Scouting Out Frozen Four Competitors

Harvard’s Frozen Four opponents are the cream of the crop and each has strengths and weaknesses the Crimson will need to scout for its upcoming games.

ST. LAWRENCE

Following Sunday’s loss to Harvard in the ECAC final, both St. Lawrence head coach Paul Flanagan and star forward Gina Kingsbury shed tears over the fact that she will not play in this weekend’s games.  Instead, she will be with the Canadian national team.

Her impact on the team this past winter cannot be denied, whether it is her team leading 57 points or the noticeable explosive potential she adds to the first line’s Rebecca Russell and Chelsea Grills.

But even without her presence on the ice, St. Lawrence will be no rollover with the veteran leadership and skills of co-captain Rachel Barrie between the pipes for the Saints.

In this past weekend’s press conferences, Flanagan made this fact clear with only four words.

“Rachel got us here,” Flanagan said.

And with all four teams boasting tough offenses that pounce on any loose puck or rebound, Barrie will have to bring her highest level of hockey to continue St. Lawrence’s run.

Much like the Crimson and Minnesota, the Saints have really begun to gel as a team in the final stretch of this past season, with long winning streaks and impressive victories over Dartmouth, Brown and Princeton.  But on the flip side, its first round opponent, Harvard, has had its way with St. Lawrence, winning all three contests this season.

After losing the conference championship to the Crimson, there were a lot of questions remaining about how the Saints would adapt and come out in the Frozen Four.

“Where do I start?” Flanagan said.  “The main thing [we have to do is] figure out how to stop their powerplay and how to kick-start ours and get it going.”

Outside of the mental obstacle when facing Harvard without Kingsbury, the Saints would be one of the stronger teams in the Frozen Four.

MINNESOTA

The Gophers come into the tournament as the top-ranked team, but also as the unknown since the other three teams all harken from the ECAC and thus have an in-depth knowledge of each others’ styles of play.

Two weeks ago, Minnesota asserted its dominance as the best team west of the ECAC by beating a healthy and dangerous Minnesota-Duluth team for the WCHA championship.

Minnesota is unbeaten in its last nine games down the stretch, while both Dartmouth and St. Lawrence are coming off losses to another Frozen Four competitor.

But unlike its powerhouse Eastern competitors, the Gophers’ team is built upon a solid all-around offensive effort that doesn’t show up on the individual statistics charts.

Krissy Wendell, the team’s leading scorer, finished the season with an average of 2.06 points per game, right behind Harvard junior Nicole Corriero (2.15) and good for fourth overall.  Outside of Wendell, Minnesota only boasts two other scorers in the nation’s top 21, but then not another one in the top 100.

However, the Gophers stand second nationally in team scoring offense (4.41 goals per game) behind only Harvard (4.45).

With an amazingly efficient powerplay, Minnesota leads the nation with a 26.3-percent success rate and only one short-handed goal conceded. And on the defensive side, the Gophers’ stifling penalty kill unit stands third-best in the nation (91.3 percent) in addition to scoring 11 short-handed goals.

Most importantly, however, is the recent return of Natalie Darwitz, the sophomore star who was sidelined for a good part of the season due to injury.  She returned to the lineup on Feb. 20, registering eight goals and seven assists in eight contests, including two playoff matchups.

On the other end of the ice, goalie Jody Horak stands fifth in the country with a 1.64 goals against average.

DARTMOUTH

Just as Darwitz’s presence in the Frozen Four makes Minnesota that much more terrifying to its opponent, Dartmouth faces the loss of Cherie Piper and Gillian Apps for the tournament, making it much more of an underdog in a match-up with the Gophers.

Injuries have limited their action this winter and prevented the two from appearing atop the Big Green’s scoresheet. As was the case with the Saints’ Kingsbury, commitments to the Canadian National team will keep the duo out of play this weekend.

Throughout the regular season, Dartmouth’s core of senior players—including captain Sarah Clark--—have led the team with or without the presence of Piper and Apps on the ice.  Ever since the midway point, the Big Green has had an up-and-down second half of the season—especially against the other three teams in the Frozen Four.  In a span of seven days, Dartmouth dropped a contest to Minnesota and then was swept in a two-game affair by St. Lawrence.  The goal margin in these three games was an overwhelming 13 to 5, the worst stretch of hockey by far for the Big Green.

Prior to being stifled by the Saints’ Rachel Barrie in the ECAC semifinals, Dartmouth put together a six-game run to close out the season.

Luckily for the Big Green, they do not even have to consider the mental warfare that a semifinal contest against the Saints would entail.  On the other hand, No. 1 Minnesota is no cakewalk either—Dartmouth managed a split against the Gophers earlier this season, but lost the second game by a score of 11-3.

Since then, the goalie situation has been a little more uncertain in Hanover than for any of the other three schools, with sophomores Katherine Lane, and Stephanie Cochran and freshman Christine Capuano splitting time.

“Maybe we don’t have a starting goalie,” said Dartmouth coach Mark Hudak earlier in the season following a tight 3-2 win over Harvard.

Although Cochran has emerged as the leading candidate between the pipes for the Big Green, St. Lawrence managed four goals on her in the biggest game of the year—possibly returning the situation to the uncertainty of earlier in the winter.

The main issue remains finding a solid anchor in net while vying for a national championship.  The real question is, which side of Dartmouth’s goaltending will appear for the most pressure-filled, clutch games of the year?

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.