BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – It’s a big night for hockey in Hartford for the UCONN Huskies are on the verge of breaking another Hockey East barrier.
They have a home-and-home with the UMASS-Amherst Minutemen starting with Senior Night festivities at 7 PM (WCCT-CW Channel 20) and then tomorrow night at the Mullins Center at 7 PM (NESN PLUS) to close out the regular season schedule.
UCONN enters the weekend tied for fourth place in the crowded Hockey East standings. The Huskies have 24 points, their best-ever point total since joining the conference in 2014, and are even with UMASS-Lowell.
UCONN is a mere point behind the third-place University of Maine, and two points behind the second-place UMASS-Amherst. UCONN is four points back of the first-place Boston College, who knocked Merrimack, 6-1.
A weekend sweep could put the Huskies in the top four guaranteeing a first-round, home playoff game next weekend.
The reason UCONN is standing on the edge of this goal is the superlative effort on the road last week to beat BU 6-1 last Saturday sweeping their first Hockey East series of the year.
Perfect time to do so.
It was tight game 2-1 for UCONN when the floodgates opened and the Huskies swarmed all over BU and on all their key opportunities, they didn’t miss the net.
The play that set the Huskies superb second third period in motion was a 10-bell-save from sophomore Tomas Vomacka that he made on Dave Farrance off a three-on-two late in the first period.
Vomacka was down-and-out and completely vulnerable. He reached out with his glove and snatched a sure goal away from Farrance
The first of three goals by senior Alexander Payusov came with linemate Brian Freeman in the slot in front with a screen. Payusov was able to obtain his own rebound for the goal.
41 seconds into the third, Payusov tallied their second goal of the evening as the Russian from Montreal motored like an Acela train through the middle of the ice, lowered his left shoulder and went wide on BU’s defenseman Alex Vlasic. Payusov fired a 35-foot wrister past goalie Ashton Abel and gave the team a 3-1 lead. UCONN never looked back.
Freeman then used a time-honored flip pass to Payusov and he marched in and fired a shot five-hole on Abel and a strong 4-1 lead.
The Huskies upped the lead to 5-1 with a fantastic powerplay where all five players on the ice touched the puck.
Freeman among the conference-best in faceoff percentage cleanly won the draw. Then Jake Flynn was at the left point and sent it over to Jonny Evans at the right point, then down low to Ruslan Iskhakov.
Iskhakov spotted Payusov on the doorstep and got the puck and made a blind backhanded pass to Freeman, who was in the shooter’s position on one knee on his off-wing. He drove it into the open left side for a 5-1 commanding lead.
The exclamation point came with Justin Howell with 48.3 seconds left winning a one on one battle with BU’s Alex Wise got around and fired a great short side, on the stick-side. The high-wrister on Abel went in to close out the game.
Freeman’s two goals and five assists (seven points) earned him Hockey East Player-Of-The-Week, the first one of the season. He has taken over the team-lead in scoring with career-best 26 points on the year on seven goals and 16 assists. Over the last five games, Freeman has 11 points on the strength of three goals and eight assists.
UCONN with a player in any of Top 20 of stats has played a team game and has put themselves in this position that is a mountain that in early January seemed couldn’t be climbed.
The Huskies lineup features six 20-point scorers with Payusov having 12 goals, seven coming over the last five games.
Freshman Vladislav Firstov who has 23 points on 11 goals and 12 assists and fifth among freshmen scoring in Hockey East.
Sophomore Carter Turnbull scored his 11th goal of the season and tied Firstov for the team lead in goals scored. Turnbull has 23 points on the season, and has had at least a point in eight of his last nine games. Over that stretch, he has five goals and seven assists.
Sophomores Jachym Kondelik eight goals and 13 assists and Iskhakov nine goals and 11 assists round out the UConn 20-point scorers. There are 12 Huskies who have double digit points and nine different players have scored five or more goals.
Senior defenseman Wyatt Newpower is eighth among Hockey East blue-liners with a career-best 19 points with three goals and 16 assists. He leads the Huskies as a plus 23 on the season, ranking fifth nationally.
UCONN is now 7-1-0 over their last eight Hockey East games coming into the weekend. UCONN came back to beat BU in overtime, 4-3, at home last Friday a game they shouldn’t have won.
Since joining the Hockey East, UCONN and UMASS have face-off 12 times with the Minutemen holding a slim 6-5-1 edge.
In last season’s regular season finale, UCONN knocked off the then number two ranked Minutemen, marking the highest-ranked opponent the Huskies have ever beaten.
They had previously knocked-off the number three ranked team in the nation when they beat Boston College at home (1-0) in 2014 and a road win over then number three ranked UMASS-Lowell (3-2) in 2016.
NOTES:
-It will be Senior night with Payusov, Freeman. Newpower, Howell and Bryan Nelson. They will be honored before the game. All fans are encouraged to wear white shirts for the game.
-Former Husky Spencer Nass was traded from the Idaho Steelheads (ECHL) to the Kalamazoo K-Wings.
