Hockey is a game that relies on momentum. You have to be able to counter-act every good move your opponent makes and create a good opportunities right away; any sudden mistakes will be detrimental to the objective of winning the game. It’s like chess on ice.
The Huskies know all too well about momentum.
After an up-and-down season that ended on a down, they lost their first playoff game 5-2 to New England College.
After going 11-0-1 in their first 12 games of the season, they turned downhill and went 0-3-2 in their next 5 games.
After the short mid-season skid, the Huskies got back on track, going 4-2 in the next 6 games.
This streak included impressive wins versus Bowdoin and Skidmore.
It was equally important because the Huskies were struggling with injuries as three of their top defenseman were forced to the bench.
The end of the season was looking bright after a hard fought win at home against Tufts in which they won 6-5, but the Huskies could not hold the momentum on their side of the rink and lost their final three games of the regular season.
“It’s been tough in the locker room,” said junior goalie Jamie Gilbert (Lewiston). “We’ve been having a lot of team meetings to straighten out some things that we got away from earlier in the season.”
“At the beginning of the year everything was bouncing our way and going right, now it seems like we can’t seem to be as consistent as we were at the start of the year,” said Gilbert, who is ranked fourth in the conference with a 91.1 save percentage.
Every team has some bad luck, and the Huskies have had their share of bad luck injuries this season, but they’ve also struggled in two key areas: staying out of the penalty box and scoring goals in the third period.
The Huskies rank second in their conference in penalty minutes with 573, averaging 22.9 penalty minutes game-that’s more than one full period of playing with men in the box.
In their final game versus NEC, they took 8 penalties, compared to their opponent’s 6.
They’ve also been outscored 29-19 in the third period of conference games (19 goals is lowest in the conference).
In the game versus NEC, they were leading the game 2-1 after the second period, but allowed the Pilgrims to rally in the third with four unanswered goals.
Gilbert started the game, stopping an impressive 27 shots, but left the game midway through the second period with an injury. Senior Ryan Sullivan (Newton, MA) replaced him to make 18 saves.
Despite the loss and the frustration, the bad generally did not generally outweigh the good for this team-they ranked in the top 5 in their conference in many categories, including scoring offense, scoring defense, power play goals, penalty kill percentage, and special teams net.
But as they headed into the post-season, as they needed an upward swing if they were going to make a playoff run.
“It’s huge, especially being on the road, we needed to take the crowd out of the game by scoring goals and not allowing them any chances,” said junior Dan Gordon (Lynnfield, MA).
With confidence high going into their chance to beat NEC, who had one week before defeated them at home, 3-2, the Huskies weren’t too worried about playing away from home. They were ready to play on NEC’s NHL-size arena, which is smaller than their own Olympic sized ice.
“We play better on the road,” said Gilbert. “We have a tough time in an Olympic size rink like ours because its too open. We are a run and gun team and that works better in smaller rinks.”
They just didn’t have the momentum to carry them through the game-after an opening streak that included 11 wins, they ended their season on an 11-game winless streak. The turning point, ironically enough, came with their Jan. 11 loss to Trinity College.
The Huskies ended their turbulent season 14-9-3.