By Taylor Dobbs, News Staff

The then-No. 7 Northeastern women’s hockey team left nothing up to chance this weekend as it blew by the University of New Hampshire Wildcats 8-0 Saturday and the University of Vermont Catamounts 5-1 Sunday.

The team’s first offensive line had an especially productive weekend, scoring nine of the 13 Huskies goals, including two hat tricks.

Junior forward Casey Pickett scored a hat trick on Saturday and freshman Kendall Coyne put together three of her own goals Sunday, the Huskies’ first two hat tricks of the season and the first of Coyne’s career.

The Saturday game was a historic one for both teams as it was covered live on ESPN 3, making it the first-ever women’s hockey game on an ESPN station. A record crowd of 1,227 attended.

“When you start seeing people in the seats for warm-ups, there’s a different vibe going on,” he said.

Flint said the Huskies looked tight on the ice for the first six or seven minutes, but he tried to get them to calm down and regroup during the first media timeout. “I told them ‘Hey, guys, just take a deep breath and relax and we’ll be fine,’ and then we settled in and got things going,” he said.

Freshman forward Kendall Coyne opened scoring at 10:28 in the first period when she beat UNH goalie Lindsey Minton over her glove side with a backhanded shot from just inside the hashmarks. Coyne picked up assists on two of Pickett’s goals and chalked up a third when junior forward Brittany Esposito tipped in one of her shots. The four-point game brought Coyne to 35 points this season, a 10-year high for Husky scorers.

“[Coyne, Pickett, and Esposito] have been our go-to line all year,” Flint said. “They were kept off the score sheet Tuesday against [Boston College] and I think that was maybe the second time all year that that line had been kept off the score sheet so it was good to see them bounce back with a big game.”

Freshman defenseman Colleen Murphy scored the second goal of the night at 13:15 in the first.

Pickett’s hat trick started with the first goal at 17:24 into the game when Coyne slid a pass across the crease, baiting Minton into an unsuccessful diving attempt to cover the puck, which left the net wide open for Pickett and put the Huskies up 4-0. Her second came at 14:34 in the second with a quick wrist shot while skating backwards through the UNH zone, and her final goal at 6:32 in the third was the result of a gritty net-front battle, increasing the goal differential to seven.

The Huskies out-shot the Wildcats 44-17 in the game with senior goalie Florence Schelling stopping all 17 for her sixth shutout of the season. The Huskies successfully defended two penalty kills, including one at 15:15 in the third, to maintain the shutout.

“You definitely don’t want to say the word shutout or think it too much during the game, but definitely when you’re out there in the third period you don’t want to ruin a shutout,” graduate forward Dani Rylan said.

The Huskies pulled it off, skating into a tie for first place in Hockey East with Boston College, both teams with a 10-2-2 record. The tie remained after Sunday’s action, with both teams advancing to 11-2-2 in conference play.

Sunday afternoon began in much the same way, except it was Coyne with the day’s hat trick. Coyne lifted a rebound over Vermont goalie Kelci Lantier’s pad at 3:00 in the first period. Coyne scored in the second period roughly 90 seconds after Vermont tied the game by skating up the slot and again following her rebound with a quick shot on Lantier’s glove side at 9:42. Her third didn’t require a second try; she went glove side high with a wrist shot at 19:01, finishing her hat trick in the second period.

While Saturday’s game was relatively clean with five minor penalties served, Sunday saw a few shoving matches, one after a frustrated UVM freshman Krystal Baumann sprayed Northeastern senior goalie Florence Schelling with ice as she covered the puck during a UVM breakaway. That play and 13 others led to minor penalties Sunday.

“There’s some bad blood, I guess,” Pickett said, “I feel like UVM’s usually a dirtier team, and I think that after awhile you can only take so much and you start fighting back.”

UVM had some success stirring up the Huskies’ emotions. The Huskies served a combined 16 minutes of penalties to UVM’s 12. The extra power play time for UVM proved fruitful in the first when Catamounts captain Chelsea Rapin beat the No. 2 penalty kill team in the nation to score a power play goal for the team’s only goal of the game and the only goal Schellings allowed in 120 minutes.

The Huskies face Boston University (8-7-0 HEC, 13-12-1 overall) at 2 p.m. Saturday at Agganis Arena as they try to extend their unbeaten streak to five. In Monday’s USCHO Division 1 Women’s Hockey Top 10, the Huskies had gained a place from last week. They are now ranked No. 6 in the country and remain tied for first place in Hockey East with Boston College.