The postseason is here for BU, and it looks a lot different than last year.
Take the Terriers’ season finale this year against BC, a 4-0 shutout loss where they were playing for the Hockey East tournament’s seventh seed, and compare it to last year’s closer against UConn, where BU was fighting with the Huskies for the tournament’s No. 1 seed. The contrast is stark. This year’s team and last year’s team are entering the postseason in completely opposite positions.
It’s not hard to pinpoint when the Terriers’ season started to unravel: the Beanpot championship, a moment head coach Tara Watchorn admitted the team has still been trying to recover from.
How much the team has shifted since then is evident with seniors Luisa and Lilli Welcke returning from the Olympics. In Friday’s matchup against Providence, they were slotted on the fourth line.
“We had to get them up to speed,” Watchorn said on her midweek media call Tuesday, ahead of BU’s first-round matchup against the Friars at Walter Brown Arena on Wednesday night.
Before the twins left for Italy, the Terriers were wrapping up a strong stretch of play — one that ran from their win over Providence on Nov. 21 through their Jan. 20 loss to Harvard. But in the 10 games since, BU has managed just three wins: a sweep of Merrimack, who sits 10 points behind the rest of Hockey East, and a late-season victory over Providence this past Friday.
Lately, the focus has shifted to “simplifying” the game plan, keeping the forecheck structure largely the same, but being more deliberate about managing the puck within it to limit turnovers and rush chances.
“We want to be able to be predictable to each other,” Watchorn said. “We want to be able to put pressure on when we can, depending on where we jump in from.”
Though BU’s forecheck and transition play has done well this season, they caused the Terriers significant problems against Boston College on Saturday.
All of BC’s goals stemmed from turnovers or transition chances. Yes, BU sustained a substantial ice tilt, but that wasn’t the deciding factor. It was BC’s ability to pounce on Terrier mistakes, especially in transition moments like forechecking pressure and neutral-zone breakouts.
That’s an area Watchorn wants to clean up.
“We want to be able to not give teams odd-man rushes,” Watchorn said.
Creating scoring opportunities has to be at the forefront of the Terriers’ mindset. BU has been shut out in four of its last six games, and now that the team has entered do-or-die territory, finding the back of the net isn’t optional. The Terriers’ season depends on it.
Against Providence on Friday, the Terriers were outshot 41-31. While they went shot-for-shot with BC on Saturday, the number of quality looks were low — and on the few Grade-A chances they did generate, BU couldn’t convert.
“At the end of the day we have good goaltending, and if we make ourselves really hard to eliminate and play the right way, we have enough skill that we will score,” Watchorn said after BC. “I have no doubt about that.”
But between the pipes, BU is in a precarious position. Michelle Pasiechnyk started in the last three games. Junior Mari Pietersen hasn’t played since Feb. 13 against Northeastern. The pair have played in tandem, but Pietersen primarily held the net during December and January, when the Terriers were playing well.
The pair have logged nearly identical minutes this season — Pietersen has recorded 975 and Pasiechnyk has 977. They each have five wins to their name, and while Pietersen holds more ties, you could argue Pasiechnyk has kept BU competitive in key moments, including the recent 2-0 loss to UConn, where she was the reason the Terriers stayed afloat.
In high-stakes games like the Beanpot and Belpot, Pietersen started, but Pasiechnyk has more playoff experience given the pedigree of games she played during her time at Clarkson.
Watchorn has possibly one of the most difficult decisions to make come Wednesday, where you can’t afford to get goaltending wrong.
“Luckily, we have two great options,” Watchorn said. “That’s why you do what you do throughout a season, so you don’t find yourself in a situation where neither of them are ready for this. We’ve been going back and forth. They both have been in the net at different times. We have a good problem.”
Even though the Terriers beat Providence on Friday, it wasn’t their most convincing performance. BU had to claw back from a deficit to secure the 3-1 win. If they want to make any kind of postseason run, they’ll need a far stronger start than the one they showed just a few days ago.
“It’s hard to beat any team in the season three times, let alone four,” Watchorn said.