After turning away 66 of 67 shots in a 46-save performance at Providence College and a 20-save shutout at Quinnipiac University, Chanda Gunn of the women’s ice hockey team has been named The Northeastern News Player of the Week.

The senior goalie was also named the Hockey East Player of the Week, seven days after being named Hockey East Defensive Player of the Week.

Gunn has long been a spoiler against Providence, currently the No. 4 team in the nation. Her 46-save game, which included five breakaways, equaled the mark she had reached three times before in her career, twice against the Friars. The shutout of QU was the10th of her career.

“Anytime you play in front of a goalie like that you should be pretty confident,” said coach Joy Woog. “One of the big things [in the Providence game] was the five breakaways she stopped, and that was against their best players.”

Gunn’s goals against average (0.98) and save percentage (.968), are tied with Kaitlyn Shain of the University of Connecticut for tops in the Hockey East Conference among goalies with more than one start.

“Chanda makes all the defensemen more confident,” said junior blue-liner Jennifer Beaudoin. “We can step up and know that she has our back.”

Woog stressed that having a solid goalie between the pipes is one of the keys to success in the women’s collegiate game.

“Ben Smith [current women’s national team coach] once said ‘you shouldn’t call it ‘hockey,’ you should call it ‘goalie,’ because that is how important they are,” Woog said. “When you have a goalie, you have a team, when you have Chanda, you are going to be in every game.”

Gunn will be hearing more of Smith’s wisdom in the coming month as she travels to Sweden to take part in the Four Nations Cup as a member of the United States Women’s National Team.

She will miss Northeastern home games against Princeton University and Yale University during the tournament, which also includes Sweden, Canada and Finland.

As a junior, Gunn finished the season with a save percentage of .928, good for third in the country. She was also the only player to be a finalist for both the Patty Kazmaier Award (for the nation’s best women’s hockey player) and the Humanitarian Award (for college hockey’s exemplar of moral character).

As a sophomore, she was named Second Team All-American and to the ECAC Eastern All-Conference squad.

— Peter Conroy, News Staff