BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – With a late, third-period goal, 3,708 witnessed the visiting Maine Black Bears rally from a two-goal deficit to gain a 2-2 overtime tie against UCONN Saturday afternoon in a Hockey East matchup at the XL Center as part of a Hartford hockey doubleheader.
“Three years ago, we took three out of four points from Maine and we felt ecstatic. Tonight felt like we lost a game,” said UCONN head coach Mike Cavanaugh while trying to find the words to soften the blow. ”We got three of four points this weekend, but it’s disappointing as I felt we had the game in hand. We let our emotions get the best of us (19 minutes in penalties in the third) and took away some of our momentum, and let them back in the game,”.
Penalty issues and a passive defensive by the Huskies allowed Maine to tie the game late.
Jacob Schmidt-Svejstrup, with a game-high six shots, was in the left wing circle and took a pass from Rob Michel and was able to slip his third goal of the season to the far side of Adam Huska at 18:38 knotting the game at two.
“It’s something we have to learn with a 2-0 lead with 10 minutes to go. We have to keep them to the outside and we had limited their scoring chances (over the first two periods). That was a funny type of goal. It bounced around the ice. I have to look at it again on replay,” said Cavanaugh
UCONN had two chances late in the third to extend their lead. Kale Howarth had a chance with 4:32 left on a left-wing rush. Jachym Kondelik one-timed a snapshot from 15 feet that netminder Jeremy Swayman, a Bruins draft pick, made a spectacular glove save with 1:55 remaining.
Maine tried hard to score in the third period, but couldn’t put one past junior Adam Huska for a better part of it. The Huskies though ran into penalty trouble and allowed Maine to gain the traction they hadn’t been able to in the first two periods.
“We got away from what made us successful (early in the game) trying to beat guys one-on-one in the neutral zone. (We) stopped finishing checks on the forecheck, starting to cheat, trying to pick off passes to make it 3-0 rather than staying with simple. To play simple sometimes is boring, and they got bored playing simple and tried to make a highlight reel play, and it never works. It works once out of twenty times, so you can never get bored paying simple and that’s what happened today,” said Cavanaugh on a perfectly analytical dissertation on how his team lost what seemed to be two points and a W in the win column.
Maine finally found the net on the power play at the 13:00 mark.
Rob Michel, strong for the Black Bears in both weekend games, captured a loose puck at the left point and snapped a cross-ice pass to Chase Pearson, a Red Wings draft pick, who was at the top of right wing circle. Pearson blasted his third goal high to the glove side on Huska who had stopped everything else to that point allowing Maine to get within a goal at 2-1 and to gain themselves a momentum shift.
The Huskies looked like they got a favorable break but it cost them the services of defenseman Philip Nyberg, who got drilled from behind at 4:16 of the second period by Maine’s Ryan Smith, who received a five-minute major and was tossed from the game.
17 seconds later, the Huskies nullified a portion of that chance when Carter Turnbull took an interference penalty. Maine then took a penalty to create a four-on-three power play and eventually a brief five on three, but the Huskies power play couldn’t get the red light on.
UCONN finally got that power play goal to take the 1-0 lead.
Evan Wisocky was looking to take the shot far side, but it went through the crease right to Sasha Payusov who buried it top shelf on Swayman, who couldn’t get over to stop it.
The Huskies made corrections that helped on the power play.
“One thing Sasha has learned is he is a shooter. He’s a shooter you don’t see, like Ovechkin, say ‘Let me have the puck,’ to set-up the powerplay. He wants to shoot it. Sasha is understanding. This is what I’m really good at. He’s finding lanes to shoot pucks and then going to the net. He got the rebound on the first one, and on the second Evan (Wisocky) made a great pass through the box and he one-times it into the net. He is understanding his role and how to play his role.”
For Payusov, it was his team and conference-leading sixth goal of the season.
The two teams continued to play in close quarters. UCONN committed a deep zone turnover to Pearson allowing him to go in alone on Huska. Pearson deked forehand and then went backhand, and Huska’s glove hand snatched away a sure goal with 2:50 left in the second period.
The Huskies received another powerplay and connected again with the same combo.
Wisocky was at the right point and fired a perfect diagonal pass to Payusov in the left wing circle. The right-handed shooter didn’t waste any time letting go a shot reminiscent of former Husky, Tage Thompson. The shot was a rocket that went straight into the back of the net for a 2-0 Huskies lead with 20.2 seconds left and gave them seeming control of the game.
For the second period in a row, UConn limited Maine to just five shots.
The Huskies and Black Bears at times played a pedestrian first period of hockey.
Each team has just five shots apiece with only a couple of quality scoring chances.
Huska, a Rangers draft pick, didn’t face a shot until 7:28 and stopped both of them with his best save coming when Patrick Shea was parked on his doorstep.
Swayman had a similar workload from the previous night. He denied the left-handed shooting Kale Howarth on the right wing and Evan Wisocky at 9:29.
Maine had three power plays including a five-on-three for 1:31, but UCONN killed it off with a very effective PK on that golden chance.
NOTES:
Cavanaugh felt Nyberg’s injury (lower body) wasn’t serious, but he was clearly banged up.
UCONN’s Jachym Kondelik extended his point-scoring streak to five games. He had a point in five of the six UCONN games and all his points are assists. He leads Hockey East with eight.
Maine made one lineup change from the previous night inserting LW Daniel Perez of St. Peter’s Prep from Bloomfield, NJ on the second line.
Maine head coach, Red Gendron, is a former Yale assistant coach. He was on the bench when the Bulldogs won the national championship in 2012. His associate head coach is ex-Sound Tiger, Ben Guite.
Pearson is the son of former NHL’er, Scott Pearson, who played with Toronto, Quebec, Edmonton, and Buffalo as well as four seasons with the Chicago Wolves in the old IHL.
