In 27 games a year ago, Klara Myren scored three goals and eight points as a freshman forward for the Univeristy of Vermont women’s hockey team.
UVM Soph. forward
Klara Myren
In five games this season, Myren has scored three goals and four of the points, recording two of the goals and all the points playing much of the game on defense in UVM’s 4-3 win over New Hampshire on Tuesday.
Myren’s offensive production is a primary reason why the short-handed Catamounts will carry records of 2-3-0 overall and 1-0-0 in Hockey East into a weekend series at Providence. The games are at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
“Klara continues to play phenomenally at both ends of the ice,” said UVM first-year coach Jim Plumer. “That’s realy been as much as anything the best thing that’s happened to us since the season’s start. She’s blocking shots, she’s winning faceoffs and she’s clearly getting the job done at the offensive end.”
Myren, a member of Team Sweden at the women’s world championships in Chittenden County in April, said, “I’m more motivated” after representing her country.
As outstanding as Myren’s performance was, the victory was due as much to team sacrifice and adaptability as anything else.
“I’m thrilled that we can do so well with some the obstacles that we’re facing right now,” Plumer said. “The kids did a phenomenal job. We were really short on ‘D’ and asked some people to play some positions they weren’t that familiar with. It was a really gritty, intelligent effort by the entire team to adjust on one day’s notice on changes in the system.”
Low on numbers even when healthy, the Catamounts had 14 skaters, only three of whom began the season as defensemen. Greer Vogl also stood in at defense as injuries continue to decimate the roster.
Amanda Pelkey, the team’s second-leading scorer a year ago, is still recovering from a clavicle fracture. Head trainer Allison Shepherd said via email, “Her full return to hockey will be be as soon as initially expected and a November/December return is more likely.”
In addition, junior Breanne Sundquist will miss the entire season. She plans to seek a medical red-shirt waiver that will leave her with two years of eligibility.
UVM might regain one player this weekend, meaning the Catamounts could have three lines and two sets of defensemen to go against Providence (1-3-0; 0-0-0).
“We’re going to have to keep the game relatively simple. We’re not in our perfect world of where we would want to be developmentally in terms of our style of play and systems. We’re having to adjust to the personnel that we have right now,” Plumer said.
“We’re going to try and play the same solid defensive effort. That was really the key at UNH. The one thing we tried to do was keep the integrity of our defense in terms of our team defense and our defensive zone,” he said.
“Providence is an aggressive team. Having watched them on video, they’re pretty scrappy, they always play hard and we’re going to need another one of the games we just had at UNH, only twice.”
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Cadets take on Dartmouth: The Norwich University men’s hockey team, sporting 11 of its top 12 scorers from last year’s 24-3-2 team, will travel to Hanover, N.H., to play Dartmouth College in a 4 p.m. exhibition Sunday. A year ago, the Big Green beat the Cadets 3-1.
Pier-Olivier Cotnoir (21-21-42), Travis Janke (11-28-39) and Kyle Thomas (16-21-37) lead the powerful Norwich offense while Parker Carroll and Chris Czarnota are back in goal.
Dartmouth also meets McGill in a 4 p.m. exhibition Saturday at Thompson Arena. Tyler Sikura (11-14-25) and Eric Robinson (12-12-24) are the top returning scorers.
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Matt Marshall not a Huskie: Former UVM forward Matt Marshall, who missed most of his senior season with injuries, is no longer with the Northeastern University Huskies.
Marshall graduated from UVM in May. However, because of the injuries, he was granted another year’s eligibility and was eligible to play immediately for Northeastern since he had received his degree from UVM. He’s attending Northeastern as a graduate student.
Contact Free Press correspondent Ted Ryan at TedRyanVT@aol.com or follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TedRyanVT
