Women’s hockey gearing up for physical weekend series with Clarkson

The No. 6 Boston University women’s ice hockey team will return to regular-season play this weekend when it travels to Potsdam, New York, for a weekend series with defending NCAA national champion No. 7 Clarkson University.

BU (1-1) had a break from its NCAA schedule last weekend when it hosted the Boston Blades of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League Saturday, while the Golden Knights (3-1) boast an impressive early season record.

Clarkson lost two of its three top scorers to graduation, most notably last year’s nationwide point leader in forward Jamie Lee Rattray, who had 66 points in 41 games, as well as their starting goaltender in Erica Howe, who led the country in goals-against average for the 2013-14 season.

“Obviously, we’re going to a place that is always a tough venue,” said BU coach Brian Durocher. “It’ s on enemy territory, and it’s against a real good hockey team in Clarkson. They’ve kind of had to re-tool a little bit this year, but credit to the coaches. It looks like they’ve done a fantastic job by finding a good young goalie, and they’ve still got a real good core of players.”

Though Howe is out of the picture, her replacement, freshman Shea Tiley, has shown she is more than capable of shouldering the workload. Tiley has posted a 3-1 record through four games with a .971 save percentage, allowing just two goals while recording 68 saves. She also has the help of an offense that’s scoring an average 3.3 goals per game and a defense that’s allowing just 20 shots per game.

Durocher noted that Clarkson plays a more gritty style of hockey, putting bodies in front of the net and crashing the cage for rebound chances. Unlike a team such as the University of Minnesota, Durocher said the Knights don’t go for a lot of the fancy, highlight-reel goals, but instead end up scoring the “ugly” goals.

“They kind of stick to a system with pretty big bodies, and they don’t try to be run and gun,” he said. “They’re real tough in front of the net. They move the puck well on rushes, and they’ll make it to the cage on the other end to get what they call the dirty goals, and that doesn’t mean there aren’t talented kids on this team because there are plenty.

“This team is a little more systematic,” Durocher added. “They’ll be happy to score one each period or beat you 1-0. Because again, they play hard at both ends and make it hard for you to score, and that’s why we’ve gotta be ready to compete.”

This set of games is important to both sides in terms of PairWise rankings, which are used at the end of the season to decide which teams receive at-large bids into the NCAA tournament.

When comparing two teams, it takes into account head-to-head wins, record against common opponents and Ratings Percentage Index of each team to determine who receives the higher score. While the NCAA does not use PairWise rankings specifically to choose playoff spots, it has been a good predictor for spots.

“You’re probably looking at two teams that have targets on their backs,” Durocher said. “It’s two real good teams battling against each other. We both have motivation to win these games here because these are the key PairWise games in the NCAA picture. They’re both teams that are going through a season with reputations and lofty standards, and now we’ll see who comes out. These are big games.”