This weekend marks the end of the beginning of the Patty Kazmaier Award’s third decade. The national MVP prize in Division I women’s hockey will have its 21st presentation in Minneapolis this Saturday.
Inaugurated three seasons before the sport garnered NCAA auspices, the Kazmaier has emblemized the pivotal ambassadors of a growing entity. A majority of its winners have seen previous or subsequent action in the Olympics. Since the first NWHL Draft in 2015, every senior to achieve top-three finalist status has represented a professional pipeline.
By these trends, future derbies should draw greater debates. And that is not to sell short any previous Patty Kazmaier footraces. At least two have produced a troika of finalists who would have prevailed with less questioning in a “lesser” season.
From 1997-98 to 2016-17, the 10 most MVP-worthy seasons without the MVP accolades are as follows.
10. Chanda Gunn, 2004
A dozen Division I teams averaged at least three goals per game in 2003-04. Gunn’s Northeastern Huskies, who tallied a mere 1.82 per night, dealt with five of those forces a combined 11 times.
Despite a dearth of support from her skating mates, Gunn cracked the nation’s top 10 in goals-against average. While allowing 2.04 strikes for every 60 minutes played, she eclipsed all of her competitors with a .938 save percentage. This while facing the seventh-highest volume of opposing shots with 898.
The Huskies finished 13-13-8 on the year, with an 8-11-8 record on Gunn’s tab. Of those eight draws, five were a 1-1 upshot, including a 56-save performance against Wisconsin and a 46-save effort against Providence. She also repelled 47 of 49 Badger shots in a 2-2 tie.
9. Meghan Agosta, 2007
The freshman Agosta had a lower point-per-game rate than Harvard senior and Kazmaier winner Julie Chu, but led the nation in cumulative goals and points. She tied fellow rookie Allie Thunstrom of Boston College for the lead with six shorthanded tallies. And she ran away in the clutch category with 11 game-winning goals, securing essentially one-third of Mercyhurst’s 32 victories.
It is easy to dismiss that output based on the Lakers’ longtime dominance of College Hockey America. To be fair, that is the main factor in her relatively low ranking on this list. But consider Agosta’s equally dazzling performance against potent Hockey East and ECAC rivals.
Agosta had a three-point efforts against Dartmouth and St. Lawrence, owners of the nation’s third- and fourth-best records by season’s end. She also tallied a goal and an assist in Mercyhurst’s lone meeting with BC, an eventual Frozen Four semifinalist. In the next game, she turned in the same stats against New Hampshire, owner of the nation’s third-best record.
Clarkson, Princeton and Providence were hardly pushovers in 2006-07 as well. Yet they all brooked a multipoint ravaging from the Lakers’ radiant rookie.
8. Ritta Schaublin, 2006
Among the nation’s top 40 save-percentage leaders, only four faced more shots than Schaublin. The Minnesota-Duluth junior tied rival Kim Hanlon atop that list with a .943 success rate.
The stark difference: Schaublin logged an unmatched 1,951 minutes and nine seconds of crease time in 2005-06. That nearly doubled Hanlon’s timesheet of 1,017:47.
Taking the decision in 32 of UMD’s 34 games, Schaublin restricted her opponents to a two-goal maximum 27 times. That included three of her four regular-season meetings with both Minnesota and Wisconsin, the eventual national finalists. And in the postseason, she did her part with 38 saves in a 2-1 conference semifinal loss to the Gophers and 40 stops in a 1-0 falter against SLU the next week.
7. Ann-Renee Desbiens, 2016
With Beanpot rivals Alex Carpenter and Kendall Coyne lighting up the East Coast, Desbiens’ dominance was easier to overlook. But non-WCHA viewers must have taken notice no later than Wisconsin’s 6-0 whitewash of Mercyhurst in the regionals.
Nonetheless, a total travesty was averted when the Badgers backstop made the top three on the Patty Kazmaier Award ballot. As a junior, Desbiens finished second only to Quinnipiac’s Sydney Rossman in minutes played. She finished second to BC’s Katie Burt in win percentage.
But she was second to no one in GAA (0.76), save percentage (.960) or shutouts (21). Only the eventual national champions from Minnesota bagged two goals at Desbiens’ expense on more than one occasion. Minnesota-Duluth did it once, as did North Dakota in a 3-0 decision.
6. Alex Carpenter, 2016
Carpenter has made the most compelling case for back-to-back Kazmaier crowns to date.
The thrilling footrace with Coyne saw her get the better in the playmaking department with 45 helpers. As a finisher, Carpenter outclassed Coyne in the clutch, supplying eight game-winning goals to the NU phenom’s four.
On the national points leaderboard, Carpenter stamped an 88-84 edge. Granted, she played in four extra games, but nonetheless breezed her way to a second-place finish in points per game. BC teammate Haley Skarupa was a distant third with 79 points in 41 outings.
5. Jenny Potter, 2003
Of the four skaters to crack 50 helpers and 80 points in 2002-03, Potter was the only one not representing Harvard. The nation’s fifth-leading producer, Minnesota-Duluth teammate Caroline Ouelette, trailed her by 15 points.
Potter led the Bulldogs against four of the season’s 10 stingiest defenses for a combined eight games. She found the scoresheet in all of those games, and only went scoreless three times in 36 outings overall.
Besides her prolific consistency, Potter flexed her versatility and energy by making a dent in every situation. She tied all NCAA scorers for second with 10 power-play goals, one fewer than Chu. She led the nation altogether with four shorthanded goals, and recorded two of her 57 helpers on the penalty kill.
4. Angela Ruggiero, 2003
The implicit inhibitor to Ruggiero’s candidacy was the simultaneous statistical flashiness of teammates Jennifer Botterill and Chu. Nonetheless, with 83 points, she was a thrilling third for Harvard, more than doubling No. 4 producer Nicole Corriero’s 39.
Of the four NCAA skaters to crack 50 helpers and 80 points in 2002-03, Ruggiero was the only blueliner. Among fellow defenders, she outclassed runner-up Kelli Halcisak of Providence in assists (54-31) and points (83-45) in two fewer games.
With 29 goals, she nearly doubled the count of runner-up Krista McArthur of Minnesota-Duluth (15). Her 1.59 assists-per-game rate was good for second overall, one percentage point ahead of Potter. She also slugged home five of the Crimson’s 30 game-winning goals.
3. Sabrina Harbec, 2006
A year that saw her league send three teams to the national tournament saw Harbec lead the ECAC in overall scoring. Her 61 points eclipsed Brown’s Hayley Moore by 18 and tied her for second in the nation. On the Saints’ scoring chart, Carson Duggan was a similarly distant runner-up with 42 points.
Harbec tied New Hampshire’s Jennifer Hitchcock and eventual Kazmaier winner Sara Bauer for the national lead with 36 assists. And she racked those up in fewer games than the other two. In fact, she was the only skater that season to average an assist per game or better. Furthermore, she tied for third on the game-winners leaderboard with six clinching strikes.
SLU went 5-1-2 in the regular season against four eventual bracket qualifiers, including a road win at Minnesota and a sweep of Mercyhurst. Harbec tallied five goals and three assists in those eight marquee games. In the actual tournament, she tallied the lone strike in 1-0 quarterfinal win over Minnesota-Duluth.
2. Jocelyne Lamoureux, 2012
Like Harbec’s Saints six years earlier, Lamoureux and UND joined two conference rivals in the NCAA tournament. And like Harbec in 2005-06, Lamoureux edged everyone else in overall scoring.
She tied eventual Kazmaier winner Brianna Decker of Wisconsin with 82 points on the year. But by playing in three fewer games, she technically secured the lead. Likewise, Lamoureux tied Minnesota’s Amanda Kessel with 48 cumulative assists, but did so in four fewer ventures.
And UND had to deal with fellow national tournament-goers 10 times in the regular season. Decisive underdogs in each matchup, they went 3-6-1 in that stretch, including a split of a nonconference road series versus Boston University. For her part, Lamoureux logged a 6-9-15 scoring line over those 10 tilts with the Terriers, Badgers and Gophers.
1. Natalie Darwitz, 2005
Joining teammate Krissy Wendell in the league’s only pair of shared triple-digit point campaigns, Darwitz was the odd woman out in a practical coin flip.
In 34 regular-season games, the opposition kept Darwitz scoreless twice and limited her to a single point five times. Over her 27 multi-point outings, she charged up 30 goals and 58 assists.
Darwitz’s 93 regular-season points were more than anyone except Wendell accrued throughout all of 2004-05. Harvard’s Corriero eventually reached 91, but not until the national final.
As for Darwitz, she finished as the nation’s top point-getter with 114 and leading playmaker with 72 assists. One of six skaters to average more than a goal per game, she bagged five while shorthanded tallies. And she tied Wendell and Ouelette and for second in the nation with nine game-winning strikes, including the go-ahead in the 4-3 championship win over Harvard.
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