By Madeline Sattler, News Staff
Winners of five games straight, with two to go in the regular season, the women’s hockey team is rolling and looking to carry the momentum into the playoffs.
The Huskies could not have picked a better time to heat up, looking at a chance at the Women’s Hockey East Association title.
“This part of the year is when you want to be playing your best hockey,” head coach Dave Flint said. “We’re gearing up for playoffs, so I’ve been trying to get the team in the mentality that every game right now is like a playoff game for us especially with the standings being so tight.”
Sitting third with 23 points, Northeastern is trailed by fourth-place University of New Hampshire with 20 points and Providence College with 19.
The Huskies’ latest victory came Tuesday night against the University of Connecticut Huskies. Northeastern was all over its opponent from the beginning and came out with a 4-0 victory.
The win against UConn was Northeastern’s 11th against a WHEA team this season, giving them two league points and keeping them in third place.
“We knew we had to get the two points,” freshman forward Paige Savage said. “So we came out and we just pressured them hard.”
Savage got Northeastern rolling just over five minutes into the game. Her goal was unassisted and it was the seventh point the Georgia native has had in the past four games.
The line of Savage, junior Kelly Wallace and junior Brittany Esposito also played well together and has built momentum as the season winds down. Together the trio has combined for 17 points in the last five games and is playing some of their best hockey of the season.
“They’re really clicking right now, they’ve got good chemistry with the line, and they’ve been putting pucks in the net which is good,” Flint said. “We’ve got another line that’s a scoring threat and that’s really helped us here.”
Having this line going will be essential to the Huskies attack come post season play.
Later in the first period, sophomore forward Kendall Coyne added to the lead. Sophomore defender Leanne Gallant sent the pass to Coyne in the neutral zone and she carried it down the ice and sent a shot underneath Connecticut freshman goalie Elaine Chuli.
Coyne has now scored a point in 11 straight games, the longest streak of her Northeastern career.
As the second period opened up, Connecticut came out firing shots at sophomore goalie Chloe Desjardins. But she was a brick wall in the net, not letting anything through and stopping 26 shots for her fourth shutout of the season.
Desjardins now has five games under her belt since returning from a knee injury which caused her to miss three games. She is back to her old form, and will play an important role moving forward if the Huskies hope to make a run at the WHEA title.
“Now that she’s healthy and back, she’s shown who she really is,” Coyne said.
Senior Casey Pickett scored her 17th goal of the season late in the middle frame.
Coyne gathered the puck in the neutral zone and skated down the side with her linemate next to her. They only had one player to beat as Coyne sent the pass under the UConn defender, where Pickett redirected it into the net.
Defenders sophomore Colleen Murphy and junior Maggie DiMasi combined for the Huskies’ fourth score of the evening. DiMasi dropped the puck off to Murphy inside the blue line who fired it central where it made its way past Chuli.
Desjardins held down her end of the ice, stopping several UConn shots including a breakaway opportunity to seal the deal for Northeastern.
The Huskies’ current win streak includes victories over Boston University and Boston College, two of the top ranked teams in the country, as well as wins over two other WHEA teams.
“We are playing with confidence,” Coyne said of the win streak. “We know the kind of team we can be and the teams we can beat.”
The Huskies finish up the season with a home-and-home series against the Providence College Friars on Feb. 23 and 24.
The Friars will also be looking to head into the postseason on a winning streak and jump up in the standings.
“We just have to stay focused and maintain the intensity that we have,” Flint said. “Providence is going to be fired up too because the standings, and where we fall is going to come down to that last game on Sunday.”
The final home game of the season will be Sunday afternoon. Northeastern will honor its seniors in a pregame ceremony before the 4 p.m. puck drop.
