Women’s Hockey Preview: Northeastern University

It was both a historic season for Northeastern and one of the most stereotypical NU finishes to a season ever for the Huskies.

What Happened Last Year

Charles Dickens must have had a premonition when he wrote “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” since it pretty accurately describes the Huskies season last year. The NCAA Championship appearance marked the best finish of any team sport in the school’s history. The one goal loss in overtime marked the closest result of any Hockey East Team in the history of the NCAA Women’s hockey tournament. All that being said the way that goal went in for the former Eagle Daryl Watts was nothing short of sickening for anyone supporting Northeastern in that game. A short time later goalie Aerin Frankel became the third Husky to win the Patty Kazmaier award to cap off the season which was a nice sweetener.

The rest of the season highlighted the dominance of the Huskies but there were not as many opportunities to showcase it as there were no non conference games and no Beanpot. While the league decided to not declare it NU won their third straight HEA regular season title and fourth straight HEA tournament title, they have not lost a tournament game in that stretch.

Key Loss

Veronika Pettey

Pettey has been a solid contributor for Northeastern her entire career. She had some injuries and was seeing less playing time which likely led to her decision to hang up the skates with a year of eligibility remaining. While she will be missed the Huskies are definitely still loaded up front.

Key Addition

Maddie Mills

Coach Flint really must be smiling to himself about this pick up. Mills’ is a top-10 Kaz finalist that is a top line forward almost anywhere in the country, at NU she might be a second liner, though 1B might be a more accurate description.

What to expect this year

There is nothing out there that says Northeastern can’t improve upon last season. There will be a Beanpot, they lost only one player, that was replaced by a top-10 Kaz finalist, and they are hungry to get over that hump.

A huge question will be whether or not Alina Mueller will be 100% after a dirty play by the Russians an unfortunate incident at Worlds. Also in the minds of Husky fans will be how much time Mueller and Chloe Aurard will end up missing for the Olympics (and Olympic qualifying on the part of Aurard). The Huskies dodged a bullet when Team USA inexplicably left Frankel off of the centralization roster for Beijing but that is a boost for NU.