BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
BRIDGEPORT, CT – After a slow start, the high-end play of the UCONN Huskies allowed them to escape the City of Bridgeport with an all-important victory in Hockey East play, 3-2, over the University of Maine Black Bears before a crowd (if you could call it that) of 559 at the Webster Bank Arena on Wednesday.
UCONN’s record advances to 8-10-4 overall, (5-7-2 HEA) while the Maine Black Bears record slips to 10-9-4 overall (4-7-2 HEA).
Both UCONN and Maine were tied with New Hampshire for seventh place in the conference. All three teams had 10 points. With the win, UCONN advances to a tie with Boston University for sixth place with 12 points.
The Huskies controlled the play early in the third period as they sought to break the tie. At times, the Huskies were too cute on their entries during the game, but on the game-winning goal, they executed the entry perfectly.
Sophomore, Ruslan Iskhakov, came across the blue line and dropped a pass between his legs to Jonny Evans. He quickly sent a pass to Alexander Firstov.
Blazing off the left-wing, Firstov deftly redirected the puck for his seventh goal past Jeremy Swayam at 6:52. Their third straight unanswered goal would not only be their first lead of the game but would also prove to be the game-winner at 3-2.
“That is what that line can do, three highly skilled players,” UCONN head coach Mike Cavanaugh said. “Ruslan made a great drop pass to Jonny and then Alexander made a terrific backhand play. Three talented players made plays to win a hockey game.”
The Tomas Vomacka Show was on display for the rest of the way. The Czech sophomore dipped into his full bag of goalie saves to pull the Huskies to victory.
He made several late-game scintillating saves.
Maine’s Mitchell Fossier came off the back door on the right-wing with 1.9 seconds left. It was a seemingly open net. Vomacka slid over to swallow the backhand shot.
“I was looking at the other guy (on the left-wing). I knew he was there. I got over, and he hit me in the chest,” Vomacka said.
Vomacka understated the difficulty involved in the save.
Jacob Schmidt-Svejstup then got two shots off the ensuing faceoff. Maine won both the faceoffs and the first attempt was blocked. On the second, with just 25.6 seconds remaining, Vomacka stopped a drive coming off the left point just as the green light came on signifying the end of the game.
“He played really, really well tonight. It might have been his best game of the year. Overall, he was really solid,” Cavanaugh said of the player who is clearly the team’s MVP.
In the third period, Vomacka made 16 saves, many “Golden” scoring chances.
He got a lot of help from his defense.
Wyatt Newpower had three blocked shots on a PK during the first minute of the man-advantage midway through the period.
Adam Karaschik (Ridgefield) took out a Jakub Sirota blast while Brian Rigali sacrificed himself to negate a shot as well.
“That’s how you can be an elite penalty killer, by blocking shots,” Cavanaugh said.
In the second period, the Huskies picked up where they left off in the first. They were getting some net-front presence and tied the game at two early in the period.
Marc Gatcomb sent the puck in deep. Jachym Kondelik hustled in and tracked down the loose biscuit to the right of the Maine net. Kondelik made a sleek, backhanded pass to the front dead center.
Senior Alexander Payusov drove full speed towards the puck and one-timed his fifth of the season past Jeremy Swayman at 3:25.
“We’ve struggled at scoring goals it was good to see three different players on three different lines score tonight. We have to keep that going,“ said Carter Turnbull.
UCONN managed to exit the first period down by just one goal as a result of Turnbull’s superb second effort. He took Kale Howarth’s pass on the left-wing, crossing the blue line. Swayman left it out in front, but he sped past the 6’2 defenseman, Jakub Sirota, using him for a semi-screen on his shot.
Turnbull got to the loose puck and quickly went to the backhand and chipped it past Swayman with 1:04 left in the period for his seventh of the season.
“That was a big goal. It gave us momentum (at the end of the period).“
Turnbull has been their most consistent forward for the Huskies since the break ended.
“We’ve been practicing the rebounds a lot in practice, got around him and I got a lucky bounce,” Turnbull said. His size worked in his favor and caught Sirota by surprise. “I think it helped there,” Turnbull laughed and said with a mischievous wide grin.
Iskhakov had two shots including the first for both teams, a snapshot glove aside by Swayman, a Boston Bruins draft pick, who’s likely to turn pro when the season ends.
The Huskies Wyatt Newpower escaped the danger of being ejected early on a strong hit at the UCONN net.
Maine’s junior Latvian-born right-wing, Eduards Trakmaks, was making a beeline for the net as Newpower was coming to him in hot pursuit from the left-wing.
Newpower hit him high and hard. On first look, it seemed like an elbowing as he was falling down and losing his edge, but it left him in a heap. Then after several minutes being attended to by the Maine medical trainer, he left for the locker room without a penalty being called.
Tralmaks did return to the game with no apparent side effects.
The Black Bears scored the game’s first goal on the power play.
Robert Shea and Ben Poisson stopped on the previous shift by Vomacka, did the hard work. The next shift, Poisson won the draw and Shea tracked down the puck in the right-wing corner, advancing the puck to Jakub Sirota. The lefty Czech sophomore shot it from the right point with traffic in front of the net. The hard low shot went off Vomacka’s glove hand and into the net at 12:33 for his first of the season.
A little over a minute later Maine found the back of the net again.
A good forecheck got them the second goal. Tralmaks knocked the puck from Yan Kuznetsov with a solid bodycheck and sent the puck Mitchell Fossier.
Fossier then threw a backhand dart of a pass out front. Tim Doherty put a perfect backhander past a totally surprised Vomacka at 13:38 for his team’s second-best goal. His 10th of the season.
NOTES:
This was UCONN’s third Hockey East game in Park City. They lost to Notre Dame 6-1 back in 2015 and beat Maine 6-3 in 2017.
The two schools haven’t seen each other since October of last year. The Huskies now lead the series 6-2-3.
The Huskies head to Boston for a date with the 12th-ranked team in the nation, Northeastern, on Saturday at Matthews Arena in another Hockey East matchup.
Maine also travels to Boston as well. They have a pair of weekend games at the Conte Forum against Boston College.
UCONN returns next week to Bridgeport for the inaugural CT Ice Tournament that will feature Sacred Heart University, Yale, and Quinnipiac University, the state’s other three Division I college hockey programs.
UCONN plays next Saturday at 3:30 pm to kick off the college action against Quinnipiac University.
UCONN doesn’t return to the XL Center until February 1st at 4 PM against New Hampshire another NESN Plus broadcast.
Maine associate head coach, Ben Guite, played in Webster Bank Arena with the AHL Sound Tigers in 2001-02. He was traded to Cincinnati and came back to Bridgeport in 2003-04 as a free agent.
Maine Head coach Dennis “Red” Gendron was an associate head coach at Yale under Keith Allain from 2011-2013 before the Black Bears job in his second tenure at the school.
He was an assistant coach for three years from 1990-93 under the late legendary head coach, Shawn Walsh.
He earned two national championship rings first with Maine in 1993 on the only undefeated NCAA hockey champion and with Yale in 2013.
The Maine team that won in 1993 went 42-1-2 for the season!
The only loss to Boston University was 7-6 in overtime with Mike Prendergast scoring the winner.
They beat Lake Superior State 5-4 after trailing 4-2 going into the third. Recently fired Dallas head coach, Jim Montgomery, was then the team captain. He scored a hat trick in the third to propel them to the title.
The top scorer was Paul Kariya, the only freshmen to ever win the Hobey Baker award.
The game was on NESN Plus and the feed was picked up by TSN in Canada.
The last University of Maine player to skate for the US at the WJC tournament was ex-Wolf Pack and Sound Tiger, Greg Moore, who is now the head coach of Toronto Marlies (AHL).
