Flanagan, Syracuse not reading too much into season-opening tie with Huskies
After turning some heads with its first playoff win in program history in March, Syracuse had hoped to build off its successful run to start this season.
But after a 4-4 tie against Northeastern Friday, Syracuse realizes a season-opening tie won’t define its season. Instead, it’s just a place to start.
‘I told the kids this is my 29th opening night,’ SU head coach Paul Flanagan said. ‘So I’ve had a lot of them, and it doesn’t determine how your season’s going to go. I think as a team and individually, we know where our players have to go from here. It gives us something to gauge now.’
Despite outshooting Northeastern 38-19, the Orange had to settle for a tie in front of a crowd of 511 at Tennity Ice Skating Pavilion Friday. For Flanagan and the Orange, the game was about getting out on the ice and seeing where it needs to go after weeks of practicing against each other.
‘We’re just sick of looking at each other these past couple weeks,’ Flanagan joked. ‘Until you play, you just don’t know. Until you have someone in a different color sweater chasing you around, (then) you know what you really have to work on.’
Just entering its third season of existence, Syracuse has been picked to finish second in the College Hockey America (CHA) preseason coaches’ poll and is now starting to realize the direction in which it is moving. For perhaps the first time this early into a season, there is legitimate excitement around how talented the team can really be.
This year’s version of Flanagan’s long line of season openers featured an SU team that fielded seven freshmen and one senior transfer. One of those important newcomers is starting goaltender Jenesica Drinkwater, one of three stoppers competing for the job. With 15 saves on the night, the freshman goalie looked particularly poised, especially for someone who didn’t know whether or not she was even going to play.
‘I got told last night,’ Drinkwater said of the roster move.
Before the 15-minute mark in the first period, SU had already jumped out to a 2-0 lead on goals from Stefanie Marty and Megan Skelly. But seconds later, Northeastern was quick to respond on a Rachel Llanes score. After the close of the opening period, when Northeastern began to cherry-pick the neutral zone, momentum began to shift away from the Orange, and the Huskies were on their way to three unanswered goals to pull ahead 4-3 halfway through the third period.
‘It was a little nerve-racking,’ Drinkwater said. ‘But I had to play my best. Obviously I had to try and pick some out, but some got by. I just had to stay focused and keep my mind on the game and not drift off to anything else.’
Skelly, one of the team’s five returning juniors, was disappointed SU relinquished the pressure it set up in the first half.
‘They were getting a lot of breakaways, and I think that sort of threw us off in the second and third period,’ Skelly said. ‘We got away from our game. The first period, we were all over them, forechecking them like crazy. And then we just sort of got away from our game plan.’
Nevertheless, SU kept blasting shots toward Northeastern’s Florence Schelling, forcing her to 34 saves on the night. With just more than seven minutes to play, the Orange found its power-play opportunity when Husky defender Stephanie Gavronski received two minutes for tripping. With 5:10 to play, Syracuse sophomore Isabel Menard found the back of the net from 15 feet out to force overtime.
Although neither team could take advantage in the extra period, both schools can find reasons to be happy with how they played Friday night.
And in Skelly’s eyes, SU looks hungry. There will be no reason to expect a hangover from last season’s success.
‘It’s nice to come out the first game of the season to be at home, relax and breathe into it,’ Skelly said. ‘I think it just shows the age of the program. You know, we’re getting more seasoned and teams are coming to us, whereas last year, we were going all over the countryside trying to find teams to play. We have (33) more games in the (regular) season. We can only get better from here.’
