Who’s the best husky of them all? No. 7 Connecticut looks to prove their case.
After stunning the top-seeded Northeastern University in the Hockey East Final, the world seemed to be but an oyster for the University of Connecticut Huskies. Winning a berth in the NCAA tournament made possibilities look about as close to endless as they could possibly have gotten.
And one has to credit them for taking incredible advantage of the resources they had at the time: graduate student goaltender Tia Chan (.951 save percentage in 37 games played; her 27 wins was tied along with Penn State’s Kate DeSa for third best in the nation) backstopped like her life depended on it and won the award for Women’s College Hockey Goaltender of the Year, but let’s not pretend the skaters were slacking. During the regular season, the Huskies were scoring three goals while taking 36.5 shots on average per game; in contrast, their opponents scored 1.60 goals per game and tallied up 31.4 shots on average per game.
Though when the dust settled on the NCAA tournament, UConn was not on the ice accepting the trophy. Their prolifically scoring senior class graduated, they lost their god-tier goaltender.
So… where do they go from there?
The biggest question will inevitably be goaltending, as well it should be considering the impact that Chan had on the success of last season. The goaltenders on their roster are quite green: rising senior Shannon Moran has played five collegiate games while sophomore Taylor Belchetz has played three, and the other goaltender is a freshman. This element is so unknown it would be foolish to make a claim either way.
And of UConn’s top five scorers last season, only two of those players remain. Two of the departed players graduated, and the other was lost to the transfer portal. But the good news is that two of those players do remain, and of UConn’s top ten scorers last season, only five are gone.
In the Hockey East pre-season poll, UConn was picked to finish second and even nabbed two first-place votes. They finished with 83 points in the poll, just six points behind the other Huskies at Northeastern.
Where last season ended…
UConn finished their regular season with a record of 28-9-2 and a conference record of 17-6-1. They won the Hockey East championship in double overtime against Northeastern and went on to the NCAA tournament, where they were blanked 3-0 in the regional final against Penn State.
Players to watch…
Rising junior forward Claire Murdoch (nine goals and 23 assists across 26 games last season) and rising senior forward Julia Pellerin (12 goals and 12 assists across 26 games last season; her 203 shots were the most made by any Husky) were among UConn’s highest-scoring players last season. Similarly to the situation at Boston University, a point of intrigue here will be how goaltending works out for this team.
New arrivals..
UConn is welcoming seven freshmen to Storrs this season: four forwards, two defenders and one goaltender.
No players are joining UConn from the transfer portal as of writing on Sept. 20.
Into the portal…
The Huskies are losing forward Ashley Allard (10 goals and 18 assists in 37 games), who will play her senior season at the University of Minnesota.
A peek into the schedule…
The Huskies are starting this season on hard mode, and it’ll be tough competition until mid-November for them, in stark contrast to some of the other teams in the conference.
UConn gets an early start and on the road at that, playing a series against St. Cloud State in Minnesota on Sept. 25 and 26. Their home debut will be on Oct. 2 as they host No. 12 Clarkson for the weekend, and then it’s off to No. 8 Princeton for two games. They won’t even play any conference games until a home-and-home series against Holy Cross on Oct. 29 and 30, but they’ll be in Hockey East mode for just under a month until the Nutmeg Classic on Nov. 27 against Sacred Heart. The first half of the season closes with a home-and-home against Boston University on Dec. 4 and 5.
All of the rest of the season is Hockey East, Hockey East and Hockey East, but luckily for the Huskies, the first two series will be against Maine and Merrimack, which will likely provide an easy re-entry into the season. They’ll need any rest and/or grace they can get, because from there the schedule gets brutal, with strong teams like Northeastern, Holy Cross and Boston College looming large.
The game(s) of the year for UConn will arguably be the matchups against Northeastern, which will happen on Jan. 22 and 23 and on Feb. 20, which will close out the regular season for both sets of hockey huskies.
