One of the reasons the Boston University women’s hockey team currently finds itself in pole position for the Hockey East lead is its performances in series like this one.
BU has yet to drop a game against the bottom half of the conference, and with their lone conference losses against BC and Northeastern (BU hasn’t played UConn yet), the Terriers are 8-0-1 against league opponents currently in fifth place or below.
Another one of those is coming up this weekend — that’s eighth-place Vermont, which will host No. 13 BU on Friday and Saturday at 6 p.m. After dominating seventh-place Holy Cross on Saturday to open the spring schedule and escaping fifth-place Maine to close the fall, a sweep in Burlington would give BU its second four-game win streak of the year heading into the Beanpot on Tuesday.
And because BC, UConn and Northeastern are all off this weekend, a sweep would also give BU sole possession of the conference lead once again. It’s a four-way logjam at the top right now — with first-place BC at 34 points, BU and UConn tied at 33 and Northeastern at 32 — but the Terriers have three games in hand on the Eagles and two on each of the Huskies.
Should they sweep, the Terriers would go five points clear at the top, still with a game in hand over the Eagles, with 11 games left to play.
And if that’s the case, BU’s dominance over lowly Hockey East rivals — while the other three have four losses to such opponents between them — would be an enormous reason why.
A statistical look at where BU stands, relative to the rest of the country
Head coach Tara Watchorn and BU have credited their remarkable turnaround to locker-room culture and preparation — but on the spreadsheets, the Terriers grade out really well, too.
BU’s 2.9 goals per game are 13th in the country and second in Hockey East (behind only BC), and its 1.9 goals allowed per contest are 9th in college hockey. The Terriers’ 87.9-percent penalty kill ranks seventh (though it’s only fifth in HE, bested by Providence, BC, New Hampshire and Northeastern, which leads the nation) and their 20-percent power play is 17th. Much maligned throughout the season, BU is actually second in its conference on the skater-advantage (Merrimack).
Another feather in the defensive core’s cap: according to College Hockey News, BU has allowed the nation’s third-fewest total shot attempts, at 742.
Paging Lola Reid
The freshman forward was named Hockey East’s October Player of the Month on Oct. 31. She had potted six goals and six assists by then, and a day later against Providence, added one more each.
She does not have a point since.
Her slump hasn’t hurt BU, which is 5-2-1 in that span. But it’s nevertheless confusing, given Reid couldn’t stop scoring to begin her collegiate career, lighting the lamp on any line with any teammate.
“Your freshman year is always a whirlwind,” Watchorn said last Thursday on her midweek video call. “But she still pushes the envelope every day. Her skill is there — it’s a combination of her being open-minded and us putting her in situations to have success. But just completely and thoroughly impressed with her as we keep going, and I’m sure we’ll see more points in the future.”
BU’s proven it can survive without her, but more Lola Reid goals — with such an consequential set of games looming — would certainly help.
Scouting the Catamounts
At 4-15-2 and 3-9-2 in Hockey East, UVM coach Jim Plumer admitted it in his midweek press conference, when asked about playing the top four teams in the conference: “It might be really tempting for them to look at our record and say, ‘Oh, this is gonna be one of those easy games.’”
A quirky schedule meant the Catamounts didn’t play BU, BC, Northeastern or UConn once in the fall, but in their first such game at No. 15 UConn on Sunday, Vermont lost by a goal and led heading into the final period. More broadly, UVM has tied or lost by a goal in nine of its 21 games so far this season.
“The thing about these teams that we haven’t played yet: they haven’t played us,” Plumer said. “And I don’t know if there’s that many teams that have found us to be easy to play against, and we won’t be this weekend.”
Vermont averages only 1.3 goals per game, third-worst in the country, and only has one player at five goals (sophomore forward Rose-Marie Brocu) and one at 10 points (junior forward Lara Beecher). The Cats aren’t great defensively, either.
So statistically, they’re pretty miserable — but so are most of the teams outside the top four in Hockey East, and the Terriers haven’t found many easy games against those outfits this season (despite winning basically all of them).
And just ask UConn — the Catamounts don’t figure to be very easy, either.
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