On Women's Hockey: Genevieve Lacasse's MVP Feat Bodes Well For Friars

It comes as no real surprise that sophomore stopper Genevieve Lacasse left the Providence College women’s hockey awards banquet yesterday with an MVP trophy firmly in her clutch like an opponent’s futile slap shot. Some could even argue she was a year overdue for such recognition.

And although this part wasn’t the case, no one should have been perplexed if Lacasse’s latest hunk of hardware came with the special inscription “Please don’t change a thing.”

Lacasse is the Friars’ first non-senior to claim the team MVP prize since then-junior Karen Thatcher in 2005. She earned it by giving a perfectly passable follow-up on her freshman season that consisted of 29 games played, a Hockey East goaltending championship, and a league Rookie of the Year laurel. And she earned it by shrugging off a little added pressure that came with having one unripe backup in Christina England this year as opposed to the three elder colleagues with whom she shared the crease in 2008-09.

On an individual base, there wasn’t a whole lot more for Lacasse to prove in her second season, but she did it. First, she had to prove herself resistant to the urban legend they call the sophomore slump. Granted, her goals-against average crept up from 1.94 to 2.14, her save percentage did dip a little from .933 to .920, and she posted three fewer shutouts. But none of that seemed to prod head coach Bob Deraney into giving her a night off.

On the contrary, he put her in for every last game on the schedule, only forking her out for the occasional purpose of deploying a six-pack attack and for giving England one four-minute, 48-second shift of firefighting duty in a forgettable 5-1 loss to Brown University.

Accordingly, Lacasse followed up on those 29 freshman appearances with 35 swirls, thus tying Amy Thomas of 2004-05 for the program’s single season record. She consumed 2128:41 minutes for exactly 99 percent of the team’s crease time and, with 3799:09 worth of ice time on her career, ascended to No. 3 behind the barely mortal likes of Sara Decosta and Jana Bugden.

And those 878 shots she repelled over these last 35 games and 2128:41 minutes? That would be a new single-season record, surpassing the 794 saves Decosta made as a freshman in 1996-97. On the whole, her 1,634 career saves again rate her behind only her two bar-raising predecessors. Ditto those 64 career games, which is already more than half of the all-time leader Bugden’s 115.

And unlike last spring, Lacasse is now eligible for listing on the Friars’ career GAA leaderboard. At 2.05, she currently rates higher in that category than Decosta and Bugden.

That’s all compelling data, which makes a gourmet feast for the talkers and typists who love those feel-good record stories. But what has this amounted to for PC on the ice?

Try the fact that, with the Scarborough Save-ior on duty, the 2009-10 Friars surrendered a two-goal differential on only six occasions and went through a full seven-game winning streak in January without trailing for a nanosecond. Discounting empty netters, they confined the opposition to two goals or fewer in 23 out of 35 games.

All of that is reasonably reminiscent of Lacasse’s rookie year, when she only authorized seven multi-goal deficits in 29 appearances and finished what she started 26 out of 28 times.

Furthermore, one of the reasons she has rapidly piled on the minutes is because 11 of the Friars’ 35 games went to overtime last season. And she often played an unquestionable part in pressing those games on to a shootout.

She ultimately went 1-1-9 in the fourth period, stopping a cumulative 25 of 26 opposing shots in an aggregate 50 minutes and 55 seconds. Add that to the four OT games she worked as a frosh, when she stopped five of seven shots face and charged up 13:34 of bonus action.

Kind of makes one tempted to change that 64 to 65 career games, does it not?

Only at the halfway mark of her stay in Friartown, Lacasse shall enter next season much like she did the last one. Not an overwhelming quantity of questions, but a few biggies at that.

For the addicted cynics, can she fend off the “junior jinx” (if one is to believe in such a thing)?

More notably, she vacuumed 15 victories in her first year, then gulped down exactly 15 more Ws last season. Can she, together with the teammates she so often pampers, get her up to at least 16 or 17?

Then, of course, for all the accolades she has to herself, Lacasse has not so much as stretched her season beyond the Hockey East semifinals. Guess that kind of speaks for itself.

But whenever a team has its formally pronounced MVP returning to defend her title, as the Friars now will come September, that’s a decent starting point for a viable postseason run.

Al Daniel can be reached at hockeyscribe@hotmail.com

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press

PC Women's Hockey Post-season Player Reports

Nicole Anderson- Her acetylene stick from November lost a lot of heat after New Year’s, especially on the power play. Granted, she eventually perked up for two February goals, both of them executed in breakaway fashion, but Anderson should just as soon start looking forward to a more complete campaign as a sophomore next year.

 

Kate Bacon- One of the more admirable performers in PC’s season-ending loss to Connecticut, Bacon kicked plenty of ice chips on an iffy, injury-plagued first half to her sophomore season. After etching three goals and three helpers in her first 21 appearances, she closed up shop with a goal (in the semifinals, no less) and three assists in the last seven.

 

Jess Cohen- Clearly stricken by freshman frostbite throughout November and December, the Friars’ most-hyped rookie thawed back out once she was linked with Jean O’Neill and Alyse Ruff on the starting line. Not unlike Ashley Cottrell of the year before, though, she could stand to step up her firsthand productivity (six goals) to go along with her playmaking proficiency (13 assists).

 

Ashley Cottrell- While she was not quite as consistently productive in the latter phases of the season, Cottrell still finished as both the team’s scoring leader and face-off leader (.534 winning percentage). And as a testament to her two-way proficiency, she also made a fair number of Normorean, 200-foot rushes with the puck.

 

Lauren Covell- The ex-forward’s conversion to defense last autumn ultimately amounted to the following improvements: 14 more games played, nine more points (all assists), 17 more registered shots, and six steps up the plus/minus ladder.

 

Jackie Duncan- Duncan’s doggedness was self-evident as she played through her fourth consecutive injury-nibbled campaign. Though hardly prolific and sparsely utilized, she earned a regular spot as the fourth-line centerpiece and, after recovering from a preseason ailment in mid-November, saw action in 22 out of 23 possible ventures. Remarkably, that made for her smoothest ride since she was a freshman.

 

Christina England- Did not see action beyond about five minutes worth of firefighting duty way back in October during the Mayor’s Cup Mayhem. The hot hand in net simply belonged to Genevieve Lacasse this year, and the backup England was presumably a good sport about it.

 

Jen Friedman- Before the December deceleration, there were six occasions where Friedman did not log a single shot on goal. Afterwards, Friedman appeared in 15 games and had at least one (usually more than one) SOG in 14 of them.

 

Abby Gauthier- When the ice chips settled and the data evened out, the sophomore Gauthier was mostly the freshman Gauthier, reminding everyone that Hockey East is a long stride ahead from St. Mary’s of Lynn. She did muster a nice wraparound assist on Jean O’Neill’s deficit-cutting goal in the Hockey East semifinal, but only after going dry on the previous seven scoresheets. Then again, she has two more years to sharpen up.

 

Emily Groth- Not a whole lot to gauge in Groth’s nine sparsely distributed appearances, during which she simply supplemented the fourth line and went scoreless the whole way through.

 

Christie Jensen- A toe-curling, team-worst minus-8 at the midseason break, Jensen ultimately pulled even on that front and snuck in a few more points from her perch at the brim of the zone.

 

Genevieve Lacasse- She certainly does not have Connecticut’s number anymore. But apart from a couple of shaky –and in one case, very costly- bouts with the Huskies, plus three ghastly games spread out over the first half of the season, the Friars never trailed by more than one goal at any point of any contest. Maybe not so coincidentally, they had Lacasse in the cage for all 35 of those games, a testament not only to her durability but also her priceless composure.

 

Colleen Martin- Not unlike a few of her defensive understudies, Martin reverted to a stay-at-home state after briefly flaunting more daring tendencies in the early phases of the season. That didn’t exactly seem to have an adverse effect on the team’s resurgent second half, though. Looking ahead, the captain’s lasting influence might be judged based on the continued development of rising junior Jen Friedman, her first-pair partner for the duration of the season.

 

Pam McDevitt- With an unholy trinity of zeroes across her goal-assist-points transcript and limited ice time in each of her 31 games played, McDevitt has to resort to the intangibles to find satisfaction in her senior campaign. To that point, she did draw a fair number of opposing penalties, seemingly more than most of her peers did.

 

Jean O’Neill- O’Neill personified the Friars’ second half performance, wherein unwavering urgency translated to a surplus of success. As PC recompensed its 4-7-6 start with an 11-3-3 finish, O’Neill had at least one point in 12 of those latter 17 games. And even on nights when the rest of the team was wilting, such as a 2-1 home loss to Vermont in January or the fateful Hockey East semifinal, she was the one finding the net and stoking any hope that remained. There may be an MVP and/or C title in her near future.

 

Arianna Rigano- Rigano’s pleasantly surprising data makes her a sound candidate for the team’s Seventh Player Award at the team banquet later this month. She upped a 2-2-4 scoring log as a junior transfer to 7-7-14 as a senior and more impressively finished with the best plus/minus among all PC skaters at plus-10.

 

Leigh Riley- Though on the third D-unit, opposite Covell, Riley used the ice time she got to retain the best plus/minus among PC blueliners at a plus-7.

 

Alyse Ruff- Along with her dynamic complement O’Neill, Ruff has made tracks on her junior campaign with nothing but great expectations for her upcoming senior season. She has gradually grown to tame the tasks that come with being a center and has done her job on both sides of the special teams’ spectrum.

 

Laura Veharanta- The good news: Veharanta is only half-done with her college career. After missing the first two games of the New Year with a mild illness, the sophomore winger scraped out a mere two helpers in the homestretch and went pointless for the final eight games. Her cumulative bushel of 12 points was a harrowing 19-point drop from her radiant rookie year.

 

Jessie Vella- Vella only once went for more than two consecutive games without getting her name on the scoresheet. And after receiving a hooking citation in each of her first three appearances, she only took two more minor penalties in the 18 games that followed. That makes it tough for her and her associates not to look forward to next season, when she hopes to stay injury-free and to put more pucks on net (she had but 20 SOG, although five went in).

 

Amber Yung- As quiet a contributor on the ice as she is soft-spoken off of it, Yung can let a little hardware do most of her talking. She would finish second only to Connecticut’s Cristen Allen in the inaugural Hockey East best defender’s derby and last week was penned to the New England Hockey Writers all-star squad. All good signs as she transitions to her senior season, when she will be heavily leaned on to fill Colleen Martin’s leadership skates on the blue line.

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press

PC Women's Hockey 2009-10 Season In Review

Maybe if they hadn’t slipped so many times in the first period of last Saturday’s Hockey East semifinal, the PC women would have an NCAA tournament game written up in this space today.

 

Or maybe if they had a few more minutes with which to delete the initial 3-0 deficit that ultimately morphed into a 3-2 loss.

 

Or maybe if they had started climbing out of their midseason hole just a little earlier. Or maybe if they had never fallen into that hole in the first place. Or maybe if they had a supra-.500 record against interleague rivals as opposed to the 4-5-4 transcript they ultimately settled for.

 

There are innumerable little culprits that factored into the Friars’ shortcoming in 2009-10, which sentimentally speaking is just the same as the program’s shortcomings in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009. No room for error when the time came for the Hockey East pennant race, and eventually no pennant or bid to the Elite Eight.

 

But statistically speaking, this year’s fall was a little harder to come about and accordingly a little harder for head coach Bob Deraney and Co. to accept. This run was almost an unprompted remake of Slap Shot with rigid determination substituting the Hanson Brothers as the X-factor in a rather stirring turnaround.

 

“This year, there wasn’t a moment that I came to the rink that I couldn’t wait to get here,” Deraney said of the 2009-10 campaign and the group that produced it. “I knew they were going to inspire me with their play and not bore me.”

 

At one point, these Friars were apt as ever to distinguish themselves from their immediate predecessors, getting off to their first winning start since before the 2002-05 dynasty died. But then, a combination of injury-induced fatigue and mild conceit that rapidly soured into self-doubt turned a 3-1-1 start into a toe-curling 4-7-6 transcript at the halfway mark of the regular season.

 

Still, one only needed to examine the team’s list of individual games lost to injury and the quality of competition they had faced to predict some sort of resurgence. When PC finally deployed a maximum allotment of 18 skaters on November 14, it was in the midst of facing nationally ranked adversaries for seven consecutive games.

 

That train of pain climaxed in a little bit of gain. The Friars would commence Part II of their schedule –and a viability-salvaging 8-0-2 unbeaten tear- by bumping the almighty New Hampshire Wildcats, 4-1, in the treacherous depths of the Whittemore Center.

 

From there, long yearnings to envision a return to the glory days of a previous generation were gradually requited. In the second week of January, Providence garnered a slot in the national polls in its own right for the first time since January 2006. (Previously, the Friars enjoyed a preseason assignment to USA Today’s No. 9 slot at the start of last year, but promptly spilled that one and never recovered.)

 

And certainly, by the time they had confirmed their first regular season championship trophy since 2005, nobody was going to hesitate in giving these Friars a fair chance. They had kicked piles of ice chips over a shoddy start and every explanatory theory you could attach to it. At 15-10-9 overall, they were several strides above the .500 mark, whereas the previous three installments either finished right on the fence or just one game above.

 

And they had home ice with which to tip the scale on their national resume, which they had already padded by confronting 18 ranked opponents in 34 ventures, going 7-7-4 in that scenario.

 

“It’s their hard work and dedication that sets them apart this year out of the past few years,” said Deraney. “Not to sell them short, because some of those teams made it to the (Hockey East) final.

 

“I haven’t been around a group of young student-athletes like I have this group. Their morals, ethics, and values go back to older days that we always dreamed about. We talk about society nowadays and the youth of America and how they’re soft and this group gives you hope. I don’t mean to be philosophical, but you asked me what sets them apart.”

 

The coach and the databases answer that question well enough. But in wake of an arguably premature playoff exit, which once again terminated their season on the first weekend of March, some Friartownies are asking the more complicated, two-part question.

 

That question would be: why did it have to end when it did? And why did it have to end the way it did?

 

Incidentally, the likes of the Connecticut Huskies, semifinal victors at the Friars expense but losers to Boston University in last week’s title game, could ask the same question. Ditto Northeastern. Maybe if the NCAA had a Dandy Dozen for women’s hockey instead of an Elite Eight, at least two if not all three of those programs would be bracket shoo-ins and reflect the type of season Hockey East cohabitants gave one another.

 

“I’m proud and privileged to be a part of Women’s Hockey East,” said Deraney, who accepted his first Coach of the Year laurel the night before his season ended. “The eight coaches that we have and the eight programs that we have, we all make each other better, and this is going to make us better. As much as it hurts now, it’s going to pay dividends for us down the road.”

 

Still, four constituents from this particular run are making their tracks in two months. Regardless of what the returnees can reap starting next autumn, they will do so in the absence of Jackie Duncan, Colleen Martin, Pam McDevitt, and Arianna Rigano, who will make just the fourth graduating class in Deraney’s 11 years to depart the Divine Campus with no conference championship rings.

 

The coach concluded, in reference to his full 21-player roster, “I’d be proud to call every one of them my daughters with the way they go about their business not only on the ice, but in the classroom, the way they conduct themselves.

 

“That’s the difference. That’s why this one hurts –probably more than any of the others.”

 

Al Daniel can be reached at hockeyscribe@hotmail.com

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press