When Dave Flint’s Northeastern Huskies entered the Women’s Hockey East playoffs last spring, they were a .500 team (11-11-2 in WHE). In short, they needed to win the league title to get an invitation to the NCAA tournament. Despite having an experienced junior goaltender in Brittany Bugalski, Flint turned to a freshman. And Aerin Frankel didn’t disappoint.
Frankel, a native of Westchester County in New York and a graduate of famed Minnesota powerhouse Shattuck St-Mary’s, ripped off four straight one-goal victories. After knocking off New Hampshire in the quarterfinals, 3-2 and 2-1, Frankel simply got better, beating Maine, 2-1, in the semifinals, and Connecticut in the finals, 2-1.
“Early on in the year, she won some big games for us, and then she beat Wisconsin over Thanksgiving,” said Flint. “After that, by late November, I knew this kid was the real deal. When it came playoff time, she took it even to another level.
“That semifinal game against Maine, the last two minutes we were a man down, and she made saves that I couldn’t believe,” said the NU bench boss. “They threw everything including the kitchen sink at her, and they couldn’t get anything by her. She carried that into the next day, in the final, and was just rock solid.”
Her performance earned Frankel Hockey East playoff MVP honors. And despite losing to Colgate in the national quarterfinals, 3-1 (Frankel stopped 33 of 35 shots, with the Raiders getting an empty-netter to seal the win), the run was quite a coming-out party for a young woman who was attending Northeastern on only a partial scholarship.
“I was definitely nervous, but I definitely felt locked in and comfortable,” said Frankel, a native of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. “Just a little nervous because it was my first experience in the playoffs in college. But yeah, I was locked in for sure. It felt good to be on a winning streak, and that set our energy going into the finals.
“When I started to play well, I decided to tell myself, ‘Don’t change anything. Focus on doing the little things correctly,’ ” she said. “The fact that our team was playing so well in front of me really helped. We felt like everyone was doing their job, so we weren’t worried about making up for others’ mistakes. We felt accountable for one another, and that everyone was going to do what they had to do. So it was easy to play behind my team. That was fun.”
For Flint, Frankel was a revelation. First, Frankel is a bit undersized, standing 5-foot-5. That fact has required some adjustments.
“I’ve always been told, since I was growing up, that because I was small, I wouldn’t be as successful at doing certain things, and I had to have my own style,” said Frankel, who relies more on her athleticism compared to statuesque goalies like Bugalski. “But over the years, working with my goalie coach at home, I adopted my own style, which has worked for me.
“I play very aggressively. I’m competitive,” she said. “I’m always competing to make second and third saves. And sometimes it looks a little bit different from your typical goalie.”
Second, Frankel didn’t have the same “body of work” as Bugalski. She played on boys teams in New York before transferring to Shattuck St-Mary’s as a sophomore. There, she backstopped a perennial national championship contender, which actually worked against her in terms of recruitment.
“She had some of the best defensemen in the country in front of her,” said Flint. “You’d go to watch her, she’d see 10 shots, she got a shutout, but she never really got tested. I saw the athleticism. I saw the compete level. The coach, Gordie Stafford, just raved about her. So, not being able to get a great read on her, I took her more on what her coach had said, and what other people had said.
“But we hit a home run when we got her, because she’s exceeded expectations,” he said.
Still, Frankel knew better. It wasn’t the games that proved her mettle, and improved her technique. It was the practices.
“I definitely faced fewer shots in games than most goalies in our league did, but I felt the benefits were tremendous in terms of practicing with that team every day,” she said of her Shattuck tenure. “We had some of the best players in the country, and you see some of them now doing amazing things collegiately. Just the benefit of being able to practice with them every day was something that made me better, even if I wasn’t getting a ton of shots in games. I was prepared for when I would.”
That moment came sooner than expected. In early November last year, following three straight losses, Flint tabbed Frankel to start a weekend doubleheader against league opponent Merrimack. The result was three points, with a shutout win and a 1-1 tie.
“After playing well that weekend, I thought I could play at this level,” said Frankel.
Which leaves Flint with a happy dilemma coming into the 2018-19 season. Though Bugalski, now a senior, had an uneven campaign last year (2.95 goals-against average, .891 save percentage), she is unquestionably a talent, having been selected for several national teams. But Frankel’s 2017-18 season (1.92 GAA, .934 SP) can’t be overlooked.
“I have two goalies who can step in and play, and they’re both going to get opportunities,” said Flint. “If somebody ends up rising above the other one, that person will be my starter. If they’re both playing great, then we’ll have two goalies that will play. So right now, I feel they’re pretty even,
“Aerin rose to the occasion last year, and also probably surprised me a little bit in how quickly she adapted to the college game. It was a nice surprise,” he said. “She stepped in when Bugalski was struggling, and did a nice job. So I’m looking at this season like, I’ve got two really good goalies that I have confidence in. It’s better than the other end of the spectrum, when you look at your goalies and you don’t have confidence in any of them. I’ve got some pretty good choices. It’s not a bad problem to have.”
Flint’s approach suits Frankel just fine.
“My mindset going into this season is to approach it as a completely clean slate, and prove myself again in practice, hopefully, so I can be playing in games, and starting games, of course,” she said. “Not forget the success that we had last year, but not let me get complacent in any way.”
Based on preseason training reports, Flint knows he has two motivated goaltenders.
“I got their testing numbers from the weight room, and the two biggest gainers were Frankel and Bugalski. So that’s nice to see,” he said. “I think there’s going to be some healthy competition in net. Aerin is at that point where she doesn’t want to give up the net, and Brittany wants to get back in the net. It shows me they both worked their butts off this summer.”
Frankel said she welcomes the challenge.
“Britt and I have a great relationship on and off the ice,” said Frankel. “We compete with each other, and push each other, in a good way, though. We’re friendly. It’s an overall positive relationship.”
And that relationship is a positive for the Huskies as a team, said Flint.
“Her compete level makes the players around her better, because they’re going to work harder in practice to score on her,” he said. “It pushes the other goalies. They’re looking at her last year, saying, ‘I’ve got a freshman here, and I don’t want her outworking me.’ So they raise their level of compete. I think it rubs off on everybody around her.”
Which is good news for Flint, and bad news for Northeastern’s opponents.
