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BC Women's Hockey '14-'15: #SOAR

Danielle Doherty, who redshirted her junior year, will be back on the team as a grad student this year according to Twitter. Great team player who was a strong contributor last year, especially after taking two years off. She made it to the second line a couple of times as a senior.
 
Re: BC Women's Hockey '14-'15: #SOAR

What will be the goalie situation next year? Is the new recruit Gabri Switaj any good. I cant see Miller as the starter.
 
Re: BC Women's Hockey '14-'15: #SOAR

sheagle008 said:
What will be the goalie situation next year? Is the new recruit Gabri Switaj any good. I cant see Miller as the starter.
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Welcome to the forum.

There was a rumor on the boards that Miller might be leaving the team. I don't know how accurate that is. I think Taylor Blake is overcoming an injury too.

Switaj has a bit of a pedigree I believe but don't know enough about her to say how good she might be.
 
TonyTheTiger20 said:
Welcome to the forum.

There was a rumor on the boards that Miller might be leaving the team. I don't know how accurate that is. I think Taylor Blake is overcoming an injury too.

Switaj has a bit of a pedigree I believe but don't know enough about her to say how good she might be.
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Very Good goalie who plays the puck well. Basically kept her outgunned Culver teams in games. Her biggest question at D1 will be her small size.
 
Re: BC Women's Hockey '14-'15: #SOAR

96IllinoisDad said:
Very Good goalie who plays the puck well. Basically kept her outgunned Culver teams in games. Her biggest question at D1 will be her small size.
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Corinne Boyles was small and she was a great goalie at the heights. She was only 5'5 and played pretty big in her crease.
 
Re: BC Women's Hockey '14-'15: #SOAR

I don't believe Switaj approaches anything close to 5'5" - more like 5'1".
 
Re: BC Women's Hockey '14-'15: #SOAR

TTT I forget how to communicate "off forum" but let me know if you want the scoop....
 
Re: BC Women's Hockey '14-'15: #SOAR

Toni Ann Miano is a force... seen her play a couple times, she is very good and has a heavy shot
 
Re: BC Women's Hockey '14-'15: #SOAR

As far as we know the incoming class is:

Kali Flanagan .....................D ..................(Boston Shamrocks) .........................Burlington, MA
Megan Keller ......................D ...............(USA 18s/Honeybaked) ................Farmington Hills, MI
Makenzie Kent ....................F ..................(USA 18s/Assabet) ............................Norwell, MA
Toni Ann Miano ..................D ......................(USA 18s/NAHA) ................................Bronx, NY
Tori Sullivan .......................F ................(USA 18s/Honeybaked) ...............West Boomfield, MI
Gabri Switaj -- G -- (Culver Academy) Kent, OH

Switaj's father was also a goalie at BC ('83), her uncle played hockey at BC as well, and her father currently runs hockey camps. Oh and apparently her cousin works for the Bruins. My guess is she bleeds hockey. Really strong freshman class, perhaps even stronger than Skarupa/Trivigno/Bender from two years ago, only time will tell if it's even better than Carpenter/Field/Pfalzer from the previous year.

Good to see the D emphasis as well. The team wasn't bad in goals against last year, but lacked some aggression on D (especially before Pfalzer got better) and seemed weak on the power play. (The stats may disagree, but I saw what I saw). This looks to set us up with a really strong blue line for several years.
 
Re: BC Women's Hockey '14-'15: #SOAR

wwhyte said:
As far as we know the incoming class is:

Kali Flanagan .....................D ..................(Boston Shamrocks) .........................Burlington, MA
Megan Keller ......................D ...............(USA 18s/Honeybaked) ................Farmington Hills, MI
Makenzie Kent ....................F ..................(USA 18s/Assabet) ............................Norwell, MA
Toni Ann Miano ..................D ......................(USA 18s/NAHA) ................................Bronx, NY
Tori Sullivan .......................F ................(USA 18s/Honeybaked) ...............West Boomfield, MI
Gabri Switaj -- G -- (Culver Academy) Kent, OH

Switaj's father was also a goalie at BC ('83), her uncle played hockey at BC as well, and her father currently runs hockey camps. Oh and apparently her cousin works for the Bruins. My guess is she bleeds hockey. Really strong freshman class, perhaps even stronger than Skarupa/Trivigno/Bender from two years ago, only time will tell if it's even better than Carpenter/Field/Pfalzer from the previous year.

Good to see the D emphasis as well. The team wasn't bad in goals against last year, but lacked some aggression on D (especially before Pfalzer got better) and seemed weak on the power play. (The stats may disagree, but I saw what I saw). This looks to set us up with a really strong blue line for several years.
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I don't know Keller, but Miano and Flanagan are very strong offensively (BTW - Flanagan played for the Wizards this season, not the Shamrocks). I would be concerned however about the quality of the complete defense group on the defensive side of the puck. Given the tenuous goalie situation (at least to start the season), seems like this should be a focus area. This BC team could be one that has to outscore other teams to win games (aka Edmonton Oilers of the '80s). Be interesting to see how it develops - if any team has the firepower to outscore opponents, it should be this one. Could turn out to be a fun ride if you like games with scores like 8 to 6!!
 
Re: BC Women's Hockey '14-'15: #SOAR

Megan is the best D I have watched play at the 19U level for the past couple of years. She was great all season, and yet had another gear at nationals in April! Led U18 team in +/- in Budapest this spring. She is going to be an impact player at BC-great addition to the team.
 
Re: BC Women's Hockey '14-'15: #SOAR

HockeyEast33 said:
I don't know Keller, but Miano and Flanagan are very strong offensively (BTW - Flanagan played for the Wizards this season, not the Shamrocks). I would be concerned however about the quality of the complete defense group on the defensive side of the puck. Given the tenuous goalie situation (at least to start the season), seems like this should be a focus area. This BC team could be one that has to outscore other teams to win games (aka Edmonton Oilers of the '80s). Be interesting to see how it develops - if any team has the firepower to outscore opponents, it should be this one. Could turn out to be a fun ride if you like games with scores like 8 to 6!!
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Returning D are Pfalzer/Kickham (Sr), Bender/Johnson (Jr), Wedell (So); Pfalzer and Bender are clearly national quality and Johnson led the team in +/-. Kickham had transitioned from F and Wedell got limited ice time. I hear what you say about D, the team is clearly more comfortable on the attack and penalty kill was the weakest area last year (12th in the nation), so it seems like D is their weak point. But in practice they let in three goals only three times in 2014 out of 19 games. (And they won one of those games anyway). Overall team D was 6th in the nation last year.

So last year was actually pretty good, and this year should be an upgrade. So my money's on a lot of 8-2 games :-)
 
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Re: BC Women's Hockey '14-'15: #SOAR

BC is stacked this year. Last year Skarupa and Boyles won games for them. This team may be better than the 2012-2013 eagles.
 
sheagle008 said:
BC is stacked this year. Last year Skarupa and Boyles won games for them. This team may be better than the 2012-2013 eagles.
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The objective for BC in 2015 should be an NCAA title given its roster. The historical problem is that the field of the top five or six teams is very strong in the season following the Olympics. In 2007, Harvard had a lot of star power and couldn't get home ice because of the presence of teams like Wisconsin, Mercyhurst, Dartmouth, and UNH. The top six in 2011 were pretty deep: Wisconsin, BU, Cornell, BC, Minnesota, and Mercyhurst. Any of those teams had enough to win it all if it had been playing its best hockey in the tournament.

Looking at the upcoming year on paper, FF teams like Minnesota and WIsconsin should be better. Other NCAA teams like BU and Harvard get multiple impact players back, and Cornell returns Jenner. BC should be right in that mix, but whether the Eagles are seeded first or second or have to travel for a quarterfinal will depend largely on defense and goaltending. Their skaters will dominate play against most Hockey East teams, and that may lead to a great record and a high seed. To win it all, the goaltending will need to be seasoned for when the Eagles meet a team that can skate with them.
 
Re: BC Women's Hockey '14-'15: #SOAR

ARM said:
The objective for BC in 2015 should be an NCAA title given its roster. The historical problem is that the field of the top five or six teams is very strong in the season following the Olympics. In 2007, Harvard had a lot of star power and couldn't get home ice because of the presence of teams like Wisconsin, Mercyhurst, Dartmouth, and UNH. The top six in 2011 were pretty deep: Wisconsin, BU, Cornell, BC, Minnesota, and Mercyhurst. Any of those teams had enough to win it all if it had been playing its best hockey in the tournament.

Looking at the upcoming year on paper, FF teams like Minnesota and WIsconsin should be better. Other NCAA teams like BU and Harvard get multiple impact players back, and Cornell returns Jenner. BC should be right in that mix, but whether the Eagles are seeded first or second or have to travel for a quarterfinal will depend largely on defense and goaltending. Their skaters will dominate play against most Hockey East teams, and that may lead to a great record and a high seed. To win it all, the goaltending will need to be seasoned for when the Eagles meet a team that can skate with them.
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Yes indeed. To your point, you're right, a lot of these top teams are stacked post-Olympics. There are really the fun years -- in theory you should have about 4-5 teams with the talent to win the whole thing. Nice to see BC in that group.

Hopefully Hockey East isn't a totally disaster again this year.

I'm not too concerned about the D -- the goaltending will be the question. Hopefully Blake, Switaj, or -- well, we'll call her "Option K" for now -- will step up. The competition for the position can only help, I think. I'm a pro-'have a primary goalie' guy so hopefully one answers the call.
 
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