By Jonathan Raymond
Throughout the Huskies’ successful, the men’s hockey team consistently maintained a one-game-at-a-time approach, never trying to get too satisfied or too far ahead of themselves.
After a tough weekend in Vermont that saw the team take just one point from the 5-9-6 Catamounts (who started the weekend at 4-9-5), they have no intentions of deviating from that plan.
“As much as you think about that game approaching the weekend, so quickly you just forget about it right away – the good [games] and the bad ones,” said junior forward Joe Vitale, whose two assist weekend gives him nine points in his last five games, making for a 23 point season on the whole.
Northeastern finds itself in a position it hasn’t been familiar with since the beginning of the season when the team started out 1-4: looking to rebound after a rough four game stretch that has seen them go 1-2-1 against Vermont and Merrimack. The two teams rank seventh and tenth, respectively, in Hockey East at the moment.
The Huskies took to the ice Friday night and, as the third period drew on, seemed to carry the momentum from last Saturday’s 3-0 bounce back win at Matthews Arena against Merrimack. The team held a 2-1 lead and were just more than four minutes away from sealing what would have been their eighth one-goal victory of the year.
But sophomore forward Randy Guzior took a tripping penalty at 15:48, and Vermont didn’t waste it, with Catamount forward Dean Strong redirecting teammate Peter Lenes’ pass into the net for the tie at 17:28 and stood through the overtime period.
UVM took that momentum into the following night’s contest, scoring two first period goals. NU freshman defenseman Drew Muench scored the first goal of his collegiate career just 30 seconds into the third period to make it close at 2-1. But seven minutes later Vermont ran off a two goal spree in a two minute span to put the game out of reach at 4-1.
Muench would add a second goal, and UVM added another to make the score read 5-2.
The team will now look to put the weekend behind them and focus on facing a Providence team they beat 3-2 in overtime in their home opener at Matthews Arena Oct. 19.
Since that night the Friars have gone 6-4-2 in Hockey East play and sport a 9-9-2 overall record on their season, and currently find themselves in a nine-game stretch that has seen them go 6-3.
NU doesn’t see anything wrong with its current game plan, Vitale said, but he recognizes that they will need to step up the energy in order to buck their mini-slump.
“There’s nothing wrong with the system, nothing wrong with any of the logistics,” he said. “It was a tough weekend but I definitely think we learned a lot from it. We know that we can’t just rely on our talent, we can’t rely on our system to win games. You can’t forget to work hard and I think we learned that valuable lesson these past few weekends.”
The team will need to return to the tight, disciplined style it exhibited during its 11 game unbeaten streak. During that stretch the Huskies never once allowed an opponent to score twice within any five minute period.
Vermont did that twice last weekend in scoring four of their goals Saturday night, and in the Jan. 11 loss to Merrimack three goals were scored upon the Huskies in just a seven minute span.
Head coach Greg Cronin stressed the importance of a poised, disciplined style of play, saying that his team can’t just show up to a game expecting to win on talent alone.
“We learned from Friday that you don’t give up a lead and on Saturday, I think we were actually overly eager. We worked foolishly,” he said. “We worked hard, but it was foolish. We didn’t have as much poise as we usually do. We need to learn from that because with teams like Providence, UVM, they put pressure on you, and you have to play with poise.”
Vitale attributed some of the loss of energy and subsequent lack of discipline to what he called the “grind part of the year” of January and February.
“It’s a very, very difficult time of the year for any athlete, any hockey player with everything going on,” he said. “The mindset’s just one day at a time. It’s just the best way to do it, because you look too far ahead and you look back and you get kind of overwhelmed at times. But coach Cronin has done a good job of preparing us one day at a time and trying to get through it.”
Cronin also touched on the effect the grind can have on young athletes, but noted that the length of a college season helps mitigate some of the difficulties.
“There is a different dynamic there and when you have a young team there’s sometimes that guys hit a wall, and it happens in pro hockey too,” he said. “The good news in college is the wall can’t be that tall because you’ve only got 34 games.”
The weekend series against Providence will feature a Friday night home tilt at Matthews Arena for the Huskies before the series will move to PC for Saturday night’s matchup.
Pucks drop at 7 both nights. Keith Lavon and Pete Martin will be broadcasting the game from Providence on WRBBRadio.org starting at 6:45 p.m. Saturday.
