By Eoghan Kelly, News Staff
With the 2011-12 season in the books, the men’s hockey team will need to look back before it can look forward to 2012-13, first-year head coach Jim Madigan said.
After a sub-.500 season in which the Huskies finished 13-16-5 overall (9-15-4 Hockey East) and ninth in the Hockey East standings, Madigan said he and his team will need to reflect.
“There were some good things we did during the season,” Madigan said. “But there was (sic) too many inconsistencies in our season, with the slow start and not the February that we wanted … At the end of the day, we weren’t good enough and we’ve got to correct that.”
Northeastern, which was picked to finish eighth in the Hockey East preseason coaches poll, looked to build upon a promising 2010-11 campaign which had a second-place finish in the Beanpot and an appearance in the Hockey East semifinals. But the Huskies fell well short, finishing fourth in the Beanpot and missing out on the playoffs entirely for the second time in three years.
Madigan said that the Huskies’ season was disappointing and the team must address inadequacies in order to be successful next year.
“We’re disappointed we didn’t make the playoffs. Our goal each year is to make the playoffs,” Madigan said. “I can sit here and make some excuses. The fact of the matter is we didn’t get it done.”
A busy 2011 offseason slimmed Northeastern’s chances of returning to the Hockey East playoffs and Beanpot championship. The Huskies graduated five seniors, lost freshmen stand-outs forward Brodie Reid and defenseman Jamie Oleksiak to professional contracts and saw head coach Greg Cronin take an assistant coaching job with the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs.
To boot Northeastern’s top incoming recruit, freshman forward Johnny Gaudreau, withdrew his commitment upon Cronin’s exit and fled to No. 1 Boston College, where he finished the season with 16 goals and 19 assists.
Left to fill the void on a young and relatively inexperienced Northeastern team with only one senior (forward Mike McLaughlin) were six incoming freshmen, junior Boston University transfer and forward Vinny Saponari and a new coach. Madigan – who won three Beanpots as a player and assistant coach with Northeastern – opened the season facing heavy criticism for having no previous head coaching experience.
Northeastern’s collective inexperience manifested itself in periods of glaring inconsistency throughout the season. After going 1-7-2 through its first 10 games, Northeastern breezed through non-conference games against the University of Michigan, then-No. 2 University of Notre Dame twice and then-No. 2 University of Minnesota en route to winning seven of its next eight games.
But after the winning streak came four straight losses in January, and the Huskies ended their season with wins in only two of their final nine games.
“We were a streaky team – there was no doubt,” Madigan said. “The streakiness of our team was also a result of us [not] having a full lineup.”
A considerable portion of Northeastern’s success hinged upon the performance of junior goaltender Chris Rawlings, who started all but three games for the Huskies and ended the season with a 2.77 goals against average and .916 save percentage, good for sixth and seventh, respectively, among Hockey East goaltenders.
Rawlings was the team’s backbone, first- Madigan said, particularly during Northeastern’s eight-game unbeaten streak and in a 4-0 win over the University of New Hampshire that earned him his ninth shutout, the most of any Northeastern goalie in history. But his play turned inconsistent down stretch, allowing soft goals that deflated the team’s momentum against Boston College in the Beanpot semifinals and in pivotal late-season series against Providence College and the University of Maine.
“Chris Rawlings is a good goalie. He helped us out an awful lot this year,” Madigan said. “There were a few games down the stretch there I’m sure he’d like to have back.”
The Northeastern offense was also inconsistent Madigan said, outshooting its opponents just five times and finishing the season with a minus-4 overall goal differential.
“Certainly we could have scored some more goals,” Madigan said. “When we have our full lineup, we score goals, so we’ve got to find a way to just generate more offense … We got to generate more shots to the net.”
Despite the inconsistencies, Northeastern did show considerable offensive upside. Freshman forward Ludwig Karlsson led the team in scoring with 10 goals and 16 assists, good for third among Hockey East freshmen. Meanwhile, five upperclassmen set career highs in points – junior forwards Garrett Vermeersch (24) and Justin Daniels (17), junior defenseman Drew Ellement (10) and sophomore forwards Braden Pimm (22) and Cody Ferriero (15).
What continued to haunt the Huskies, though, was a lack of discipline counteracting their offensive efforts.
Northeastern took too many penalties at inconvenient times throughout the season, Madigan said. One of the most memorable examples coming against Boston University Jan. 13. The Huskies squandered a two-goal lead and eventually lost 4-3 after a pair of untimely penalties led to power play goals in the second and third periods.
The Huskies began to buck the trend and stabilize their penalty kill and power play units by the end of the season, but special teams proved to be the squad’s Achilles heel, Madigan said. Northeastern allowed 11 shorthanded goals and finished the season with a minus-17 net special teams total, both the worst of any team in Hockey East.
Madigan said that, despite the disappointing numbers, Northeastern’s special teams units improved over the course of the season.
“I think we got better in both areas as we went along, on the power play and the penalty kill,” Madigan said. “Is there room to get a little bit better? Yeah, I’d like to increase that and get a little bit better, but [I’m] pleased.”
Injuries plagued Northeastern in the second half of the season. Junior forward Steve Quailer missed six games with an ACL/MCL strain and Ferriero underwent season-ending knee surgery on a torn meniscus, both following a two-game series with the University of Vermont Jan. 27 and 28.
Junior forward Robbie Vrolyk missed the last five games of the season with a high-ankle sprain suffered against PC Feb. 17, and McLaughlin and junior forward Alex Tuckerman both ended the season on the bench after suffering concussions in a 4-2 win over Maine a week later.
The inability to produce quality efforts with a depleted line-up proved to be the team’s downfall, Madigan said.
“That’s something that we have to work on next year, because you’re not always going to have a full lineup and you have to face whatever injuries or adversity that comes with it,” Madigan said. “That’s something that we’ll learn from.”
Regardless of their lineup, though, the Huskies proved they could compete with any team on their Hockey East or non-conference schedules. In their 13 wins, the Huskies outscored their opponents by 34 goals, and seven of their 16 losses came by a single goal, three in overtime.
But, Madigan said, it’s all for naught since Northeastern failed to make the playoffs, and a postseason berth will be the team’s primary goal in 2012-13.
“We’re more worried about getting into the playoffs,” Madigan said. “Although there were some bright spots to the season, we’ve got to get better to make the playoffs next year.”
