Defending Champion Northeastern Entering Beanpot At Perfect Time

The Beanpot always occurs at the beginning of February, and that's especially good news for Northeastern this season.

The Huskies, who have won four out of the last five Beanpots, got off to a sluggish start this season and will enter the tournament with an under .500 record.

But as the months went by, Northeastern found its game. The Huskies have won four of their last five games, including defeating third-ranked Boston University in overtime Tuesday, and Northeastern head coach Jerry Keefe believes they are hitting their stride just in time to try to continue their recent Beanpot dominance.

"This is the time of year that's most important," Keefe told reporters at Monday's media day. "I mean, obviously, every game counts throughout the year, but this is really when you do want to be playing your best hockey, and I think getting healthy at the right time is really important for our team."

The Huskies faced plenty of adversity during the early portion of their schedule. They dealt with various injuries and had to bounce back from a seven-game losing streak that stretched from late October into the middle of November.

Capturing another Beanpot title could make up for Northeastern's slow start. But Keefe doesn't see it that way.

"I don't think winning the Beanpot and your record have anything to do with it," Keefe said. "You always want to win a Beanpot because it's so big for your players. It's big for the school. The record has nothing to do with it. And we can't control the record from earlier in the year. We can only control each game moving forward.

"So we're not trying to wear the record of back in October or November. We're just focused on moving forward. And like I said, our team has played much better hockey over the last month, six weeks, and that's all we're focused on right now."

The Huskies open their Beanpot title defense next Monday against Harvard. And with a month left in their regular season, Keefe isn't ruling out that the historic tournament could launch the Huskies to a strong finish.

"Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. You see the teams that go on to have success," Keefe said. "And the other thing is if you want to be a team that wins trophies, you got to you got to do it on a big stage and you got to play your best in (these) games."