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Boutilier Named to Goalie of the Year Watch List
2/5/2021 12:23:00 PM | Women's Ice Hockey
WAKEFIELD, Mass. – Redshirt junior Ava Boutilier (Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island) of the University of New Hampshire was named to the inaugural Watch List for the first ever Women's Hockey Goalie of the Year Award. The announcement was made Friday by the Women's Hockey Commissioners Association.
Boutilier enters February with a 2.29 GAA, .920 save percentage, three shutouts and a 5-8-1 record in 14 games (all starts). She is tied for third in the nation with those three shutouts.
Boutilier had a 1.40 GAA, .950 save percentage and two shutouts with a 2-3-1 record in six January games. Her accolades in the month included co-Player of the Week on Jan. 25.
Boutilier finished the month with back-to-back shutouts of Merrimack College (Jan. 22-23) and an overall shutout streak of 122 minutes, 4 seconds. UNH had not recorded consecutive shutouts in nearly a decade (February 2011).
She backboned UNH's penalty kill to a .944 percentage (17 kills on 18 opponent power plays) in January by stopping 26 of 27 opponent power-play shots (96.3 percent).
Boutilier stopped all 30 shots faced to record a pair of shutout victories against Merrimack College in the Jan. 22-23 series; it marked the second and third shutouts of the season for Boutilier, who increased her career total to 10.
In the Jan. 8-9 home-and-home series against third-ranked Northeastern, Boutilier stopped 69 of 73 shots for a .945 save percentage. She recorded 30 saves in the 2-2 tie in Game 2 at the Whittemore Center (and did not allow a goal in the five-round shootout). One day earlier, Boutilier recorded a season-high 39 saves, including a personal single-period high of 22 in the final frame, of a 3-1 road loss (one of those goals was an empty-netter).
Boutilier followed that weekend with a 27-save effort in a 1-0 loss to UConn.
The Women's HCA created this award to recognize the top female goalie in NCAA Division I hockey. This initial Watch List of 21 outstanding goalies will be pared down within the next two weeks by a committee of voters (consisting of coaches, administrators and media). The recipient will be announced in March during the NCAA Frozen Four.
