What the Olympics mean for the Huskies

Courtesy of Logo Design Love

Most teams will be feeling the effect of the Olympics during their upcoming season. BU has lost two of its biggest offensive powers in Marie-Philip Poulin and Jenelle Kohanchuck to Team Canada. Erica Uden-Johansson, one of the top five leading goal scorers for Quinnipiac, has already redshirted the season to play for Team Sweden. Northeastern is no exception to this; Kendall Coyne and Paige Savage are both currently attending the training camp in Lake Placid, with final team selection to happen after their last scrimmage on Sunday, June 23rd. Even though the Czech Republic will not participate in Women’s Hockey at the Olympics, Lucie Povova will most likely be missing some time for other IIHF tournaments. The schools that could potentially take the biggest hits from the Olympics are the ones in the WCHA.

Minnesota has six of it’s players at the selection camp, including Amanda Kessel who recorded 100 points this season for the undefeated team. Wisconsin has four, including their starting goalie Alex Rigsby, and both of the Lamoureux sisters are at the camp, but since they were 2013 grads from the school, their absence was already expected. BC has three of its current players at the camp, all of whom would be returning in the fall. These three players are Carpenter, Skarupa and Fields, all players who would be sorely missed by their college teammates. Harvard has four players at the camp, one of them being Josephine Pucci who missed this past season due to a concussion.

Courtesy of TeamUSA.org

Bottom line is that all of the schools are going to be taking hits next season, forcing other players to step up and fill the shoes left behind by the key players. Now there are three different scenarios for Northeastern: 1) they will lose both Savage and Coyne 2) they will only lose one of the two players, most likely Coyne 3) the Huskies don’t lose either of these two girls. Granted, option three is the least likely of the three, especially since Kendall could/should have been on the 2010 Olympic team had it not been for an injury.

Option 1 would put a lot of pressure on the NU offense. It will also make it more important for the defensive core to be locked down by the team November comes around. The Husky defense is consistently strong, and as long as they can help Desjardins and support the offense, the forwards will have no trouble finding the back of the net. Option 2 would mean that the Huskies lose their top scorer in Coyne, but keep the developing power of Savage. She is a big power forward who works well with all of her teammates, and will be a great asset to the Husky offense moving forward. Option 3 would mean that the Huskies stay untouched, which will be a huge advantage against the Eagles, Terriers, and the Wisconsin Badgers.

Once the national teams have finalized their rosters, coaches will start assessing their teams and form a game plan moving forward.

For USA selection camp roster, click here. For Team Canada’s centralized roster, click here. To read the GoNU release on Coyne and Savage being invited to the selection camp, click here.