CANTLON: UCONN BIG WEEKEND IN MAINE 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – The most pivotal weekend of the Hockey East season will be in Orono, Maine for the UCONN Huskies as they try to elbow their way into a solid playoff position with three weeks left.

The Huskies will battle on the road to battle the third place and the 17th ranked nationally Maine Black Bears Friday night at 7 and then on Saturday in a 7:30 pm NESN televised contest.

After a week off after sweeping New Hampshire in a home and home and 7-4 at the XL Center with five different Huskies having multiple-point games.

UConn returns to the ice this weekend for a two-game series on the road against the No. 17 nationally-ranked Maine Black Bears.  Saturday night’s game will be carried live on NESN.

The Huskies and Black Bears met back on January 15th, a 3-2 UConn comeback win at the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport with Vladislav Firstov scoring the game-winner that ended a Huskies four-game losing streak.

Barter Turnbull started the comeback with a goal to make it 2-1. Turnbull who has been scoring key big goals was injured for the last UNH game and is expected to play in the lineup this weekend.

The Huskies hold a 6-4-4 lead in the all-time series with Maine with six of those games going to overtime.  The Huskies are 6-2-3 against Maine since becoming a member of Hockey East and UConn is 3-2-2 all-time at venerable Alfond Arena.

UConn enters the weekend tied Providence for seventh place in the Hockey East standings with 18 points.  The two are a point behind UNH and Boston University in fifth.

The Black Bears, winners of five-straight, are tied for third with Boston College with 20 points.

The Huskies freshman Vladislav Firstov is the Huskies’ leading scorer with 22 points coming on 11 goals and 11 assists.

Firstov was named the Pro-Ambitions Rookie of the Month for January after posting nine points over eight games, scoring five goals and passing out five assists.  He had two game-winners and was a +11.

He is currently fifth among league rookies in scoring and his 11 goals are tied for second among freshmen goal scorers in Hockey East.

UCONN’s sophomore Jonny Evans (Nanaimo, BC) recorded his second hat-trick this season in the road win at UNH. He also tallied three in a 7-4 win over Vermont at home and has 17 points on the year despite missing time with a broken finger.  Evans is the only player in the country to record a pair of hat-tricks this season.

UCONN however still has no scorers in the Top 20 in Hockey East in any offensive category. This is a team that scores by the committee and all four lines will need to produce this weekend.

UCONN does have 11 Huskies who have hit double-digits in points with three players hitting the 20-point mark on the year in Firstov tops at 22, Russian Ruslan Iskahkov 21 points and Czech sophomore Jachym Kondelik with 20.

On defense senior defenseman senior Wyatt Newpower is riding a career-best five-game point streak (1g/7a).  Newpower matched his career-high with three assists in the home win over UNH and now has a career-best 17 points (three goals/14 assists).  He is tied for eighth among league defenseman in scoring.

Husky defensemen junior Adam Karashik and senior Wyatt Newpower are among the top shot blockers in Hockey East this season. Karasik is third in the league with 43 blocks and Newpower is ninth having blocked 35 shots.

Huskies center senior Benjamin Freeman, a Falmouth, Maine native is ranked third in Hockey East in face-off percentage, winning .590 (282-196) of his face-offs on the year.  Freeman leads the league with 282 face-off wins.

In net Czech sophomore goaltender, Tomas Vomacka came up with 42 saves in the Maine win, stopping 20 in the second and 13 in the third.

Vomacka made 38 saves to earn his 11th win on the year against UNH.

He has been lights out in net and the reason UCONN is still in the playoff hunt. His numbers at 3.40 GAA that is 12th out of 13 spots among goalies, save percentage .894 which is 11th out of 13 and winning percentage .481 which is 10th out of 13 and his personal record of 11-12-3 playing 26 of 27 games doesn’t tell the whole story of how well he has played.

(Portions of a UCONN press release were used in the formation of this section).

NOTES:

The 14-goal weekend was the most goals posted in consecutive games under head coach Mike Cavanaugh and the most since the Huskies posted 17 in two-straight in wins over Niagara (8-5) and Sacred Heart (9-3) in 2010-11 when they were in the AHA conference.

-No surprise that Vermont head coach Kevin Sneddon after 17 years (27 overall in college hockey) announced he will be stepping down from the Catamounts head coaching gig at season’s end are currently winless in the conference this season at 0-15-2 and have an overall mark of just 3-20-4.

They are also winless for a full year in the conference losing 23 games.

-The Walter Brown Award is awarded to the top New England Division I collegiate player the award started in 1953.

Of the 23 players submitted for consideration a few CT connections. The group includes two from Sacred Heart University (AHA) in Mike Lee (Hamden/Gunnery Prep) and Pioneer teammate Jason Cotton.

Cotton’s brother, David of Boston College was nominated as well making them just the third brother combo nominated since the award’s inception.

Billy and Bob Cleary and former Whaler Scott and Whaler draft pick Mark were the others all four attended Harvard.

Jack Drury, son of ex-Whaler Ted and uncle Wolf Pack GM Chris who grew up in Trumbull. Uncle Chris won the award twice while at BU.

Five other players have won it twice including Ranger and ex-Pack Mike Mottau former New England Whaler and Hartford Whaler, Tim Sheehy and former Ranger Jimmy Vesey.

Boston College’s Spencer Knight (Darien/Avon Old Farms) and Tyce Thompson from Providence College son of ex-Pack and current Sound Tigers head coach, Brent Thompson are under consideration.

The winner will be announced at the end of the regular season and before the NCAA tourney begins and the winner will be presented the award on May 3rd at a banquet in Saugus, MA.

Several former Wolf Pack players besides Mottau have won it. Matt Gilroy, Dov-Grumet Morris, Bobby Butler, and Ty Conklin. Rangers who have won it include current Blueshirt Adam Fox, Mottau and Brian Leetch (Cheshire).

Several others with CT connections were awarded the honor, the late New England and Hartford Whaler, John Cunniff, Scott Harlow (New Haven Nighthawks) and John Curry (Taft Prep-Watertown).

-Five players from CT Division II/III college hockey was among the 30 names placed in consideration for the Joe Concannon Award to the best New England Division III player.

Liam Feeney, Tedy Loughborough and Barclay Gammill from Trinity College (Hartford), Walker Harris of Wesleyan University (Middletown) and Connor Rodericks of Connecticut College (New London) were nominated.

The award winner is announced before the NCAA Division III Frozen Four at the LECOM Harbor Center in Buffalo,

NY and the award presented at the New England College Hockey Writers brunch in May.

-The announcement of the University of New Haven Board of Trustees approving in Boca Raton, Florida last week to go to Division I in all sports speculation of hockey returning to the West Haven-based school after a 37-year absence has begun.

The Chargers program yielded former LA King GM Dean Lombardi, recently retired University Maine assistant coach Jay Leach and retired Amity HS head coach Gary Lindgren among their prominent hockey alumni.

At the program then at the Division II level in the ECAC North conference playing its home games at Bennet Ice Rink in West Haven and the Milford ice Pavilion. was disbanded in 1983.

Presently, they have an ACHA Division 2 club program.

The collegiate hockey landscape has changed significantly since then and will change more in the next two years, but it’s still early in this process to say exactly where they may land, clearly changes are coming.