By Dan McLoone, columnist

Maybe this is how they will finally turn things around.

With its win over No. 3 University of Minnesota on Saturday, the Northeastern men’s hockey team had its first winning streak of the season. It was short-lived as Providence snapped the streak on Wednesday in the first of two games against the Huskies. The big question that faces Head Coach Jim Madigan and his team is if they can find the means to bounce back from defeat and play the way fans know they are capable of as the team gets into the heart of this season’s tough schedule.

Continuing the series with Providence on Saturday, the Huskies will play one game against University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst before going through a gauntlet of opponents including St. Lawrence University, Yale University, Boston College and the University of Vermont. Every one of these opponents is a potential loss waiting to happen for the Huskies. Providence, while somewhat underwhelming so far this year, was the Hockey East preseason favorite. St. Lawrence and Yale are both strong out-of-conference foes that will test Northeastern, as Yale won the entire National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Ice Hockey Tournament just two years ago. Boston College is always one of the top teams in the nation, and Vermont is currently leading the Hockey East conference after blowing out the Huskies 6-2 earlier this season. Even UMass will be tough, as the bottom feeding team has already beaten Northeastern, 3-2 this year.

While the first two wins that the Huskies obtained were nice, they were not much to celebrate. A team with as much talent as Northeastern’s this season should be sweeping Merrimack University, and should also be able to beat the University of New Hampshire twice. This should especially be true for a team that was initially predicted to be one of the best in the country. Instead, the Huskies only won one of two in each series. So, yes, it was nice to see Madigan’s guys get the monkey off their back and pick up two wins, but Husky fans can’t really be overjoyed by the result.

The win over Minnesota is a whole different story. This Golden Gophers team is always one of the top in the country, losing to Union College in the NCAA Championship game last year. Its coach, Don Lucia, is one of the most decorated in the nation and boasts over 600 career wins. Senior forward Kyle Rau is one of the biggest scoring threats in college hockey, and junior goalie Adam Wilcox put up numbers similar to Northeastern star goalie Clay Witt.

The bottom line is that the Minnesota win on Saturday was huge for this reeling Northeastern program – it may even turn the team’s season around. The Huskies know that they are extremely capable of playing against anyone, and now they also see that they can win close games. Junior forward Kevin Roy’s goal, while his third of the season, was the first that we have seen from him where he created his own shot with his quick skating skills, his other two coming off of scrums in front of the net. His confidence will be sky-high coming into this weekend.

The fact also remains that Northeastern, with this renewed confidence, has every opportunity to get back into the race in the Hockey East conference. Currently tied for eighth out of 12 teams, with a few good weekends against the teams ahead of them, they could easily climb back to the middle of the pack by January.

The Huskies have now shown what they can do when firing on all cylinders, and it looked really good. The team has the talent, all it needs to do now is continue piecing together complete 60-minute efforts.

-Dan McLoone can be reached at [email protected].

Photo courtesy Jim Pierce, Northeastern Athletics