By Jared Sugerman
Amid the silencing snow that blanked New England Friday, the playoff hopes of the women’s hockey team took one last gasp before falling quiet.
Despite starting the season 6-21-3 overall, the Huskies left for their two-game series at Vermont this weekend with a 5-11-1 Hockey East record and an opportunity to qualify for the Hockey East Tournament.
Prior to Friday’s game, the Catamounts had earned only one league win this season. They were riding a six-game losing streak, in which they had been outscored by an aggregate total of 23-1.
But Vermont defeated Northeastern 4-1 Friday, ending its losing streak and putting the kibosh on the Huskies’ chances of a late-season run to the playoffs.
The two teams played again Saturday. The Huskies had the opportunity to prove they were the better of the two teams after Friday’s score had only been the result of a few key bounces that had gone the Catamounts’ way.
The Huskies proved that, winning 3-0 Saturday and giving themselves a 2-1 edge in the season series with Vermont.
By stopping all 31 shots that came her way, freshman goalie Leah Sulyma earned the first shutout of the season for the Huskies and the first of her career.
“It would have been nice to have won both games, but I was really proud of the fact that they took pride in coming back today and giving it their all,” said head coach Laura Schuler.
Had Northeastern won both games, it could have set up a scenario where a two-game sweep of Boston University next weekend would have propelled the Huskies into the postseason.
“Vermont came into that game and had no reason to want to beat us. But they took pride and still tried to be the best that they could be, and they took it to us. A lot of times when you’re lucky, it’s because of work ethic,” Schuler said.
It took a combination of hard work and luck for Vermont to take full control of Friday’s contest. Working with a power play and 2-1 lead late in the third period, the Catamount’s Celeste Doucet was credited with her team’s third goal of the game after an attempted poke-check by Sulyma back-fired and the puck kicked up into the upper portion of the net.
Opposite Sulyma, Vermont goaltender Kristen Olychuck kept the Huskies from closing the gap during the third period, even though Northeastern had a 5-on-3 power play and several good opportunities after pulling Sulyma late in the game. Olychuck made 26 saves in the game, including 10 in the final frame.
She kept Northeastern off the scoreboard Saturday until 1:40 into the second period, when sophomore defenseman Lindsay Berman scored a power-play goal, her sixth goal of the season. Freshman Kristi Kehoe and senior captain Nikki Petrich helped out with their 14th and eighth assists, respectively.
Kehoe and Petrich would both add to their point totals later in the second period, when Petrich helped Kehoe score her 11th goal of the season at 17:32. The two-point performance gave Petrich a total of 20 points for the year.
Northeastern will wrap up the season with a home-and-home series against BU next weekend. Northeastern will host BU for Senior Day Sunday at 2 p.m.
