Cantlon: Huskies Host Northeastern
VERSUS 
By: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – In a must-win conference matchup the UCONN Huskies (6-10-2 overall, 4-6-1 HE) played its most complete hockey game of the season in a 4-1 win over the Northeastern Huskies (7-5-1 overall, 5-3-0 HE) ranked 12th in the nation on Tuesday night before the smallest crowd of the season 2,855 at the XL Center. The victory extended their winning streak to three games.
“Very proud of the win,” a smiling Pack head coach Mike Cavanaugh said. “We wanted to get out to a great start to the game. We didn’t want to be chasing them in the game and I think we accomplished that. That was the best first period we have played all season.”
After the first period, everybody was asking, “Who was that team?”
The UCONN Huskies built a 3-0 lead over the highly-regarded Hockey East’s Northeastern Huskies. UCONN did it with opportunistic scoring, solid bodychecking, a suffocating man-to-man defense that always saw a white UCONN jersey on top of a black jersey the entire period.
The Huskies scored first. Maxim Letunov scored off a fine rush by taking a nice short pass from Jesse Schwartz. Letunov burst through the middle of the ice and went backhand-to-forehand and slipped his third of the season past Northeastern starting goalie junior, Ryan Ruck, at 8:27.
UCONN didn’t sit back. They attacked Northeastern in their end of the ice and at 9:57, defenseman Johnny Austin came off of the left point and got the puck from Max Kalter and did some strong board work on the left wing side.
Austin was patient with the puck and took a sharp angle and with some moving screens in front of the net rifled in his second goal of the season.
“Johnny comes down and works on that all the time,” Cavanaugh said. “They were throwing cones at him the other day in practice to make him open up, get wide and go to the net and he dropped that kid (with a shoulder deke) and we had a great screen in front. It was a good play all around.”
Austin could certainly say that hard work in practice pays off. “I have been working on that play a lot from the point. I’ve been working with the coaches in the morning and it has helped me a lot with my game to keep my head up when taking those shots. It finally paid off for me.”
Two plays that came before the third goal illustrated just how close UCONN paid attention to all aspects of their game.
Evan Wysocki raced all the way back as Northeastern got a three-on-two break-in and as the trailer was able to get a stick on the pass to break up the scoring chance.
Kasperi Ojantaken followed taking a shot right off the right boot. He fell to the ice, but still battled for the puck. He won the one-on-one battle and got it out of the UCONN zone.
On the next shift, The Huskies profited by Ojantaken’s play and got their third goal. It was all a result of the hard work behind the net by Karl El-Mir and Cory Ronan, who slipped the puck out to the slot area. Jesse Schwartz was between two Northeastern defenders and turned around and fired a wrist shot along the ice for his sixth of the season at 18:47.
“Those are the little things you have to do to be successful. Our back pressure was pretty good all night long and that allowed our D to stay up,” said Cavanaugh.
The contributions came from every area of the defense which, coming into the game, surrendered one goal in five of the last six games. UCONN flashed plenty of bodychecks and marked their opposing players and got quality goaltending from Adam Huska.
“We’re doing a much better job of eliminating the second and third chances. Early in the year, I think we had too many guys playing goal. We already have a goalie. We were picking up sticks and bodies and let Adam see the first one.”
Northeastern’s head coach Jim Madigan saw enough and felt it was time to pull Ruck between periods and sent in Cayden Primeau, the eldest son of former Whaler, Keith Primeau.
“Credit UCONN. They came out on us in the first period and we were on our heels and they jumped out to a 3-0 lead. We were awful in the first period. It’s tough to come back from a 3-0 lead in this league and they obviously have a very good goalie making it even harder.”
In the third period, the Huskies had to kill a penalty right off the bat assessed at the 20-minute mark of the second to start against a revived Northeastern team.
The Huskies faced serious pressure and Huska had two quality stops especially on Jeremy Davies coming from the left point and wristed a 30-foot shot that Huska rejected with a flick of his left pad.
The Huskies restored a three-goal lead when Austin was at the right point and his shot fly. Alexander Payusov was in the payoff spot and made a perfect deflection over Primeau’s left shoulder. Primeau was playing Austin’s original shot for his team-best seventh goal at 5:11
“It felt good to be back. It feels good. We did well,” remarked Sasha Payusov.
For Austin and the team, winning was paramount.
“We came in with a two-game winning streak and wanted to advance it to three and we did what we had to do. We played hard, finished checks and had good back pressure. We got it (the winning streak to three).”
The Huskies continued their solid three-zone play from the first period into the second leaving Northeastern dazed and confused.
Schwartz and Ronan had a two-on-one break-in with Schwartz electing to shoot, but Ronan was wide open. Schwartz’s shot sailed wide.
Halfway through the period, Northeastern found its skating legs. Dylan Sikura (a game-high nine shots) broke off the right wing but had his forehand bid stopped by Huska’s pads.
Brian Freeman had a solid bid on the next shift, but Primeau had his own pad save, matching Huska.
Northeastern’s Lincoln Griffin and Matt Filipe had two chances in a 30 second span that Huska pushed aside.
Northeastern finally broke through as Sikura had a very adventurous shift.
Sikura was stopped at the beginning of his shift by Huska. Then got stripped of the puck in his own zone, recovered it back and then at the end of his shift was alone on the right wing got a great cross ice pass from Matt Cockrell and then got some puck luck as his shot went off a broken stick lying in front of Huska deflected off it and past Huska five hole at 17:12.
NOTES:
Alexander Payusov made his return to the Huskies lineup after missing three weeks worth of action after undergoing minor knee surgery.
Huskies scoring is now led by Austin (2-8-10)
Northeastern is led by Nolan Stevens (son of former Whaler and current LA King head coach, John Stevens, Sr.) and Adam Gaudette each have six goals and eight points. Jeremy Davies (2-6-8).
Northeastern had the top powerplay in the country entering the game 25.9% while is tied with UNH for third spot at 20.0%
On the PK, Northeastern is 5th at 81.8% and UCONN is 9th at 77.5%
Primeau, the Montreal Canadiens draftee is 3rd with a GAA of 2.01 and a .932 save percentage
Huska sits 9th in goaltending with a 2.71 GAA and .910 save percentage.
Primeau, Northeastern boasts another son of a former NHL’er. Eetu Selanne, is the son of Hall of Famer, Teemu Selanne of the Anaheim Ducks.
Freshmen Adam Karaschik (Ridgefield) leads the conference in block shots with 38. Teammates Derek Pratt is 3rd with 28 and Ottawa draftee David Drake is in a three way tie for 6th with 25.
Schwartz is tops in the conference on faceoffs with 69.6 % and overall play at 61.5%.
Ojantakanen is third in plus/minus in Hockey East at plus six.
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