Women's Hockey Log: Friars Standing Watch For Vermont Surprise

If one who swears by the stats sheet insists on classifying the remainder of the PC women’s hockey schedule based on nominal “winnability,” then there are two simple groups to consider.

 

Four of the regular season’s final seven games shall be played against fellow national poll-dwellers (Harvard tomorrow evening, Northeastern next Saturday, and Connecticut twice the week after).

 

Group II –beginning with a home date tonight and two road ventures three weeks from now- consists of three tilts with the Vermont Catamounts, who have shaped out as the greatest disappointment in this year’s Hockey East pennant race.

 

Vermont rates either dead-last or second-to-last in every category on the league leaderboard –from offense to defense to discipline to both ends of the special teams’ spectrum. Their top point-getter, senior forward Chelsea Furlani, has a grand total of 15 points, which is good enough for a four-way tie for 28th among all Hockey Easterners. And ever since a fairly encouraging October, where at one point their record glistened at 4-1-0, the Catamounts have floundered for the better part of their schedule, now digesting a 7-17-1 overall transcript.

 

In other words, very little has changed on the Green-and-Gold landscape from previous years. But that is precisely why the Friars –winners of their last seven games and one point out of first place in the WHEA- are taking a professionally cautious approach to their still-unopened season series.

 

When reminded of the gaping, databased discrepancies in the matchup, head coach Bob Deraney did not immediately swing into a state of humble denial. But he still managed to throw in a caveat.

 

“Look at our record against them lately,” he said, naturally referring to the past two seasons, wherein the Friars reached the verge of sweeping the season series, but whiffed on their third swing.

 

In 2007-08, when Vermont followed through on a 4-0-0 start with a three-month-long, 19-game winless nightmare (0-18-1), they briefly liberated their shattered psyche by beating Providence, 2-1, in Part II of a weekend set at Gutterson Fieldhouse.

 

And thus, although four of seven Hockey East rivals would sweep their season series against the Catamounts that year, the Friars were not one of them.

 

Last season’s falter was particularly egregious from a PC perspective as it fell in the form of a 5-2 home loss. It was Vermont’s first win in eight tries, its second in 13 hacks, and one of only four league victories it would have claimed by season’s end.

 

Three teams swept their season series with 2008-09 Catamounts. And yet again, the Friars were excluded from that fairly inclusive sorority.

 

Having been there, having suffered that, junior A-captain Jean O’Neill insists she and her mates know better than to get caught sleepskating like that again.

 

“We need to go into the game the same way as you go into every other game,” O’Neill said with her characteristic simplicity. “Every Hockey East game is a challenge. All the teams are strong, and you never know what the outcome is going to be, so I think we have to come in with the same mindset as we would playing a ranked team.”

 

It is not as though Vermont is playing for diddlysquat yet, Deraney noted. In fact, their desperation has earned them some invaluable table scraps of late.

 

Three weeks ago, the Catamounts splashed an eight-game winless drought with a 2-1, nonconference road triumph at Wayne State. And last week, they latched on their second conference victory by tipping over Boston University in overtime.

 

But more notably, Deraney said, they couldn’t complete the weekend sweep, spilling a 3-2 decision to the Terriers on Sunday. As a result, their window to the playoffs has lowered a few more inches, therefore their desperation figures to grow that much higher.

 

At this stage in the playoff derby, the Catamounts cannot come up empty-handed in their visit here tonight or to Connecticut tomorrow night. Otherwise, any subsequent combination of a loss and a victory by Boston College (out of league action until next weekend due to the Beanpot) will dash their bid for a postseason passport.

 

“They have nothing to lose and they’re eager to make up what they’ve lost,” said Deraney. “Their goalie (Kristen Olychuk) can get hot as we’ve seen in the past. She’s stonewalled us before, so we can’t have enough goals. If we don’t score, it’s anybody’s game.”

 

Quick Feeds: Although she has not tuned the opposing mesh in her last 12 appearances, Vermont sophomore Kailey Nash –the pride of Newport County pucksters- continues to hold the league lead with seven power play goals. PC rookie Nicole Anderson, while similarly swamped in a slump, is still ice chips behind with six power play strikes…Ex-Friar Brittany Nelson, now a senior captain for her hometown Catamounts, ranks third among her teammates with 11 points, but has only two assists since New Year’s and no goals since October 24…In six total games against her old team, Nelson has accumulated two goals and four assists. Those six points equate what she charged up in her 32 games as a Friar in 2006-07 and constitute 15.8 percent of her career totals as a Catamount.

 

Al Daniel can be reached at hockeyscribe@hotmail.com

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press

On Hockey: Alyse Ruff, Jean O'Neill Form A Dynamic, Durable Duo

The name and image of Alyse Ruff seems to gain another coat of notoriety every time her Friars paint another layer of collateral on their transcript, which they have done on a gamely basis for their last seven ventures dating 25 days back to Ruff’s birthday, an occasion that she celebrated by singlehandedly slashing Minnesota State, 2-0.

 

Last Friday, Ruff joined sophomore Ashley Cottrell –the only Providence striker with more points on the year than her- and head coach Bob Deraney at the Bank of America Skating Center, where they pitched the weekend’s Skating Strides Against Breast Cancer event on FOX 64’s “The Rhode Show.”

 

She proceeded to stamp a 1-2-3 scoring log in Sunday’s 6-3 triumph at Boston College, nabbed her second Hockey East Player of the Week title in four chances, and –just yesterday- had her action shot pasted atop the uscho.com women’s home page.

 

Just the same, assistant captain Jean O’Neill is appropriately personifying her team’s consistency, having notched at least one point in each of these seven successive victories. In all, she and Ruff lead the team with 12 points apiece over eight games since New Year’s.

 

“(The winning streak is) really exciting to be a part of,” O’Neill offered. “It just shows how all of the hard work we’ve put in from the beginning of the season is starting to pay off.

 

“I think the personal success is coming from the team. I couldn’t do this without my linemates who are also contributing a lot. We have a really great line and the team as a whole is coming together.”

 

That is certainly fair enough, but it seems O’Neill halted her verbal skates on a dime just before she could say something a little more self-crediting. Being two of only five upperclassmen on the Friars’ scoring brigade, and two who have been particularly leaned on since their arrival, O’Neill and Ruff are fittingly the clear-cut catalysts in PC’s recent growth spurt.

 

In addition to trailing only the likes of Cottrell on the team leaderboard, Ruff and O’Neill have pole-vaulted Arianna Rigano for the lead in terms of shots on net, having landed 81 and 79, respectively. O’Neill owns the best plus/minus rate among all Friar forwards (plus-8), followed immediately by Ruff (plus-7). The two have combined to win three of the league’s last four Player of the Week laurels.

 

And they have both, as the adage would say, led by example in revising their own standards. At the conclusion of last weekend, Ruff had upped her scoring totals to 10-13-23 on the year. That makes four more points than what she amassed as a frosh and three more than what she collected through the full 36-game ride last season.

 

Perhaps most encouraging for Friartownies, she is too busy berrypicking for more to spend any time enjoying the view from her new height.

 

“To be honest, I don’t follow my points through the season. I’d rather not know,” said Ruff. “It’s definitely exciting. I didn’t know I had 23 points. But I just look forward to working hard and continuing to do well.”

 

What’s more is, the weekend prior, Ruff had a direct hand in helping O’Neill reset her own bar. By converting a pass from Ruff and bumping PC ahead of host New Hampshire, 2-1, in an eventual 3-2 victory on January 16, O’Neill notched her 18th point of the season, thus exceeding her freshman bushel of 17. She now has 22 points to speak of, therefore needs only four more to surpass everything that she accumulated in her encouraging rookie year and what she sprinkled on last season while trying to restore her old self after a preseason injury.

 

When it comes to saturating the scoresheet with the likes of Ruff and an equally efficient third party by her side, normalcy returned long ago for O’Neill. One will not soon forget when the two ex-teammates from the Princeton Tiger Lilies partnered with then-junior Mari Pehkonen and constituted the splendid PRO Line for the final 18 games in 2007-08. Although the trinity took four games for anybody to notch a single point, they subsequently combined for 14 goals and 18 assists in their final 14 ventures together.

 

Pehkonen has since graduated, but on the cusp of the second anniversary of the PRO Line’s assemblage, rookie Jess Cohen took to the right wing on the first line and has served as the Finnish Flare’s virtual recast. In seven games playing with O’Neill and Ruff this January, Cohen has a 1-6-7 scoring transcript, thus splashing a minor drought she had going before the three-week holiday respite.

 

And, as previously noted, O’Neill and Ruff each have a dozen points since their reunion, which more than doubles what they had each charged up in 19 games before the December deceleration. On six occasions this month, they have shared a hand in the same scoring play.

 

“We played together in the past before college and our styles of play just kind of coincide,” said O’Neill. “We work well together and Cohen is a really strong player. She buys well into how Alyse and I play.

 

“Alyse is a very strong and fast player,” she added. “She’s always there to help out when either Cohen or I are in trouble in the corners. She’ll be there to help get the puck out.”

 

On a quite literal basis, one can claim that Ruff has “always been there,” even for those five games at the start of last year when O’Neill was still recuperating and through the ensuing year-plus when the two worked on separate lines. One of only four active Friars to have suited up every night since her freshman orientation, Ruff will have herself yet another oven-fresh tidbit tomorrow night when she plays in her 100th career game versus Vermont. (O’Neill figures to hit her own centennial milestone when the Friars visit the Catamounts three weeks from tomorrow).

 

“It’s really neat to be able to play all the time because not everyone has that opportunity,” Ruff acknowledged. “It’s a great experience to say that I was able to play in that many games.”

 

Al Daniel can be reached at hockeyscribe@hotmail.com

Women's Hockey Log: Jen Friedman Doing The Two-Way Trick For Friars

Sophomore defender Jen Friedman was apt to offer a friendly reminder yesterday that her personal hot streak on the scoresheet has coincided with countless other outstanding outbursts by her teammates, not to mention a nearly blemish-free month of hockey action for the PC women.

 

“I don’t think it has anything to do with personal points,” she said when informed that, just like last season, she has logged a whopping six points within the month of January.

 

“The team as a whole has been doing really well this month and everyone has seen their points go up. I just think that when the team starts to do well, all individuals do well.”

 

In Sunday’s road win over Boston College, the towering blueliner leveled home a one-timer at 11:12 of the second period, amounting to her ninth point of the season, which surpasses the eight she accumulated in all 36 games as a frosh.

 

By day’s end, Friedman had been on the ice for three of the Friars’ six goals. While that was only good enough for a plus-1 rating, it sprinkled a little more on her team-best plus-9 (discounting goaltender Genevieve Lacasse, who is a plus-10).

 

It might just be that, by linking up with senior captain Colleen Martin on the top blue line unit all season, Friedman has let a little of her senior partner rub off on her. Martin led Providence in the way of plus/minus last season at plus-10 and was an assertive plus-16 at the conclusion of the 2007-08 campaign.

 

And not unlike Friedman, Martin set a new scoring standard for herself during Sunday’s 6-3 triumph. Her assist on Alyse Ruff’s dagger goal equaled her eighth point of the season, one more than the previous high she set last year.

 

In fact, in addition to Friedman, three of the Friars’ defensive regulars (Christie Jensen, Leigh Riley, Amber Yung) have already had what might be termed a “career month” in the scoring department. And with two more games before the calendar Zamboni takes its next shift, Martin and Lauren Covell still have a little time to do the same.

 

“It’s really important that everyone on the ice is contributing offensively and defensively,” Friedman said. “But no matter how many goals you get, it all comes down to how many goals you let in.”

 

And indeed, while the seething BC strike force did cash in on three of its whopping eight third period power plays on Sunday, it did little more than bite partially and harmlessly into Friedman’s daily plus/minus and PC’s lead.

 

All but one of PC’s penalty killing segments was abbreviated either by a power play goal or by the Eagles writing their own ill-timed ticket to the sin bin. During their two longest tours of duty –one lasting 85 seconds, the other the full two minutes- the Friars’ PK brigade confined its adversaries to one shot on net or fewer.

 

“Even though they were getting a lot of shots and what seemed like a lot of opportunities, I think that defensively, we did really well,” said Friedman, who was credited with a team-high four blocked shots on Sunday.

 

“We kept them to the outside, and even though it seemed like they were catching up, we did a great job of getting the puck out of our zone and we did a great job along the boards.”

 

Of the unusual quantity of penalties, she shrugged. “You’ll face it in games to come. We just have to prepare and the team has been working on our penalty kill just as much as we have on our power play. We already knew what to expect.”

 

Quick feeds: For her three-point outing on Sunday, Ruff was named the league’s Player of the Week for the second time in four opportunities yesterday…Though belated by a little more than a week, head coach Bob Deraney’s 200th career victory got a quick stick salute from veteran college puck columnist John Connolly of the Boston Herald yesterday morning…While there is no guarantee the Friars will still be atop the Hockey East leaderboard after second-place Northeastern is finished tangling with Boston University tonight. However, PC did nudge up one slot (to No. 9) in yesterday’s revised USCHO national poll…The Friars took yesterday off and are slated to resume their regular training regimen today in preparation for Vermont’s visit this Friday.

 

Al Daniel can be reached at hockeyscribe@hotmail.com

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press