While most sports fans have been focused on the men’s basketball team’s success or hoping that the men’s hockey team would finally win another Beanpot, the women’s hockey team slipped under the radar. While they are not quite as good as last year due to the loss of outstanding senior goalie Florence Schelling, they have been very hot recently. They are third in Hockey East and are on a four-game win streak. Most importantly, they beat Boston College (BC) and Boston University (BU), who are the No. 2 and 3 seeds, respectively, for the first time this season in the Beanpot.
One of the concerns with the team was that while they were beating most of the teams in the conference, they kept falling short to BC and BU, the top two teams in Hockey East. Fortunately, the Huskies showed that they could compete with them. Recent U.S. College Hockey Online polls have ranked the Huskies around 10th nationally before the Beanpot finals, and they kept that spot this week.
The key to the Huskies’ success lies in their stacked offense. Sophomore Kendall Coyne, who took the league by surprise last year, is second in Hockey East with 58 points, including 34 goals. It’s no surprise she hit 100 career goals in Northeastern’s 7-2 victory over Maine on Sunday. Seniors Casey Pickett and Rachel Llanes have 37 and 34 points, respectively, and are also among the Top 10 point scorers in Hockey East. With these three leading the team, the Huskies have been averaging 3.8 goals per game.
Unfortunately, when the offense struggles, the defense has seemed to mirror those troubles. They’ve let up a total of 56 goals so far this season, in the middle of the pack. BC allows the least goals with 40, Maine allows the most at 84. When the Huskies have difficulty scoring, the defense isn’t always there to bail them out. They have had some shutouts and some games where they held opponents to one goal, but there were also a lot of times where they let up four or more goals during a loss.
Chloe Desjardins has a .910 save percentage for the Huskies and a 2.50 goals against average. She does have four shutouts as well this season, so she has had some shining moments. However, if she struggles during the Hockey East Championship and lets in four goals, it will be difficult for the Huskies to catch up even with the offense to counteract that. Her recent performances have been strong, and hopefully she can continue limiting opponents’ goals.
The Huskies have trouble keeping the powerhouse teams like BC and BU to reasonable point totals. The Huskies finally held both of them to three or less goals in the Beanpot and they won as a result. In every other meeting with the Huskies this season, BC and BU have scored four goals. The good news is that the Huskies don’t have to play them again until the finals. The bad news is that they could have to play both of them to win the Hockey East title.
The women have three more games before playoffs start on March 1. Unfortunately, that is at the beginning of spring break for Northeastern and fans will likely be out of town. Still, they have had a very successful program that doesn’t get the support it deserves. Granted, part of that could simply be due to scheduling basics. For example, the women’s Beanpot was on a Tuesday, which is right in the middle of the school week. Still, if the Huskies get home field advantage for the first round, which it looks like they will, I suggest you check it out. The Huskies had a disappointing early elimination from the playoffs last season, but they could also have a deep run this year thanks to a high scoring offense, especially with some fan support.
– Chris Judd can be reached at [email protected]
