After a full slate of Hockey East games, the Boston University women’s hockey team will look to claim silverware Tuesday when Walter Brown Arena hosts the 38th Beanpot Tournament.
Northeastern University, which is tied for fifth in the nation, serves as BU’s (17-9-2, 14-4-2 Hockey East) semifinal opponent and poses a tall task for head coach Brian Durocher’s side. His team has historically struggled in the competition, and the Huskies (23-4-1, 18-2 Hockey East) emerged with a 7-1 victory when the two sides last met Oct. 24.
“I think that game gave us a certain wake-up call,” Durocher said. “I knew Northeastern was going to be good, but they were very good that day … Now what we have to do is get over the hurdle against [Northeastern] and I think we can play a good hockey game against them, as talented as they are.”
While Northeastern is riddled with talent, it bodes well for BU that it’ll be surrounded by the friendly confines of its home rink, where it has a 10-5 mark.
“Obviously, we’re very happy to be at home, and you hope we can use that to start well,” Durocher said. “Whether you get the first goal or you play a good first period, I think that’ll bode well for us. When things haven’t gone right sometimes, you get a little mentally weak, and we can’t afford to do that. If we get down a goal, we can’t press any panic buttons because I think in past Beanpots, we’ve lost our focus.”
BU will look to continue its recent stretch of dominant play against the second-best scoring offense in the conference. The Terriers won four of their last five contests, and are coming off Saturday’s 6-2 victory over Merrimack College.
Six different BU players tallied at least two points in the contest against the Warriors (4-23-1, 2-15-1 Hockey East), signaling the team effort Durocher has preached all season long.
“Our consistency still needs to be better on defense,” Durocher said. “We’ve been able to put pucks in the net. We got three goals in the game against Boston College, we got three in a game against Clarkson [University]. We’ll get goals, but you have to be able to beat a team 2-1 and not just think you’re going to beat them 6-5.”
The first line of sophomore Victoria Bach, senior Kayla Tutino and senior Sarah Lefort played particularly well, as each forward found the back of the net and dished out two assists.
If the Terriers advance to the second round of the Beanpot next week, they will need everyone to step up, especially against a talent-heavy team such as the Huskies.
Northeastern averages 4.68 goals per contest and allows a mere 2.18, both of which are good for second in the conference. Additionally, the Huskies possess the nation’s leading scorer in senior Kendall Coyne. The Sochi Olympics participant has tallied 36 goals and 28 assists in 27 games.
“She’s a threat all the time, so we put her down as A-1,” Durocher said. “You need to keep an eye on her at all times, you need to know where she is and you don’t take many risks when she’s on the ice.”
Coyne isn’t the only weapon on a team full of strong forward play. The Huskies have four additional players with more than 10 goals on the season.
Should BU emerge with the victory and play the winner of the Boston College and Harvard University game, it must contain the entire Northeastern contingent.
“We just have to compete more,” Durocher said. “They’ve got maybe five or six forwards who are all good-size players, we have to make sure that we have our intensity up because we may not be as big as they are, but you have to get leverage. They’re one of the top teams this year, and they’re very well-rounded. It’s a team without many holes and we need to play a really good game to beat this team.”
Nick Neville is a junior in COM studying journalism and the Sports Editor of the Daily Free Press. When he's not making a paper on Beacon Street, you can catch him working as a Sports Correspondent for the Boston Globe or helping to produce BU's only professional sports talk show, Offsides. Follow him on Twitter: @n_nebs95
