By Sarah Moomaw, News Staff
After Friday’s 5-2 loss to St. Lawrence University, men’s hockey head coach Jim Madigan knew something in the locker room needed to change before this weekend’s home-and-home series with the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
He turned to the New England Patriot’s head coach Bill Belichick for inspiration for his squad, which hasn’t seen a win since Nov. 11’s 3-1 victory over the University of Alabama-Huntsville.
“We put a sheet of paper up in the locker room, it was some quotes from Belichick after they beat the Jets,” Madigan said after Tuesday’s practice. “He mentioned they had a good week of preparations, had good walkthroughs, good practices and it all led to a big win for them [Thursday night] against the Jets. That’s where we are right now. We need to have good practices, good video sessions, good walkthroughs on our systems that will lead to hopefully a victory on Friday night.”
The Huskies are on a three-game losing streak and are 0-6-1 in their last seven Hockey East contests (2-6-1, 4-7-1 overall), with their last conference win coming on home ice when they knocked off then and current-No. 1 Boston College, 3-1, on Oct. 13.
Madigan said getting another win is going to take getting more players hot on the offensive lines.
“Getting other guys contributing, getting on that point-streak so that we get two lines to score consistently,” Madigan said. “The offensive burden will fall on the top six, seven forwards. You know, those two top lines have to score more consistently. They have, they gotten good looks, we just haven’t found the back of the net.”
Senior captain and forward Vinny Saponari is currently riding a career-high seven-game point streak, accounting for three goals and five assists over the same span that the Huskies haven’t seen a win.
“I’ve made a point this year to try and be a little bit more gritty, a little more tougher on the net, try and stick my nose in front of the net, be tougher on the puck, be harder, shoot more,” he said. “I didn’t even know [about the streak] until a few days ago. … It’s tough to look at that when your team is losing.”
But Saponari also said he and his teammates need to sure up the defense to help their goalies out, which will only come by making self corrections. He said the team has spent every practice since Friday’s game working on making those adjustments to prepare for the two games within 24 hours of each other this weekend.
“We need to correct our own defensive zone a lot,” Saponari said. “We’ve given up way too many opportunities, way too many second chances. Around our goalies, we haven’t helped them out much and that’s something we’ve really been stressing.”
This season, the duties in the net have been split between seniors Bryan Mountain and Chris Rawlings, with junior Clay Witt making one appearance. Mountain picked up his fourth start of the season on Friday, benching Rawlings who only missed three starts all of last season.
Even after two good days of practice, Madigan said he wasn’t sure who he’d have between the posts come puck drop on Friday at Mullins Center in Amherst.
“I don’t know yet,” he said after Tuesday’s practice. “It’s something we’ve evaluated each day in practice. … At this point, I’m going to go with the hot guy, and at this point we’ll give the ball to one and let the goalie run with it and when it comes time to make a change I’ve got confidence to go to the next goaltender.”
