BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – If there was ever a must win game for the UCONN Huskies this season, this was it.
Yet despite knowing they needed a win coming into the contest, the Huskies were out-hustled, out-worked, and out-gunned by the second-to-worst team in the conference, the Merrimack Warriors. The Huskies lost 6-2 on Tuesday night at the XL Center before a hearty crowd of 2,953. The loss, was the Huskies third straight.
“It hasn’t been a good week for UCONN hockey,” UCONN head coach Mike Cavanaugh said, not sugar coating his team’s poor performance. “I apologize to all those fans who came out tonight. They didn’t see a team that we customarily put on the ice. We didn’t compete for sixty minutes. They (Merrimack) were the team that deserved to win. We haven’t played well the last two games.”
UCONN’s record drops to 7-9-5 overall, 4-6-2 HEA. Merrimack improves it’s record to 5-14-2 overall, 3-6-2 HEA.
The schedule is not kind to UCONN. Still to come is a trip to Schneider Arena where they will take on the Providence College Friars who have a high-octane offense. The Friars lead the conference with 73 goals scored as of Saturday at 5 PM.
The Friars are the 12th ranked team in the country according to the national polls and presently sit in third place in Hockey East. They are just a point behind UMASS-Lowell and are tied with Northeastern (15 points).
The red flags are up and the red lights are flashing for UCONN this season. It started out with so much promise and is presently in peril.
“There’s no magic formula here. We have to come out and be ready to play. I thought we were ready to play, I liked our energy. We just didn’t have it on the ice,” Cavanaugh said with a rare level of sarcasm, but the shoe fit.
Merrimack reestablished a three-goal lead just 2:09 into the third period and pulled away from the Huskies.
Ben Brar got a great feed from Sami Tavernier and snapped off a wrist shot that was blocked. Brar had a second shot at sophomore netminder, Tomas Vomacka, as the puck came right back to him and he didn’t miss, depositing his second goal of the season.
Merrimack shut the door for good after UCONN’s most effective offensive zone pressure of the evening led to a goal, the Warriors had some effective zone pressure of their own.
Patrick Holway sent a pass across the blue line from the left side to his defense partner at the right point, Liam Dennison.
Dennison marched 25-feet in below the face-off dot on the right-wing uncontested and then snapped a wrister with Vomacka screened. His wrist shot sailed past Vomacka to the short-side to put the final nail in the coffin for UCONN.
In the second period, things were a little better at the beginning and at a little better at the end of the period for UCONN. In-between however, it was all Merrimack who stretched their lead to three goals.
At 46 seconds Logan Drevitch had all sorts of open ice and took a pass from deep on the right-wing side from Chase Gresock. The Warrior then went straight to the net and from twenty-feet out scored his fifth of the season.
The play was precisely what the team game plan was looking for.
“We attacked very well on that play. We supported each other well tonight. We talked about that before the game, that open space, when you don’t have the puck, play outside the dots. We did a very good job in the game with that and on that goal, the whole play happened between the dots. That was a highlight for the team. We played right down the middle of the ice,” second-year Merrimack head coach, Scott Borek, said.
The Huskies answered quickly at 2:12 with one of their few solid efforts as Jordan Timmons made a quick, clean entry in the zone got to the left wing corner. There he sent a pass to Justin Howell in the slot. Howell turned and fired his second goal of the season past Warriors goalie and Finnish freshmen, Jere Huhtama.
UCONN then got a fantastic chance to build on the momentum when Zach Uens was nailed for a major penalty and a game misconduct for cross-checking Brian Rigali into the boards in front of the UCONN bench.
But the Huskies managed to garner just three shots on goal over four of the five-minutes as a minute was scratched off when the Huskies took a needless penalty of their own.
Killing off the major penalty gave Merrimack the emotional boost and swing in momentum.
“The (PK) was the biggest part of the game. We got a lot of momentum out of that five-minute major and they lost a lot of momentum from that. Number seven (Uens) plays every situation for us, and (helps) kill a lot of (other teams’) power-plays, so it was tough to lose him. Our guys stepped up and lifted our whole bench up. We blocked a couple of shots and they got frustrated a little bit. I can’t say enough about our penalty kill. They did a great job,” said Borek.
The Pack’s will to win the one-on-one battles and superior puck management was missing in the first to start the game.
“It was missing the whole game,” said a dead-panned Cavanaugh. “We’re not a very good team if we think skill goes before will, and right now we’re relying on a lot more skill than will. We’re doing the work it takes to create scoring chances.”
Merrimack’s Mac Welsher was in front of then et and easily converted a pass from Gresock for his third goal to push the Warrior lead to 3-1 at 9:17.
Merrimack made it 4-1 at 15:59 off of one of many odd man rushes. On this rush, a two-on-one, Merrimack’s Tyler Irvine raced in off the right-wing and tucked the puck past Vomacka’s outstretched left leg for his eighth goal of the season.
The Huskies shrunk the lead to 4-2 with 26.6 seconds left in regulation when Marc Gatcomb picked up a Jonny Evans rebound off a semi-busted play. Jachym Kondelik’s shot from an off-angle went off a skate over to Wyatt Newpower for a right-point shot that was stopped.
The Huskies started the game and picked up where they left off with Northeastern… a lethargic effort and fell behind at 6:01.
Regan Kimens was stopped on the first shot by Vomacka seconds earlier, but this time he was on the left-wing, behind the goal line. He sent a pass to a wide-open, Hugo Esselin, who completed the easy redirect past Vomacka for his second of the season.
“The last two games started out exactly the same way, and maybe it’s confidence, maybe it’s not. Instead of playing downhill we’re playing uphill all game. One goal is turning into two goals, and then into three goals, and I don’t know if it’s confidence, but I know its not the way we want to play,” said a stern speaking Cavanaugh.
UCONN was held to just to one shot on goal in the final 10:45 of the period.
NOTES:
Senior Alexander Payusov and junior Bradley Stone were scratched because of illness. The flu is running through the locker room.
Merrimack has several players with CT and NHL ties.
Logan and Tyler Drevitch are both the sons of former New Haven Nighthawk, Scott Drevitch. Tyler Heidt is the son of former Nighthawk, Mike Heidt.
Jacob Modry is the son of former NHL’er, Jaroslav Modry, who’s now an assistant coach with Ontario (AHL).
The SNY Connecticut Ice Tournament is two weeks away. The tournament schedule is as follows:
Mite jamboree at Noon.
That is followed by a high school girls game. It kicks off at 4 PM as Guilford plays Sacred Heart Academy. That will be followed by a HS boys prep school game between Loomis Chaffe (Windsor) vs. Westminster (Simsbury) at 6:15 PM and concludes with a public high school contest between Division One powerhouses, Darien and Notre Dame – West Haven at 8:30 PM.
Saturday at 11:00 AM will be a U-10 Boys championship game followed by a girls U-12 championship game.
Then the big boys will play.
UCONN plays Quinnipiac University at 3:30 PM followed by Sacred Heart University vs. Yale at 7pm.
Then Sunday at Noon, there’s a U-12 Boys championship game and then the SNY Connecticut Consolation game at 3:30 PM and then to conclude the inaugural event, the trophy championship game will be at 7 PM.
Former QU Bobcat, Mike Dalhuisen, was traded from HK Dukla Michalovce (Slovakia-SLEL) to HK Poprad (Slovakia-SLEL).
Australia has announced it’s full squad for the Division II, Group A, 2020 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship taking place in Zagreb, Croatia from the 19th-25th April 2020.
Cheshire’s Rob “Bert” Malloy, a dual citizen will represent the Mighty Roos for a fifth time in international competition. He currently plays for the Newcastle Northstars of the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL) and the season runs from May until early September.
Double good news, Mallloy reports that his family is doing well and found safety from the horrible brush fires in eastern Australia where they reside in NSW (New South Wales).
