The Boston University men’s and women’s ice hockey teams are both off to tremendous starts.
The men are 5-0-1, which earned them a No. 5/6 ranking in the polls. That’s as high as the Terriers have climbed in the rankings since voters vastly overrated last year’s title-defending squad before that team stumbled to a 2-6 start.
This year’s version of the Terriers earned their high ranking by performance – not reputation – although the two USCHO.com voters who gave BU first-place votes are probably still a little too high on the team. With a pair of games coming up this weekend against a weak University of Massachusetts-Lowell squad, BU has a chance to continue their hot start.
Although the women’s hockey team has lost one game, their start may be even more impressive than the men’s. The women’s team is 6-1-0, averaging more than 4.5 goals per game, outscoring their opponents by a 17-goal margin, and ranked No. 5 in the nation,
There are a multitude of reasons both teams are winning. The women feature two elite offensive players in freshman Marie-Philip Poulin and junior UNH transfer Jenn Wakefield, while the men have gotten four goals from senior captain Joe Pereira and are hovering around 90 percent on the penalty kill.
But a strength both teams have shown this season that has been a huge part of their early success is their goaltending.
Last weekend, men’s junior goalie Kieran Millan saved BU from what would have been a bad home loss to Providence College.
He made 39 saves and was seconds away from completing a shutout even though BU was outplayed for much of the game. While Providence is not the doormat they have been in previous years, that kind of loss still would have damaged the momentum the team has built in the young season.
It was the second game BU won this year while being outshot by their opponent. Granted, the other was a shootout against University of Notre Dame in which Millan gave up four goals, but the goalie still deserves credit for giving his team a chance to win in situations where the other team applies more pressure on the net.
Millan’s overall statistics are much better than his numbers from last season, even though BU has faced a few high-powered offenses. His save percentage has climbed more than 20 points to .927, and his goals against average dropped from 3.15 last season to 2.2 this year.
Millan will have to keep playing at a high level if BU is going to remain a top 10 team. The Terriers are young and their schedule only gets harder after the series against UMass-Lowell this weekend.
At some point they will hit adversity, and when that happens, having a goalie who can put the team on his shoulders like Millan did against Providence will be a massive advantage.
Boston College has a senior goalie in John Muse that they can rely on, but the other elite teams in Hockey East don’t have that luxury.
University of Maine and University of New Hampshire each play goalies in their first year as a starter, so if Millan can propel the team to a victory or two over a team at the top of HE, it could make a huge difference in a conference that’s top-heavy with talented teams.
On the women’s side, freshman goalie Kerrin Sperry is performing like her counterpart on the men’s team did two years ago.
Sperry is undefeated in five starts, she boasts a .925 save percentage and her goals against average is just 1.6.
With Poulin and Wakefield leading the charge, BU’s offense will keep lighting the lamp often this season. But if the team wants to make a deep run in the NCAA tournament, Sperry will certainly need to step up in big moments and make key saves, just as Millan did on the way to the men’s 2009 national title.
That is. . .if she’s playing in the postseason. BU coach Brian Durocher’s original plan was to rotate Sperry and sophomore goaltender Alissa Fromkin, but Fromkin suffered a minor leg injury, allowing Sperry to get the start in the last four consecutive games. In those starts, the freshman goaltender has given up no more than two goals.
A player should never lose their role as a result of an injury, but Sperry’s excellent play will put Durocher in a tough position when Fromkin is back to 100 percent, although choosing between two talented goalies is a problem many coaches probably wish they had.
The men’s and women’s hockey teams are only a month into their long seasons. But last year, the women didn’t win their sixth game until Nov. 18, and the men didn’t get their fourth victory until two days before Thanksgiving. That’s good news to BU hockey fans disappointed by last season’s results, and if Millan and Sperry keep playing at the level they’re at right now, the victories will keep coming.
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