Suffolk University men’s hockey caught fire on the offensive side of the ice, scoring 14 goals in two games against Western New England University.
Men’s hockey went 2-0 over the past week, bringing their record back to 10-10-2. These conference wins come at a desperately needed time, helping Suffolk bounce back from a five game losing streak.
“The morale is high in the room right now with 10 wins. We’re just really excited and looking forward to the next three games we have to close out the season, and continue to hunt for that high playoff spot,” said team captain Ryan Webb.
According to Webb, one of the biggest differences in coming back from that losing streak has been focusing more on preparing in the week leading up to games rather than right before them.
“Our coaches Nick Roberto, Shawn McEachern and even our video staff talk about having details and the focus that we have. Having it throughout the week and not just the days we have games because we talk about not always being able to turn it on when it’s gameday. We have to be one hundred percent, full speed at practice throughout the week,” said Webb.
In their Feb. 7 game against WNE, nine different Rams scored goals as they took the 9-5 win. This was the most goals scored in a game for Suffolk since 2016.
The Rams started their Feb. 9 game against WNE down by a goal, but their offense pulled them ahead with five unanswered goals to take the 5-1 victory.
Senior goalie CJ Hapward stepped up against WNE, saving 45 shots across two wins.
“Hapward has been stellar,” said Webb. “There’s been a couple games where we’ve had trouble scoring and that’s something we’ve really been focusing on the past couple weeks in practice.”
Despite the big scoring performance over the past week, Webb noted that the team is trying to learn from every game they play, no matter the result.
“Although we won that first game 9-5, we were a little upset with our defensive zone and it’s something we wanted to work on. Everything is a learning experience and I think that’s a huge thing for this team, every single game we have to learn from it, we have to grow from it whether we win or lose,” said Webb. “I think that’s why the losses have been that much more important this year, because our team’s pretty young and we have to learn from it. When we do win, it shows how good of a team we can be when we’re all pulling together.”
With their two wins against WNE being conference wins, men’s hockey jumped up to fourth in the Conference of New England, good enough to host a home playoff game if the playoffs started today.
Suffolk wraps up their regular season with a pivotal stretch of three conference games which could be the deciding factor in whether or not they make the playoffs.
Webb believes these two wins against WNE will help them get in stride as they reach the end of the regular season. Though they started a winning streak, Webb still wants to remain focused on what lies ahead.
“I think it’s huge. We celebrated it, we were excited about it, but we’re already focused on the next game and our next opponent so I won’t look too much into it. It’s great to get a series sweep, celebrate in film, see who scored, who made the right plays and praise them for it, but we also have to work on what we didn’t do well,” said Webb.
With a playoff spot still in contention, Webb and his team have been stressing the importance of staying in the moment and not getting ahead of themselves.
“Right now we’re in fourth place, we have three games left, we just have to take everything in stride,” said Webb.
Men’s hockey takes the ice at home against Wentworth Feb. 14, beginning their final series of conference games.
