Members of the UAA hockey team will have a spring in their step when they take the ice Friday for a weekend series against Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
After splitting a road series earlier this month against national powerhouse Denver, the Seawolves are enthusiastic about the future.
And the team will need to muster up all the energy it can over the next 10 days.
The Seawolves play four games next week, for a total of six matchups on a road trip that ends Nov. 23.
But the win against Denver — the No. 4-ranked team in the country — showed the team they have the ability to compete with the nation’s best.
“When you do get a win like that against Denver, it just leads to guys finding confidence, the team finding confidence,” UAA head coach Matt Shasby said. “They see why success happens and hopefully we can repeat it.”
After the weekend series against Bentley, the Seawolves will play Stonehill College, Brown University and Holy Cross on three consecutive days starting Tuesday. Then the team will have two days off before completing the series with Holy Cross on Sunday, Nov. 23.
The consolidation of games is rare, but the Seawolves have only played six games so far this year and Shasby said the team felt motivated to make the most of the trip.
“This is a pretty rare thing in college hockey to have three midweek games,” Shasby said. “When you build these independent schedules, you’re kind of at the mercy of opponents’ availability.”
The game schedule means limited practice time to boost recovery, and Shasby said that gives the team an opportunity to play instinctual hockey.
“When I played, I found that when you have a whole bunch of games in a row, you kind of start playing your best hockey, because you’re just going out there and reacting versus overthinking and overanalyzing,” he said. “You don’t really have time to do any of the things that bind you up and just go out and play.”
In earning the split against Denver, the Seawolves played much of the series in their own defensive zone.
That can be a good thing, Shasby said, as it solidified the Seawolves as a strong defensive unit.
“We came out of that weekend being a better defending team … we can really go into any building now and know that we can defend against anybody,” he said.
But the other side of the coin is that UAA has spent precious little time on offense during the early portion of the season.
In going 1-5 against stiff competition, UAA has averaged 1.5 goals per game. Shasby said he wants the team to play with more puck confidence during the next stretch.
“We will have the puck more, and let’s go make some plays, and let’s be confident when we do have it,” he said. “I’m extremely excited about our guys kind of just getting to maybe fight in their weight class a little more here.”
Last week, junior Joey Potter earned the Independent Program’s Defender of the Month honor and is tied with teammate Aiden Westin for the team lead in goals (2). The Seawolves’ leading point-man on the year is junior Karter McNarland, who has tallied four assists.
Sophomore goalie Tyler Krivtsov has logged the most time between the pipes for UAA. While his goals against average is more than 5, he earned the win against Denver with 46 saves.
While the level of competition may not be quite as tough as the first six games, the Seawolves will still be facing quality opponents. Holy Cross and Bentley both received votes in the most recent USA Hockey/The Rink Live college hockey poll released this week.
“The rest of our season, we have winnable games every night,” Shasby said. “Hopefully we’re winning some hockey games and looking forward to getting home and playing in front of our home fans here again in about a month.”
Chris Bieri is the sports and entertainment editor at the Anchorage Daily News.
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