After a ’23-24 campaign that saw the women’s hockey team come to terms with some large roster turnover, the team is preparing to do it all over again- with a little more experience this time. Two weeks after the men’s team dropped their campaign schedule we finally got to see the women’s docket.
There are quite a few differences between the ’24-25 schedule and what we’ve seen out of past years. At first glance the most notable difference is the reintroduction of a tune-up exhibition to start the year and a lack of any non-beanpot tournaments during the year. With no more Pride to scrimmage early in the season (R.I.P. PHF, hello PWHL) the Huskies will be facing off again the Durham West Lightning- a Canadian juniors team from Ontario. Meanwhile, if you don’t include the Beanpot then this is the first time without a mid-season tournament since ’21-22. This could be a nice boost of continuity for the year as a whole, but it’s a bit sad to lose an excuse for a team trip and a change in competition.
On the whole the schedule is a mirror image of the home/away split from last year- 15 home 18 away flipped to 18 home 15 away. It’s always good to have the Huskies playing in front of their home crowd for a majority of their schedule. With the fate of Matthews arena after this season up in the air it also let’s the team savor the old barn a bit more. 18 home games also marks the highest mark since the ’16-17 season.
The Early Test
Once the exhibition is done the Huskies will immediately travel to State College for an early test against a Penn State team that finished 12/13 in the polls last year. The Huskies split the version of this clash that took place in Boston last year and can grab an early leg up in the pairwise with a good result this year.
Rounding out the heavily non-conference start to the schedule is a pair of home games against Quinnipiac. The Bobcats had a strong campaign last year and finished at 10 in both polls. Northeastern hasn’t played Quinnipiac in over a decade, so it’ll be interesting to see the teams play each other both this year and when Northeastern visits them in Hamden, CT sometime in the coming seasons given the nature of most non-conference deals. With these games serving as 4 of 5 non-conference games- the other being an early January game against Yale who finished at 15 last year – their results could heavily dictate Northeastern’s national tournament hopes.
The Conference Schedule
Now to get to the meat of the schedule. It’s hard to project how good other teams may be coming into the year, but we can use the last couple of years’ results as a starting point. Northeastern starts their conference schedule with two back-to-back weeks against BU and Holy Cross who filled out the bottom half of the standings last year. The Huskies’ have not lost a regulation game to either team since the ’21-22 season, but both programs continue to improve. BU had some quality additions in the portal, but it’s yet to be seen how fast they can put it together under new head coach Tara Watchorn.
This start may be the only part of the season’s first half that would bode well for the Huskies. Following these weeks Northeastern has 7 of the 9 remaining games before the winter break against teams in the top half of last year’s Hockey East. This first half of the season being on the trickier side could either serve as a massive confidence boost for a new Husky leadership group or a devastating pitfall.
When the new year arrives the team has a slightly easier schedule to look forward to. All 3 of their clashes against both Merrimack and Vermont fall on this half of the schedule. Northeastern has performed well against both teams in recent history boasting a record of 6-3-1 vs UVM and 9-1 vs Merrimack in their last 10 against each. It’s hard to believe Vermont will be much better than last year given their loss of both Parkkonen and Mlynkova to Minnesota (they did however pick up some phenomenal goaltending in the form of Jane Gervais).
The biggest worry on this end of the schedule is probably the amount of back-to-back games against different opponents. The Huskies will have 3 games in 5 days to start the semester including Yale (all at home luckily). Later they’ll also have a stretch of 3 in 5 which will feature defending Hockey East champions UConn. For the second burst of games they’ll be traveling to Storrs the day after hosting Vermont. That UConn away game may be the single hardest game of the regular season for Northeastern given where it falls in the schedule. All of this is not even considering the extra density added to the spring schedule by the Beanpot- which reminds me…
The Beanpot
It’s hard not to be excited for the Beanpot this coming year after the absolutely amazing atmosphere at last year’s finale- the first ever to be held at TD Garden. As per usual the tournament is hard to predict as the teams seem to find an extra gear every year. The first round of the ’25 Beanpot will be held at BU’s Walter Brown. Northeastern gets BC in the first round after taking home the trophy last year. Luckily for the Huskies they won’t have a game for the entire week leading up to round 1. However, their last game before the opening round is their Yale game. Unfortunately we don’t yet have BC’s schedule (any day now guys). We do know that they will be playing UNH the week before the game, and realistically that will be their last game beforehand.
Regardless of what happens the first round, Northeastern will have less of a break before playing at TD. The Huskies play a home and home against Providence with the second leg being 3 days before their Beanpot week two opponent. If their second opponent is Boston University then they will have one less day of rest to work with, but it’s hard to imagine this will make a large difference.
Final Thoughts
It’s hard for me to give my final thoughts without circling back to a lot of the same talking points that have already been used enough. This is a Northeastern team that has a massive question mark at arguably their most important position- goaltending. Hopefully that is a question that will be emphatically answered by the time the season rolls around. Otherwise, it could be a long year for a Huskies team that faces increasing competition in their conference from the likes of UConn, UNH, and BC. In my opinion the way this schedule has been constructed does allow for a higher ceiling than was possible last year. With that being said it is always possible for a season to fall off the rails quickly. Here’s to hoping for another year of success.
Make sure to keep checking back as the season approaches for more content on both the Men’s and Women’s teams.
Roll ‘Skies!