CANTLON: (3/6) UCONN CLOSES OUT REGULAR SEASON AT UMASS—LOWELL

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – The UCONN Huskies close out the Hockey East regular season on Friday night on the road at the Tsongas Center to face the number 12 nationally ranked UMASS-Lowell River Hawks at 7 PM (ESPN 97.9 and WILI 1400 AM/FM 95.3).

The Huskies split last week with UMASS-Amherst where UCONN clinched a spot in the postseason Friday in fantastic fashion with a late-game comeback 3-2 victory over the Minutemen.

Last Friday, sophomore Marc Gatcomb tied the game up with 1:31 left and classmate Kale Howarth buried the game-winner with 8.7 on the clock to lift the Huskies to a 3-2 win in front of 6,666 fans at XL Center.

UCONN missed the Hockey East tournament last year and this week is the anniversary of their only home playoff series with Vermont four years ago.

The Huskies’ playoff seeding is still to be decided with a home-ice playoff series is still up for grabs. If UCONN gets a win or a tie on Friday night against the River Hawks, they will host a playoff series at the XL Center next weekend.

The other scenarios are too mind-numbing suffice to say the Huskies could finish between as high as third or sixth in the conference.

Tonight’s game is the third meeting this season between the Huskies and River Hawks. UCONN earned a 3-3 tie at home and won 2-1 o0n the road in a weekend series split back in November. The Hockey East series between the schools the Huskies are 5-6-2 against the River Hawks. UCONN record is 3-3-0 at Tsongas Center.

UCONN (12-9-2 HEA, 15-14-4 overall) the conference mark of 12 wins and 26 points are the most for the program since joining Hockey East in 2014-15. The Huskies enter the weekend fourth in the Hockey East standings and UCONN’s best-ever Hockey East finish was tied for fifth in 2017-18.

The Huskies have seven players who have scored 20 or more points this season, the highest number since the 2010-11 season, but no players in the conference top offensive categories.

Senior Benjamin Freeman has been on fire taken over the team-lead in scoring with career-best 29 points on the year on seven goals and 21 assists.

Over the month of February, in seven games, Freeman led the team and was fourth in Hockey East with 13 points three goals and 10 assists and earned conference Player of the Week honors two weeks ago.

Senior defenseman Wyatt Newpower is fifth among Hockey East blue-liners with a career-best 22 points on three goals and 19 assists. He leads the Huskies with a plus 24 rating, which ranks sixth nationally.

Newpower has the most points by a Husky defenseman since 2015-16 when freshman Joseph Masonius had 21 points. Prior to that, defenseman Alex Gerke held the top spot with a 25 point season in 2011-12.

Sophomore Carter Turnbull scored his 12th goal of the season last weekend, matching senior Alexander Payusov for the team lead. Turnbull is second on the club with 24 points on the strength of 12 goals and 12 assists easily surpassing his rookie season total of seven points.

Freshman Vladislav Firstov has 23 points on 11 goals and 12 assists and he ranks sixth among Hockey East rookies in scoring nine assists

Then there is a final troika of players in the 20 point category includes sophomore Jachym Kondelik has tallied 22 points on eight goals and 14 assists. Alexander Payusov has 12 goals seven of which have come over the last seven games and sophomore Ruslan Iskhakov nine goals and 12 assists each have 21 points.

NOTES:

-Former UCONN Husky Joe Masonius goes from Norfolk (ECHL) to Greenville (ECHL).

-UCONN got a commit this week for 2021 from Joe Pascucci (North Andover, MA) currently at the Governors Academy in New Hampshire. The 6’2 180 lb. rearguard is completing his second season at the school.

-David Andreychuk, incredibly no relation to the former NHL’er Dave despite their last names are spelled exactly the same as Gunnery Prep (Washington, CT) makes a commitment to St. Lawrence University (ECACHL) in 2021-22.

I wonder how much wood would an Andreychuk chuck if he
could chuck wood !!?

-The New England prep school playoffs are underway with the championships for the three divisions will take place on Sunday afternoon at Trinity College in Hartford at the Koppell Community Center after being in New Hampshire at St. Anselm College, the last three years.

In the Open Division, Hotchkiss (Lakeville) was knocked out by the score of 5-2 by Dexter Academy featuring John and Matt Fusco, sons of former Whaler, Mark Fusco.

Salisbury Prep got the best of Kimball Union 7-4 and they will meet the top-ranked Avon Old Farms squad, 6-3 winners, over Noble and Greenough.

The two teams will meet Saturday in the semifinal at Jennings-Fairchild Arena at AOF at 3:30 PM.

The Open Final is scheduled for Sunday at 5:00 PM.

In the Large Division, Brunswick School (Greenwich) thumped Milton Academy 7-1 featuring Beanie Richter, son of Rangers goalie great Mike Richter.

Loomis Chaffe (Windsor) edged Deerfield Academy 4-2.
Loomis travels to Greenwich Saturday at 2:30 PM for their semi-final matchup.

The Large Division final is Sunday at 2:30 PM.

In the Small Division, Pomfret knocked off St. Mark’s 4-3. In the other game, Groton School (MA) was the winner 6-4 over Tilton Academy.

Pomfret on Saturday will make the drive over two hours near the New Hampshire border to play Groton at 3:00 PM.

The Pomfret team features Mike Baseggio, son of former Yale player, New Haven Nighthawk and Bridgeport Sound Tigers head coach, Dave Baseggio, currently a Pro Scout for Anaheim.

The Small Division Final is Sunday at 12:30 PM.

-The newest college hockey conference will have an old well-established moniker.

The seven schools leaving the WCHA will begin to play in a newly branded CCHA (Central Collegiate Hockey Association) starting in 2021-21. They have retained a legal firm to start the process of formalizing the name and begin branding efforts so when all the pro forma legal documents are set up the conference and completed the conference can begin.

The schools to be the original seven will be; Bemidji State (MN), Bowling Green (OH), Ferris St. (MI), Lake Superior State (MI), Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan and Minnesota State-Mankato.

That will leave the WCHA with just three teams, two from Alaska. The University Alaska-Anchorage Seawolves and University Alaska-Fairbanks Nanooks, who are likely to merge as one hockey program considering major state fiscal issues in Alaska. The other school is Alabama-Huntsville as the surviving conference members.

This will allow likely be the formation of a true Western-based US college hockey conference where the hockey numbers at the youth level are at the highest point in the country in addition to junior league players.

Schools that could be a part of that conference would include the current Division I independent, the Arizona State Sun Devils, who will have a brand new on-campus building by next fall.

Then some new programs that could emerge include from LA in USC and UCLA, UNLV in Nevada, University of Washington. Air Force Academy, already in Division I play in the AHA conference would be best suited to be in this conference,

There could be some wide cards as well, but the future is West for college hockey.