Clarkson’s Shannon MacAulay leading champs through challenges

The reality of offseason overhaul reached a cracking point by the final buzzer Oct. 18 at Cheel Arena. The Clarkson University women’s hockey team had just endured a two-game sweep via the visiting Boston University, dropping to 3-3-0 on the year.

Up to that point, the menace’s insistent knocking had gone unanswered, and was even muffled at times. The defending national champions had claimed a respectable split with local rival St. Lawrence and blanked Providence for a full 120 minutes.

In turn, they were kicking ice chips over the fact that they had lost four of their top five scorers, one key defender, minute-munching goaltender Erica Howe and one of their co-coaches. Ditto their season-long limit of 16 skaters, even with perfect health up and down the depth chart.

But through their first encounter with a fellow 2014 NCAA tournament participant, they brooked a little more damage to the door. Reality raided, impelling junior captain Shannon MacAulay to evoke her beyond-her-years intangibles for the first time.

“After BU, it was just a bit of a wakeup call for us and a learning curve,” MacAulay told Along the Boards via e-mail. “We knew we had to be better, and it wasn’t going to be easy.

“We definitely have come together more as a team since that weekend, and have had more energy all around. We worked hard to get better in practice, and have since realized how good we can be if we are all bringing that work ethic.”

The scoreboard does not object. The Golden Knights have since redressed their room by reeling off five consecutive victories. They have run up a 25-3 scoring differential in that span, never allowing more than one goal in a single venture.

The turnaround began six nights after the 5-2 falter before BU. None other than MacAulay broke the ice 21 seconds into regulation, added two assists as part of a four-goal first period, then completed her playmaker hat trick to finalize a 9-0 drubbing of Syracuse.

She proceeded to charge up another three-assist outing, a three-goal performance, a goal-assist variety pack and a power-play equalizer in a come-from-behind, 2-1 triumph over Yale.

With 14 points, MacAulay has had a hand in 56 percent of the scoring in Clarkson’s last five games. Her cumulative 9-9-18 scoring log through 11 games overall ties her for second in the nation with Minnesota’s Hannah Brandt.

“It was definitely with the help of my teammates,” she insisted. “Like I said, I think our team has come together quite a bit, and because of that, it has allowed me to be successful.

“For me now, it’s just a matter of focusing on continuing to play this way and keeping my game simple.”

Exactly the exemplary representation the Knights were keen on tapping into as far back as last March.

Advanced preparation

Clarkson crumbled a geographic barrier at the 2014 Frozen Four, becoming the first program other than Minnesota, Minnesota-Duluth or Wisconsin to win a national title in the sport’s 14-history under NCAA auspices.

Based on the 2013-14 Golden Knights’ makeup, there was all but a now-or-never feel to the run.

Four prolific producers in Jamie Lee Rattray, Brittany Styner, Carly Mercer and Vanessa Gagnon all took their last hurrah with the 5-4 title victory over the two-time champion Gophers. So, too, did a solid depth striker in Shelby Nisbet, along with Howe in net and Vanessa Plante on defense.

On top of that, co-coach Shannon Desrosiers stepped down for maternity leave after six seasons of split duties with husband Matt.

Too much forethought was a nonexistent notion in the search to replenish that leadership. In the afterglow of the championship, six months before reconvening, Matt Desrosiers queried his returnees on captaincy candidates for 2014-15.

“Shannon’s name repeatedly came up in conversations with her teammates as someone the players felt would be a strong leader and captain,” he recalled in a message to ATB.

The Knights would return four seniors and four juniors this autumn, including a world-class two-way talent in Erin Ambrose. But with the dense smattering of seniors the year prior, none had donned a letter of leadership in their collegiate careers.

Translation: Anything was possible, and MacAulay accepted that.

“I knew, coming into this year, that I had a good chance at taking on a leadership role,” she said. “I had prepared myself for that.

“It was still obviously a pleasant surprise getting the “C,” and I am honored to have received this as a junior.”

That honor came with an obligation to accelerate her output and foster an infectious attack habit. Of the two juniors and one senior on Clarkson’s offensive corps, MacAulay was the career production leader with 40 points in 77 games at the start of this season.

With only three full forward lines, a viable title defense will inevitably require every returnee’s maturity to translate to Gagnon-, Mercer- and Styner-esque numbers.

Roughly one-third of the way through the 34-game regular season, MacAulay is already two points away from swelling her career total by 50 percent. Her two linemates since the start of the current five-game winning streak, sophomores Genevieve Bannon and Cayley Mercer, have matching 7-9-16 transcripts for second on the team.

Other than senior Christine Lambert, the rest of the offense has yet to break double digits under the 2014-15 point heading. But Lambert, who had centered MacAulay’s line until after the BU series, has a precedent for leading by example on her new unit.

The Knights have replenished their success by spreading their seasoning, which starts at the top of the line chart.

“(MacAulay) has the respect of the players and coaching staff, as she brings a good effort every day and sets a good example for everyone to follow,” said Desrosiers. “She has shown the ability to communicate well with both her teammates and the coaching staff, which is a very important quality to have as a captain.

“Her teammates respect her and look to her for help and guidance, which is exactly what you want from your captain.”

Embracing the target

Unlike Desrosiers, MacAulay tends to speak to her leadership qualities through a plural narration. When she is not imparting inspiration or mediating advice, she serves as a prototypical voice box for Clarkson’s collective cause.

Sporting the “defending champions” label compounds the trial of maxing out the talent on a permanently short bench. But MacAulay wants to oversee an operation that sports the collective confidence of surplus skaters and the thirst of a program bereft of banners.

“We are a team that makes it tough for other teams to play against,” she said. “We need to make sure we’re playing this way no matter who it is we play in our league. Every game will be a battle, and to stay on top in our league, you have to come out ready to give a good battle.”

For every Knight eyeing MacAulay’s example, there promises to be a formidable adversary eyeing the same statement the Terriers issued in the mid-October nonconference set.

No fewer than four other ECAC programs have a contender’s composition. Not unlike the three-time Hockey East champions, they want to usurp the task of keeping the NCAA trophy on their side of the Great Lakes.

Come March 8, there will only be eight openings for that privilege across the nation.

If everything lives up to preseason logic, Cornell, Harvard, Quinnipiac and St. Lawrence will all vie for the ECAC title and/or an at-large national tournament bid. They will combine to confront Clarkson seven more times on the remaining league schedule.

“Facing some top teams like Harvard will be huge games for us,” MacAulay allowed. “We will need to want those two points more than they do.”

The Crimson, this year’s preseason coaches’ favorite, will bookend rest of the slate by visiting Potsdam this Friday and hosting the regular-season finale Feb. 21.

In the former game, they will try to hatch the “L” column goose-egg in the Knights’ 3-0-0 ECAC record. By the latter meeting, the difference between dependence on the automatic bid that comes with the conference crown and an at-large cushion could be at stake.

But in one more testament to MacAulay’s captaincy credentials, she zeroed back in on Clarkson’s control panel.

“Overall, we have handled the first month very well, considering we had quite a bit of work to do in the preseason to prepare,” she said. “We’re in a pretty decent spot right now in the standings, and we’re hoping we can just get better every weekend.”

This article originally appeared on Along the Boards