When the No. 7 Boston University women’s hockey team got to Matthews Arena on Wednesday night, it was looking to avoid losing its third game in the past five days.
However, thanks to an injured offense, the Terriers (9-7-1, 4-2 Hockey East) lost to No. 10 Northeastern University 2-0 and have extended their losing streak.
“We just had to get a goal to change the complexion of the game and right now it has been a little bit of a struggle for us to put a lot of pucks in the net,” said coach Brian Durocher.
Northeastern (11-4, 6-2 Hockey East) got on the board at 11:00 in the first frame when standout freshman Kendall Coyne made a nifty move through the defense in the slot before rifling a shot past the glove of sophomore goaltender Kerrin Sperry.
During the second period, Sperry, who made 33 saves in the game, played a large part in keeping the Huskies from taking complete control of the contest. She stopped all 16 shots that came her way that period.
During the three penalties that the Terriers had to kill during the period, Sperry made three sprawling saves to keep BU within one.
“She had a fantastic game,” Durocher said. “I talk about goalies giving you a chance to win. All through that second period the game could have turned into a 2-0, 3-0 or even 4-0 game and she kept it at a 1-0 game.”
Despite Sperry’s strong play, the Terriers could not reward her by scoring a goal.
Even in the third period, when BU controlled play for much of the frame and outshot the Huskies 17-12, the team could not sneak a shot past Northeastern goaltender Florence Schelling.
Schelling made 32 saves in her shutout, and received a lot of help from the Northeastern defense, which kept BU’s top scorers away from the high-percentage scoring areas.
“I think it was a good combination of both [defense and goaltending],” Durocher said. “I thought their defense did a nice job in the first period.
“[Schelling] had to make a couple big saves and one thing she did really well was control rebounds.”
BU was within one goal until Coyne took control of the game again at 11:30 in the third.
The forward used her speed to blow by the BU defense, and then made another impressive one-on-one move, backhanding a shot over Sperry’s outstretched glove.
“You saw why [Coyne] is a national team, Olympian type player,” Durocher said. “She has world-class speed, she is a very intelligent player, she has great individual skills and tonight was another night where she took care of business in a big way and ultimately decided the game.”
The Terriers were left looking for offense once again, which has been a common problem as of late. In the past three games, BU has only tallied a total of two goals.
With the injuries to senior forward Jenelle Kohanchuk and sophomore forward Marie-Philip Poulin, BU’s top lines have been left with some big holes.
“It would be nice to have all the horses in the barn but we don’t right now,” Durocher said. “We will dress whoever is here and make sure that they are playing up to their ability and playing with confidence and that is what I try to do as a coach.”
With back-to-back games against Hockey East opponent Providence College approaching this weekend, BU will have to find a way to improve its offensive output.
Despite his team’s offensive struggles as of late, Durocher said he has confidence in his team.
“We have to get there and make sure that everybody knows that I believe in them,” Durocher said, “and I feel good about what they have been doing and we have got to find ways to scratch out a win.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
