The Boston University women’s hockey team has yet to sweep a team this season, but have an opportunity to do so in a home-and-home stint against Merrimack College this weekend.
The Terriers (5-5-1, 4-5 Hockey East) have climbed their way to third in league standings, while the Warriors (4-8-1, 2-5 Hockey East), in their second season as a program, find themselves at the bottom. The season is nearing the halfway point, and every point is vital for securing Hockey East standings.
Despite the stark difference in the standings, BU head coach Brian Durocher expects his team to battle hard.
“We’ve got to take them on just like we would any of the top teams that come on the schedule and make sure we’re ready to play every shift,” Durocher said. “We have not dominated anybody this year. Our record isn’t quite where we want to be, so I like to think we’ll have a pretty good focus for the weekend.”
Merrimack is on a four-game losing streak and hasn’t earned a point since Oct. 28. The team’s biggest downfall is its defense. They’ve allowed 51 goals in 13 games, the most of any Hockey East team. This could be attributed to the young age of the back line, though.
Goaltender Léa-Kristine Demers is only a freshman and has started all but three games for the Warriors this season. She allows 3.54 goals per game, which ranks her as 12th among Hockey East goalies.
Demers doesn’t have many experienced players in front of her either, as every Warrior defender is a freshman or sophomore.
“Those kids haven’t been in as many big games, tournament games, playoff games that maybe our team has, so you hope that that level of experience will help you in a game,” Durocher said.
Despite the Warriors’ struggles, the Terriers aren’t in a position for an easy win, as they’ve lacked consistency all season. According to Durocher, this has to do largely with the defense.
“One thing we’ve really been working on is being more thorough defensively,” Durocher said. “It’s a recurring theme we’ve been working on, but I think it’s just the fine details and all the last-second pickups.”
One thing that has been steady for Durocher is his netminder. Last season, and the first few games of this one, the ex-goalie balanced playing time between junior Erin O’Neil and senior Victoria Hanson. However, O’Neil has started the last four games and has proven to deserve it with a 0.899 save percentage. That being said, Durocher is still unsure who will be between the pipes in either game this weekend.
He’s hoping his side can shave some percentage points off its 3.3 goals allowed per game and have a more successful penalty kill.
“We’ve given up a couple of goals the past five or six games on initial rush plays, so we’ve been watching some video talking about trying to shut down people’s initial rush,” Durocher said.
The Terriers currently kill 85.5 percent of penalties, which is seventh best in the league. Merrimack is in eighth, as they are successful in 76.7 percent of penalty kills.
While all eyes will be on the defense on both sides of the ice this weekend, Durocher noted that each player still needs to remain focused and strong in all aspects of her game.
“Everybody. Goalies, defense, forwards,” Durocher said. “We all got to tighten it up and be tough to play against.”
