On March 6 at Matthews Arena, the team that dominated Hockey East all season dominated again in its biggest game of the season. The Northeastern University Huskies (20-1-1) defeated the Providence College Friars, 6-2, to claim their fourth straight Hockey East championship and will enter the NCAA tournament on a 16-game win streak.
“It feels great, especially in a season as strange as this with all the sacrifices that the players had to make,” associate head coach Nick Carpenito (Acton, Mass.) said. “There’s social sacrifices, sacrifices that come with being a regular Division 1 athlete. Everything in the COVID world gets exacerbated. For them to be rewarded with a championship at the end of the day is that much more special.”
No. 1 Northeastern opens the NCAA tournament today against No. 8 Robert Morris (16-7-1) at Erie Insurance Arena in Erie, Pa. The game will be streamed on NCAA.com and puck drop will be at 2 p.m. ET.
Whether or not the Huskies break through for the school’s first women’s hockey national title, it’s been another banner season for head coach Dave Flint’s crew.
“We worked really hard for this the whole season,” senior forward Tessa Ward said after the Hockey East finale. “It feels great just to have that payoff at the end.”
Ward, a third-line forward, exemplifies what Northeastern hockey is all about. On a team that is ranked No. 1 in the nation, the star players get their due, and rightfully so. However, to win game after game after game, you need more than just top players.
“She’s one of the most underrated players in Hockey East. People always get bogged down on goals, assist and stuff,” Carpenito said. “She’s an absolute rock for us defensively. One of the reasons we are able to be so successful is we have a third line that can play against a lot of first lines.”
Ward was one of six different Huskies to score in the championship game against PC. Katie Cipra, Maureen Murphy, Molly Griffin, Miceala Sindoris and Skylar Fontaine each found the back of the net for the Huskies.
“Our best attribute is our depth. I think it’s very intimidating for other teams to see that goals are coming from all over, from the first line from the fourth line. We can attack from every angle on the ice,” Ward said.
“It’s huge for us for the most part this season,” Carpenito said about the team’s talent throughout the roster. “Our third period has been our best period this season because we have the ability to wear teams down. Depth is huge and it’s one of the things I’m most excited about for this team.”
In addition to the depth, the Huskies have the top-end talent, with the best forward and goalie in the conference. Junior forward Alina Mueller and senior goalie Aerin Frankel were named co-Hockey East Players of the Season.
“I think both of them have been outstanding this year. You can’t ask more of them,” Ward said about her teammates. “Offensively, Alina, her point productive and the goals she’s scored, has been a huge part of our success. Defensively, Aerin, you can’t even score on her in practice.”
The numbers back it up.
Entering the NCAA tournament, Mueller has a nation-leading 35 points on the season, 24 of them coming on assists, a category she also leads the nation in. As for Frankel, she has a .969 save percentage, which leads the nation. In addition, she allows the fewest goals in the country, and it’s not close. Frankel’s goals-allowed average is .698. She has given up just 14 goals in 20 games.
In the Hockey East championship, both contributed like many have come to expect. Despite not registering a point, Mueller had a team-high seven shots and won 12 faceoffs. Frankel did her part, stopped 29 of 31 shots.
Frankel was named MVP of the tournament while Mueller, Chloe Aurard and Fontaine made the All-Tournament team.
Carpenito noted that Mueller and Frankel bring the intangibles, too.
“If you ran into Alina Mueller in the streets, you’d never know how successful of a hockey player she is. As a person, she’s just incredible,” Carpenito said.
Mueller is known for jumping as high as she can in the air when a teammate scores, getting even more excited for their goal than she would for her own.
And Frankel? “More times than not you know exactly what you’re going to get out of Aerin Frankel — hard work and the same humility,” Carpenito said.
Ward added: “On top of that, they’re both outstanding people and teammates, and I think their leadership has helped us this year.”
The team’s success is all the sweeter given the COVID challenges.
“As an athlete, the hardest part has been not being around the team as much. We’ve had to make a lot of sacrifices to have the success that we’ve had,” Ward said. “Personally, online school has been difficult. It’s hard to stay focused, but having that hockey in the background of that makes it so much easier to stay motivated.”
Ward mentioned one of those sacrifices was staying on campus for Christmas break and not having the luxury of going home to see family.
Despite the abnormality of it all, Capenito notes that the senior leadership has been excellent this season as they help create camaraderie that normally can be fostered through spending so much time together.
Before Ward and her class arrived on campus, Northeastern had never won a Hockey East championship. Four years later, the Huskies have four of them. This senior class has never lost a Hockey East tourney game.
Now, they want to do something else that has never been done before: Win a national championship.
“They know how talented we are so they’ve had one goal in mind all year and that’s to win a national championship,” Carpenito said. “It’s rare to have everybody all on the same page as far as what goals they want to get to and a true belief that their goals are attainable.”
“With the team that we had last year and years in the past, we’ve always thought we could do it, and this year we knew from the moment we stepped on campus that this could be the year,” Ward said.
Carpenito said, “I think we’ve known for a couple years. We know the talent that we have on this team. I think we always knew we had the ability to do it.”
Entering the tournament with a No. 1 ranking bring certain pressure. But the Huskies are a battle-tested group.
“The number-one seed definitely has some pressure, but we worked hard to get to that point and we have everything to prove,” Ward said. “I think we are just taking it game by game and focusing on each game one at a time.”
