DURHAM, N.H. — Standing in the tunnel postgame at the Whittemore Center on Friday night, Maggie Hanzel was reminded by a staffer that, hundreds of miles away, Providence had beaten Connecticut.
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s huge.”
When asked about it moments later, the senior assistant captain of the Boston University women’s hockey team said all the right things. She proclaimed that No. 13 BU is “just focusing on us,” that the Terriers are simply “trying to win as many games as we can.”
That might be true, but this is also a team that, according to head coach Tara Watchorn, is mature enough to understand the context of the final stretch of its regular season. Hanzel gave smart answers, but she and her team know the implications of the Friars’ win over the Huskies, and they know what they could potentially mean for Saturday’s season finale with New Hampshire.
After first-place BU’s 2-1 win on Friday, and second-place UConn’s 3-1 loss, the Terriers are another regulation win and another Husky regulation loss away from the No. 1 seed in the Hockey East tournament. It would be the program’s first regular season title in 12 seasons.
Very possibly, it could be clinched tomorrow.
“Obviously,” Hanzel eventually admitted, “it’s good to hear.”
It is merely good to hear for them, the players who believed they could eventually be here when no one else did. It is astounding to hear for everyone else — that a team which crashed out of the conference tournament as a No. 7 seed last season, then returned largely the same roster, is this close to entering said tournament as the top dog.
But this is real. The Terriers are really here, and they’re here because they simply find ways to win hockey games, a muscle they once again flexed during Friday’s 2-1 win over the Wildcats.
BU (21-9-1, 18-5-1 HE) didn’t play all that well. It was outshot 22-20. It was impossibly fortunate it didn’t concede an equalizer a minute into the second period. It didn’t create many chances during its sustained offensive zone time, and it didn’t have terribly much of that to begin with.
“There’s a lot we can improve on,” Watchorn said.
And yet, the Terriers figured it out.
They did that partly by playing the luck game. Hanzel gave BU a 2-0 lead midway through the second period on a shot from the point that took a deflection which left UNH goalie Sedona Blair helpless. She was asked what she saw and said she just wanted to get a puck on the net.
“It took a fortunate bounce,” Hanzel admitted.
Anything more to it? Maybe she saw a teammate screening in front of the goal?
“No, honestly. I just sent it in.”
Not exactly the sexiest goal ever, but Watchorn has reiterated this season that anything can happen during a hockey game. Luck is very much a part of the sport, and BU’s done a damn good job of creating it, scoring a ton of goals from defenders at the point sending in shots — a game-winning goal in a 2-1 win at Maine in December a prime example. And though most of them have been helped by a deflection from a teammate, an interruption from an opponent works just the same.
But then again, it’s not like BU is stumbling into wins. It is no accident that the Terriers keep finding a way.
Consider BU’s opening goal.
Off a feed from graduate forward Lindsay Bochna, senior Christina Vote skated in on a breakaway against Blair and slid the puck through the netminder’s five-hole with two minutes to go in the first period. BU didn’t play well in the opening frame, but still created several Grade-A chances in transition — including a 1-on-0 for Bochna on a penalty kill, which she fired high, and an odd-skater rush between Luisa and Lilli Welcke which Luisa missed wide.
Since the Beanpot final loss to Northeastern — in which BU was killed by NU’s rush — the Terriers have been more dangerous in transition than ever. It helped them steal a win against Providence last Saturday, then allowed them to thrive during an opening period on Friday in which they couldn’t maintain possession.
“The biggest thing I’ve seen has been a difference in picking our moments to go on the rush,” Hanzel said. “We’ve been really good at recognizing, like, ‘How late are we into our shift? What’s the energy like? Who do I have with me?’ And we’ve been really taking advantage of those opportunities when it’s early in our shift and we have the numbers to jump in.”
That’s been an evolution of BU’s game it didn’t necessarily have during the first half of the season, and it’s made the Terriers a threat to score even when they aren’t controlling the pace of play.
That, in turn, means BU is far more capable of winning even when it’s not playing well.
Throw in the Terriers’ goalies — senior Callie Shanahan was excellent on Friday (22 saves) after sophomore Mari Pietersen won Hockey East Defender of the Week for her 36 saves against Providence on Saturday — and BU’s got plenty of ways to bail itself out. (Pietersen wasn’t in Durham on Friday, and her status is unclear.)
“Obviously, Callie kept us in it,” Watchorn said.
She had said midweek the Terriers were more focused on the challenge of playing a team they’d previously lost to then on the implications the series held in the standings, and Watchorn was then asked on Friday what BU could take from its win besides the critical three points in Hockey East.
“To know that it’s not always going to feel perfect,” she said. “That’s something we’ve done all year. Depending on the opponent, home versus away, the way it’s being officiated — it doesn’t matter. How do we make the next shift better, the next period better, and find ways to win? The team’s been doing it all year, and they did it again tonight.”
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