With its longest winning streak of the season in tow and a return to the national rankings, the No. 10 Boston University women’s hockey team will enter the Beanpot championship game tonight at Walter Brown Arena against No. 7 Northeastern University.
The Terriers (16-12-1, 10-7 Hockey East) are amidst a five-game win streak that has thrust them back onto the national scene after dropping out of the rankings on Dec. 12.
They made it into the championship after defeating Harvard University 5-2 last Tuesday.
“No question that anytime you get some positive momentum it’s very important,” said BU coach Brian Durocher. “I think we’re feeling pretty good about the way we’ve been playing lately. We’ve been playing very thorough.”
Most recently, BU faced off against the University of New Hampshire in a game that the Terriers won 5-1. Junior forward Isabel Menard netted five points during the contest, including her 13th goal of the year.
“She’s following up on what she did at Syracuse [University] for two years,” Durocher said of the transfer student. “She’s a premier college hockey player who has already scored 40 points or more in a season and is probably on track to be up in that neighborhood again.”
The scoring began 1:15 into the first period when Menard scored her first point of the game.
After New Hampshire netted a goal of its own with fewer than four minutes left in the period, the teams went into intermission tied at one apiece.
BU went on to score four unanswered tallies, two on the power play and one short-handed, to defeat the Wildcats.
While Menard shined in the contest, the Terriers found themselves in a challenging situation: Sophomore forward Marie-Philip Poulin was once again absent from the lineup due to injury. Poulin, who has only played in seven games this season, injured her hand during the semifinal game of the Beanpot.
According to Durocher, Poulin will likely return to the lineup for the championship after dealing with swelling throughout the week.
“I’m pretty optimistic that she’s going to be back playing [Tuesday],” Durocher said. “You know it was one of those injures that really swelled and didn’t allow her to kind of squeeze her hand and use her top hand much at all, but there’s been a progression here as the week’s gone on.”
The Huskies (18-6-3, 12-3-2 Hockey East) made it to the championship in dramatic fashion after a shoot-out win over No. 6 Boston College in the semifinals.
Over the weekend, Northeastern came out on top in another nail-biting win as it came from behind to defeat the University of Connecticut.
UConn found the back of the net first with less than a minute left in the first period before tacking on a second goal 3:12 into the second. Northeastern went on to score three straight goals to win 3-2.
Freshman forward Kendall Coyne, who scored the game-winning tally in the contest, leads Hockey East with 23 goals thus far this season.
BU’s senior captain Jenn Wakefield follows Coyne in the category with 19 goals on the year.
The Huskies also feature one of the top netminders in the nation with senior Florence Schelling. Schelling has acquired the top goals-against average in the conference with 1.46.
“For four years [Northeastern’s] had a tremendous goaltender in Florence Schelling,” Durocher said. “Now that she’s a senior, she’s highly experienced and she’s been kind of a constant and a rock that’s been there for four years.
“We know that we’ve got to get some pucks by her and it’s not easy to do that and deal with a team that is much more complete than they were two, three and four years ago.”
Tonight’s contest is the fourth between BU and Northeastern this season. The Huskies took the first two before BU had a comeback victory over Northeastern at Agganis Arena on Jan 28.
After falling 2-1 halfway through the third period, Menard scored her 11th goal of the season before Wakefield knocked in a rebound to win the game 3-2.
If BU come away with the victory tonight, it will be the first ever Beanpot title for the varsity program. The BU club team won the championship in 1981.
“It would be wonderful to keep the momentum going,” Durocher said, “but I think the other thing is it’s a tangible accomplishment . . . It’d be real exciting for everybody and probably doubly exciting if you win it on your home rink.”
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