonly referred to as “the three-win season,” it’s a time in the program’s history most would rather forget.

But make no mistake, this was a crucial weekend. Had the Huskies not come away with a single Hockey East point, this very column would be filled with apocalyptic hyperbole. As it so happened, the team earned three Hockey East points – one from the formerly No. 7-ranked University of New Hampshire Wildcats (they’re 10th now), and one from a stingy but beatable UMass-Lowell team on the road.

My fellow columnist Jared Shafran made it a point of emphasis last week to pair all of the negative things happening on the ice with positives the team could build on. Me? I’ll tell you the three things you should still be worried about when you make your way to the DogHouse tomorrow night because, let’s face it, the Huskies have yet to fully inspire us with confidence.

1. Injuries:  Head coach Greg Cronin said it after the first game of the season. It’s like deja vu. The Boston Globe reported last week that junior defensemen Drew Muench and JP Maley and junior forward Alex Tuckerman would all be watching from the stands the rest of the season due to injury. Sound familiar? Last season, the Huskies went without Muench, Maley, as well as senior defenseman Randy Guzior and sophomore forward Steve Quailer for most (in Quailer’s case, all) of the season. Sophomore center Justin Daniels, who injured his ankle in the season opener at Providence, has been on the bench, while sophomore forward Robbie Vrolyk isn’t expected to return to the team until January as he recovers from off-season hip surgery. For whatever reason, the injury bug remains an Achilles’ Heel (pardon the expression) for this team.
2. Anemic offense:  Entering the season, we thought the offense would be the least of the team’s worries. After all, NU returned a bunch of top scorers and recruited offensively-gifted freshmen. What happened? The team is averaging 1.8 goals per game, good enough for 50th of 52 teams in the NCAA that have played a game this season. Sure, the Huskies got their first win on Saturday night, but it was the first time all season they had scored three or more goals, and one of the three was an empty netter. As we’ve witnessed time and time again, the tired sports cliche “defense wins championships” doesn’t apply to Hockey East. You need the complete package – good defense and good offense – to succeed.
3. The power play:  Related to the inability to score is the inability to score on the power play. The team is a whopping 2 for 25 with the man advantage this season, and has only registered 31 shots. Cronin said that last week, he worked on the power play in practice with his team more than he had ever done before in his coaching career. Hopefully for the team’s sake, something starts to click.

While the continued improvement of sophomore goaltender Chris Rawlings does reassure me – he was named Hockey East Defensive Player of the Week and holds a 1.75 goals-against average – the Huskies as a team still look raw. Talented, but raw. If they can continue to develop at a steady pace, they might be able to peak at the right time:  in March.

Hey, I’d much rather be wrong now instead of saying “I told you so.”