The No. 3 Boston University women’s hockey team had not lost to a team with a losing record this season before Feb. 3, when they were defeated 4-2 by University of New Hampshire. In a game anticipated as junior forward Jenn Wakefield’s first matchup against her former team since transferring from UNH to BU, Wakefield, who has 41 points in 24 games, was held without a goal on a game-high 11 shots.
Thursday’s game could have been a setback, but instead the Terriers proved that their spot at the top of the Hockey East standings is well-deserved, bouncing back with a 3-1 win on Saturday.
“I’ve commended them on their preparation and readiness to play,” BU coach Brian Durocher said. “It’s easy, depending on your schedule or your opponent, that they might look past a game, but they haven’t done that. I’m not sure I’d call [Saturday] an easy win – it was right down to the end, a nail-biter, but I commend them for being ready to play.”
On Thursday, UNH forward Julie Allen went off for bodychecking Wakefield early in the first period, but BU couldn’t beat Wildcat goalie Kayley Herman on the ensuing power play. After a checking penalty to Wakefield and a bench minor for BU, the Wildcats took a 1-0 lead on a shot from the point by defenseman Margaret Hunt.
With the most potent offense in Hockey East, a one-goal deficit after one period might not have felt like cause for panic in the Terrier locker room. But when a UNH power-play goal doubled the Wildcat lead at 6:09 of the second, and forward Kristine Horn beat sophomore goalie Alissa Fromkin on a breakaway late in the second – freshman forward Marie-Philip Poulin, the only BU player able to catch up with Horn, was called for a slashing penalty as she tried to knock the puck away – BU found itself in its biggest hole since a 6-3 loss to Boston College on Nov. 20.
“I think [we lacked] a sense of urgency,” Durocher said. “We didn’t get a lot of bounces offensively because we did, for almost all three periods, put a fair number of pucks on their goaltender, who did extremely well and kept us at bay. We were always fighting an uphill battle, which made things a little bit tough.”
Junior forward Jenelle Kohanchuk knocked home a Poulin rebound just 21 seconds into the third to break up Herman’s shutout, and BU had something to rally around. But of the 39 shots they attempted in the final period, seven were blocked by UNH defenders who seemed to be in every shooting lane, nine missed the net, and the remaining 23 were stopped by Herman on her way to a program-record 52 saves.
Wakefield, who ranks fourth among the Terriers with 20 penalty minutes, spent just two minutes in the box on Thursday and drew a few more calls against her former teammates, but her frustration was clear by the end of the game.
“I think she was probably trying a little bit too hard,” Durocher said of Wakefield. “It was one of my fears there, and sometimes that happens when you’re going against a situation like that – you’re giving us a good effort and you know that her uniform was probably soaked with perspiration, but she didn’t quite have the offensive production that she might have liked or we could have used.”
Wakefield scored an empty-net goal in the waning minutes of Saturday’s game to secure the BU win – an important marker, as UNH had pulled within one goal. But instead of forcing themselves to play from behind, BU had taken the lead at 11:43 of the first period.
“There’s always lessons learned,” Durocher said. “I think the bottom line is that it’s a long, long season.”
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