Weekend at St. Lawrence Looms for No. 1 W. Hockey

The No. 1 Harvard women’s hockey team will be presented with a unique challenge when it visits No. 6 St. Lawrence tonight and tomorrow afternoon. The Saints are the only foe that plays Harvard on consecutive days. The last time Harvard played ranked opponents on back-to-back days, the Crimson suffered its only loss of the season, a 4-3 defeat at No. 3 Minnesota in November.

In addition, St. Lawrence has a score to settle. Ending the Crimson’s 17-game win streak would be a start.

When Harvard placed fourth in the ECAC a year ago, one of its shining moments was taking three points from St. Lawrence in a two-game series at Bright. That series proved costly for the Saints when they came up just one point short of the ECAC regular season crown.

“Maybe we can have a little of payback this year,” said St. Lawrence coach Paul Flanagan.

Such thoughts don’t concern the Crimson (20-1-0, 9-0-0 ECAC). Teams have been gunning to knock Harvard out of the No. 1 spot since December, and in that regard St. Lawrence (18-6-3, 8-3-1) is no different from the rest.

“Bottom line is everyone wants to beat Harvard, so you have to play your best every day,” said Harvard coach Katey Stone.

St. Lawrence has shown it can beat some of the top tier teams but not the elite. St. Lawrence has wins over No. 4 Dartmouth and No. 5 New Hampshire, but was beaten handily by No. 3 Minnesota.

Adding to the Saints’ challenges, the team has fallen off a bit in its last six games against the weak competition of Cornell, Colgate and North Dakota, according to Flanagan.

“The intensity just wasn’t there,” he said.

In addition, Gina Kingsbury, the team’s top scorer per game, and junior goaltender Rachel Barrie were absent last week for a Canadian National Under-22 team tournament, leaving the Saints with only three days to prepare for the weekend.

Barrie has been a giant killer before. As a freshman, she was in net during the 2001 Frozen Four upset of then-No. 1 Dartmouth that lifted the Saints into the Inaugural NCAA championship game. More recently, she delivered a 49-save shutout this season in a 1-0 victory over the Big Green.

The Crimson has had Barrie’s number as of late, however. She is winless in her last three Harvard meetings—a 7-1 thrashing in 2001, a 5-3 defeat and a 2-2 tie in 2002. The tie was particularly devastating—Barrie surrendered the game-tying goal to now-sophomore Nicole Corriero with eight seconds left in regulation.

While shutting down Harvard’s No. 1 offense is no easy task, scoring on Harvard’s No. 1 defense will prove the greater challenge. Minnesota is the only team to score more than two goals this season on the Crimson.

St. Lawrence is the epitome of balanced scoring as eight players have 20 or more points this season. Flanagan said that to have offensive success, his lines would have to keep things simple.

“If you try to be cute out there, if you try to be too precise, their defense will take over,” Flanagan said.

Stone feels that for the Crimson to stay at No. 1, her team just has to play to its level.

“It’s more about us than any team we play,” Stone said.

—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at remer@fas.harvard.edu.