Huskies women to play final regular season home series against Regina

“Regina played really well against Alberta last weekend, even though they lost both games, but they’re playing without fear and that’s dangerous if we take anything for granted.”

The Huskies are 12-9-3-1 after a four-game losing skid to the top two teams in Canada West. Meanwhile, the Cougars are 3-19-2 and riding a seven-game losing skid as the last-place team in the conference.

Here’s 5 things to know heading into the final two weekends of the regular season:

Women’s hockey wraps U-Prairie Challenge

The U-Prairie Challenge, an annual points-based competition between the University of Saskatchewan and University of Regina, comes to a close this weekend.

In this inaugural season, the Regina Cougars/Rams and Saskatchewan Huskies have battled in seven sport and 11 event challenges between the two schools.

The winning school will be crowned and awarded a trophy immediately after game two of the women’s hockey series against Regina on Sunday.

Guess who’s back, back again?

The Huskies have played remarkably well for a team dealing with injuries and healthy scratches to start the 2023 calendar year.

Fourth-year netminder Camryn Drever and fourth-year defenseman Isabella Pozzi will be back in the lineup this weekend after winning gold with Team Canada in the Lake Placid 2023 FISU World University Games.

Second-year forwards Mallory Dyer and Sara Kendall will both return to the ice after injuries to start the new year.

Huskies captain, and fourth-year forward, Kennedy Brown has been out of the lineup and recovering from a lower body injury sustained in the final game of 2022 on Dec. 3.

Rookie leader Taylor Wilkinson has also been out the last six games due to injury.

Time for specials to shine

The Huskies start the weekend with the best penalty kill (93%) on home ice in Canada West.

That coincides well with the Cougars being eighth in the conference (8.6%) for power play on the road.

Saskatchewan has room for improvement on the power play, sitting sixth overall and at home on the player advantage at 13.6 per cent.

Regina’s penalty kill is the worst in Canada West at 76.5% overall and 75% on the road.

Huskies, Dinos in tight race for points

Prior to Canada West competition kicking off Friday, the Huskies are fourth in the conference standings with 27 points.

The ranking is good enough to host a best-of-three quarter-final series on Feb. 17-19 against the No. 5 team in Canada West.

But the Huskies’ four-game losing skid, which resulted in no points since a shootout win on Jan. 7, has helped fifth-place University of Calgary Dinos (11-9-4) narrow the gap quickly with 26 points.

Both the Huskies and Dinos have four more games left in the regular season, with Calgary navigating a seemingly easier path to collecting points.

The Dinos face seventh-place University of Manitoba Bisons (11-12-1) in Winnipeg on Feb. 3 and 4, followed by a season closer at home the week after against seventh-place Grant MacEwan University (6-17-1).

Meanwhile, after Saskatchewan’s upcoming tilt against last-place Regina, the team closes out the regular season on the road in Calgary against the currently third-place Mount Royal University Cougars (16-5-3) with 35 points.

The UBC Thunderbirds (20-2-2) lead the conference with 42 points and two games in hand on second-place University of Alberta Pandas (20-5-1) with 41 points.

What ifs

Going down the rabbit hole for a moment: if the Huskies hold onto fourth-place, and the standings remain as is, they would host the Dinos Feb. 17-19.

A dip to fifth would reverse that, with Saskatchewan playing on hostile ice at Father David Bauer Arena.

A win that weekend takes them to a semifinal best-of-three on Feb. 24-26, in either Vancouver or Edmonton.

A semifinal win in Canada West women’s hockey nets a berth to the U Sports national championship, hosted this year in Montreal from March 16-19.

The Canada West final is hosted by the higher-seeded opponent — so a Cinderella run by the sixth-place team would bring the Huskies back home — March 3-5.

Catch all Huskies women’s hockey broadcasts live and archived on the HuskieFAN app and at huskiefan.ca.

by Daniella Ponticelli