BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – Following a late tying goal, the UCONN Huskies defeated the Boston University Terriers 3-2 in dramatic fashion, with Sasha Payusov tallying 51 seconds into overtime, his second game-winning OT goal in three games.
The win kept the Huskies posts season hopes alive, as Maine had a 3-3 overtime tie with Merrimack, so now UCONN is six points behind the Black Bears.
UCONN record improves to (10-17-2 overall, 5-12-2 HEA) and BU drops (10-1-3 overall, 8-8-2 HEA).
The game-winner came as a benefit from Karl El-Mir’s strong play on the puck all night. He was able to push it up to Jachym Kondelik, who had room to maneuver in the offensive zone. For the second time in three games, Kondelik hit Paysusov on the left-wing side. The Montreal native slipped his team-leading 15th goal past Merrimack’s Jake Oettinger for the win.
“It just bounced up at me and all I had to do was shovel it in,” Payusov said of the goal that ignited the boisterous crowd of 4,733.
Pack team captain Miles Gendron was broadly smiling in front of the UCONN logo outside the locker room.
‘I was very proud of the guys. We have had moments where we haven’t had good outcomes and got down on ourselves, but not today. It was good to see we scaled it back (to win),”
It was a night in which it seemed like there were three different hockey games in three-plus periods of action.
“It was a really interesting game. I think we came out and (got the) jump on them. We played extremely well. The second period, from a fans perspective, was a boring period, not a whole lot of shots on net, not a lot of action from either team didn’t create a whole lot.
“The third period they put a push on and that four-on-four goal ignited them, but I like the resiliency of our team when they scored that tying goal. We came right out on the first shift of overtime had three shots on the first shift and Sasha was able to knock that puck home,” UCONN head coach Mike Cavanaugh said.
The Terriers were able to tie the game late when they pulled Oettinger to give themselves a six-on-five advantage. BU’s Shane Bowers had a strong left-wing shot turned aside by UCONN goaltender, Tomas Vomacka, but for The Huskies, the loose puck went to the wrong player’s stick.
The Terriers top-rated defenseman, Dante Fabrro, grabbed the loose biscuit and in one motion sent a pass to his defense partner, David Farrance, stationed at the left point. Farrance then made a sharp diagonal pass to Patrick Curry in the lower right circle. Curry one-timed a snapshot that went into the net, top-shelf. The goal came with 1:05 remaining in regulation and evened the score at two.
“It was pretty good college hockey game. On our side, we fought late from a 2-0 deficit. We would have liked a better outcome. What happened there at the end was a tough one to take,” said BU head coach Albie O’ Connell.
For the Huskies, they weren’t ready to end the game and didn’t let it faze them.
“You had to let it sink in a little at first,” Gendron said. “But then we said, ‘We got this. We’ve done this before’.”
For Cavanaugh, it was a test for the team they passed.
“That’s a good hockey team. You’re going to give up a goal late, but you can’t let it paralyze you,” Cavanaugh said while alluding to an early season loss to Vermont, “You’ve got to be mentally tough and say, ‘Let’s go out and win that next shift’ and we did.”
Despite the race to the post-season, Cavanaugh saw it as a hindrance to their play and contributed to their losing streak before this solid turn of events.
“We were so focused making or missing the playoffs it was paralyzing us. That’s all we were thinking about. We weren’t playing (good) hockey, so we got together as a group and said, ‘If we make the playoffs (that’s good) and if we don’t, we don’t – let’s just go out and play the way we want to.’ That’s why I said we are playing to our identity and just the pressure of trying to make the playoffs was hindering our game. We playing more up-tempo and attacking than playing nervous.”
Gendron spoke with clarity about how important this has been.
“It’s made a big difference when we’re losing, we were putting a lot of pressure on ourselves. You only get so many games and then you start to press yourself. We just said whatever happens-happens. Since then, we really have turned it around.”
Boston University made it interesting scoring on a four-on-four situation.
Farrance slipped the puck over to New Canaan native and one time Avon Old Farms Winged Beaver, Patrick Harper who went left-wing to right-wing on a wrap-around attempt and banked just his third of the season off Vomacka’s skate at the near post at 10:42 to narrow the score to 2-1.
The second period was a defensive battle with just five shots between the two schools in the first 11:25 despite each team having a power-play.
The teams kept it tight and they each had one true quality chance that came in the final minute of regulation. El-Mir’s attempt from ten feet out was denied and sent right back down the ice. With 30.3 seconds left, Vomacka came out to challenge Bowers on a semi-breakaway and stopped the Terriers’ chance.
“They played very well. It was very tight checking by both teams. They have some big bodies down low boxing us out.”
The period saw some more physical play midway thru the second period. Johnny Evans got into it in front of the team benches with Ryan Cloonan. Then after Bowers’ opportunity, there was a four-way battle between Payusov and El-Mir and BU’s Curry and Joel Farabee, who was nailed for snowing Vomacka. Farabee was the only one of the quartet to receive ten-minute misconduct for continuing the altercation.
The Huskies grabbed a 1-0 lead on their second powerplay in the first 10 minutes of the game.
The first powerplay the Huskies had good puck possession and movement and on the second it took 31 seconds into the man advantage for the goal.
Philip Nyberg, was at the left point and took Gendron’s point-to-point pass and unleashed a good low shot with El-Mir at the right side of the net. El-Mir deftly deflected the shot/pass for his thirteenth goal of the season and seventh powerplay goal (second best in Hockey East) at 7:06.
UCONN had an exceptionally strong first period maintaining offensive zone time getting 13 shots and not allowing BU puck possession. UCONN got their offense generated from their defense as Nyberg had two shots, Wyatt Newpower had two and the other four defensemen had a shot apiece. The shots were well placed and low to the ice and factored in their second goal.
A strong short pass off the half wall by Ruslan Ishkarov found Wyatt Newpower coming off the point and with a screen in front provided by and his shot slipped past Oettinger, the Terriers prized netminder, at 17:51. The goal was his third of the season.
“That’s the one area we have made the biggest improvement. I thought our defensemen a month ago were having a hard time getting pucks down to the net. Tyler Helton (one of the UConn assistant coaches) has worked hard with our defense to create more offense. You have to be that first layer who want that puck and if you get it past them, its gonna be a battle for that puck and that is something we have focused on,” remarked Cavanaugh about his rearguard crew.
The UCONN team defense was very stingy holding BU to just five shots and the Terriers didn’t get their first quality shot till about five minutes left in the period. Ty Amonte in the slot was stopped by the blocker pad of UCONN goalie Tomas Vomacka making his third straight start for the Huskies.
“We had a tenacious strong forecheck going and we didn’t allow them to make that clean first breakout pass and that led to turnovers in their end and helped us with our (offensive) zone time. We call it our running game. We established it and wore them down,” said Cavanaugh.
NOTES:
This weekend series is a home and home with BU. Maine plays Merrimack this weekend in Boston
UCONN’s PP is ranked tenth coming into the game at 14.8%. It was strong all night. BU is fourth at 17.6%. On the flip side, the UCONN PK was superb as well despite being the last in the 11 team conference at 76.9% entering the game and BU is 7th at 84.0%.
Ishkarov extended his point-scoring streak to four games.
BU featured another CT player in Ridgefield native Chad Krys.
They also have several sons of ex-NHL’s and AHL’ers led by Ty Amonte son of Tony Amonte, the ex-Ranger, Jack DeBoer played at Salisbury Prep (younger brother Matt plays there now) are the sons of current San Jose Sharks (NHL) head coach Peter DeBoer.
Gabriel Chabot, is the son of long-time AHL goalie, Frederic Chabot, who played a part of his career with the Fredericton Canadiens (AHL) plus a year with the Hershey Bears (AHL). The elder Chabot played six years with the Cincinnati Cyclones (IHL) and Houston Aeros (IHL) versions before switching to a five-year European career four in the German DEL before retiring.
He presently is the goaltending coach for Iowa (AHL) and a developmental coach for Minnesota (NHL).
