Women’s hockey heads west to take on St. Cloud State, Minnesota

For the Boston University women’s ice hockey team, the season has finally begun. The Terriers travel to Minnesota for games against St. Cloud State on Friday and No. 1 University of Minnesota on Saturday.

Minnesota is unsurprisingly ranked first in the nation after losing just two games in the 2013-14 season. St. Cloud State, on the other hand, has fallen short of the top ten with four total wins in its most recent season, but BU coach Brian Durocher said he is not looking past anyone, noting that the Huskies play in the toughest conference in women’s hockey, the Western Collegiate Hockey Association.

“Every year, they’re playing four and five games against [University of] Minnesota, North Dakota [University], [University of Minnesota] Duluth, Ohio State [University], Wisconsin [University], etc., so I don’t care what their record is. They’ve got talent and are going to be a quality opponent,” he said.

St. Cloud’s top two leading scorers last year — with 24 and 22 points, respectively — were both seniors, so the Huskies will be without them this season. Their third scorer, now senior Abby Ness, had 12 points in 36 games on six goals and six assists, and no one else on the team had more than three goals. The biggest issue for St. Cloud, at least last year, was offense. The Huskies were outscored 111 to 48 and only registered about 1.3 goals per game.

Saturday’s contest against the Golden Gophers will be different. The runners up in the national championship are again without 2014 U.S. Olympian and star forward Amanda Kessel, this time due to concussion, but even without her, Minnesota is undeniably a force to be reckoned with.

Last season, the Gophers scored 195 total goals — 53 of which came on its incredibly productive power play — to its opponents’ 49 total and held their opponents to, on average, 22.2 shots a game and taking approximately 40.4 per themselves. Four different players registered more than 20 goals, two of whom will be back this year in forwards Hannah Brandt and Rachael Bona. Brandt led the team with 23 goals and 42 assists for 65 points, while Bona was just four points behind her on 23 goals and 38 assists.

On top of a very prolific offense, starting goaltender Amanda Leveille posted a .945 save percentage and allowed just 49 goals through 41 games played.

“It obviously gives you a chance to play a top team, if not the top team in the country, somebody that we’ll always play competitively and play good games against,” Durocher said of facing the Minnesota squad. “We haven’t come up on the right side of the scoreboard, so without a doubt, it’ll be a huge challenge, but a fun challenge because these are the type of games kids want to play.”

BU has faced Minnesota twice in the NCAA tournament in the past two years, falling to them in the finals in 2013 and succumbing to a first-round exit just a year later.

Durocher said the two things his team has to do on Saturday is “win the penalty game,” so that BU isn’t in the box as much as Minnesota, and to play assertively.

“When you play in a building like that where they get a big crowd, they’ve got a lot of all kinds of firepower,” Durocher said. “We’ve gotta batten down the hatches when they score one goal because sometimes one can become two or three, and that just changes the complexion of the game.”

Even though these are the first two regular-season games of the season for BU, all but six of the Terriers took part in last week’s exhibition win over Queen’s University on Sunday. With everyone back and accounted for now, Durocher has been working with his team to try and get people reacclimated as best as they can before puck drop.

Junior forward Sarah Lefort is day-to-day with a “slight injury” and a “pretty significant bruise,” Durocher said, but he believes his team is close to being ready to go.

“We just have to play a little better pace, obviously, and the six kids that were missing from last week’s game obviously are talented kids,” he said. “They’ll create a quicker pace on breakouts, quicker pace on what we do going offensively, and certainly, they’ll influence backchecking defensively as well.”