BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
STORRS, CT – As 2020 comes to an end, UCONN hockey holds on to a bit of normalcy as they play on New Year’s Day, kicking-off 2021.
The Huskies travel to Durham, New Hampshire, for a 4 pm tilt with the Wildcats (NESN). On Saturday at 4, the teams have a return engagement at Storrs in the Freitas Ice Forum.
“Every day has felt like a Saturday,“ Cavanaugh quipped on his weekly Zoom meeting with the media. “The kids aren’t in school right now, and that is nice. That is not a distraction or something to add to their plate. Frankly, we’re excited at the opportunities to play games.”
The Huskies will be without the services for the weekend of hulking winger Kale Howarth who will be out with a UBI (upper-body injury) suffered near the end of the second period, but winger Eric Linnell will be available for action.
“Kale is a big piece. He plays powerplay, a penalty kill guy, and five on five minutes for us. It gives kids the opportunity to step up, that’s one of the things. I’ve always been a believer there are always going to be times during a season where you’ll have injuries and whatever. The team you start with is rarely intact all the way through, that’s why we have 15 forwards and eight defensemen so when kids can’t play other kids step up. We’re going to miss Kale. He is a big part of this team, but I’m really looking forward to seeing which players stand up.”
UNH, who played on Wednesday, is a team that is similar to UCONN, and always present a tough day.
The red-hot Jonny Evans, who’s on a five-game scoring streak, has been an active dynamo for his team. Whether he’s diving for pucks to start an Adam Karashik goal, or his rifling a deep, right-wing, corner shot of his own to the short-side over the goalie’s glove, or blocking shots after losing his stick on a PK.
Evans’ maturation is very real and palpable.
“He’s evolving as all our players should. He was a quiet, shy…meek kid. I literally just got off the ice I was working with him and a great telltale sign when a kid is on the bench talking to other players and shouting instructions to other players.
It’s not a coincidence that he is playing well. He’s doing the right things on the ice, doing the right things off the ice doing the right things in the weight room that’s the kind of evolution you want in a player.”
Goalie Tomas Vomacka has been a reliable game-time performer helping UCONN stay in games, especially early as the team gets into a rhythm and despite all the COVID-19 craziness.
“I just love coaching him. Rarely, is Tomas having a bad day. He’s always out there smiling. I think he is confident and gotten more efficient as a goaltender,” Cavanaugh said. “I think he relies as much on his natural ability and athleticism. In his first couple of years here now, he is being efficient, learning to cut angles. He’s learning to avoid giving second and third chances. (In) some games he had 30 saves when it should have been 18 because he kicked (the puck) out in front that allowed two or three more shots. He’s done much better on controlling rebounds. When we’re playing well, he doesn’t have to make the spectacular saves. You’ll have the breakdown and that’s going to happen in a hockey game. That’s what you have a goaltender for.”
The loss to the WJC tournament of defenseman Yan Kuznetsov and Vladislav Firstov is there, but Cavanaugh appreciates what a WJC experience means to the player and the team both at UCONN or in hos other hockey life as an assistant with BC,
“I’ve never shied away from our kids going to World Juniors I like that Yan and Vlad are getting that experience.
You gain a lot of confidence because you playing a lot of minutes. However, you have to be leery of is those guys left November 25th except for quarantining they have been playing hockey every single day with a day off and the travel (Storrs to Moscow to Edmonton).
I’ll have to monitor them a little bit give them a few days off for practice. In the past when I was at BC when we were losing kids left and right to World Junior teams. We try to give them a few days off when they get back.
They need a break is high pressure level of hockey and they need time to decompress.”
Special teams have a major emphasis in the topsy-turvy season that has dotted the Hockey East early season play.
“This will be a constant theme all season. If er can be consistent we can go to a lot of places and were a pretty good team five on five. We have to win more special teams battles than losing them.
That’s going to be a telling statistic for us this season.”
The team’s PK units have had to do more work than usual especially it seems every game in the first 10 minutes making the kill in the first 10 minutes especially the tandem of assistant captain Zac Robbins and Brian Rigali. There are some secrets to the UCONN sauce in the PK department.
“We’ve been able to develop penalty killers who are not scorers. We were having powerplay guys as a penalty killer.
When Zac and Brian Rigali. Hudson (Schandor) and Cassidy Bowes are killing a lot of penalties there not playing on the powerplay were always out with fresh guys.
That’s helping us a lot and (assistant coach) Tyler Helton is coordinating all the guys to be on the same page because when you get one doing something different than the other three you get out of sync that’s when trouble happens and you let a lane open up or they get a pass in the seam (area).”
A New Year to bring the chase of getting to the playoffs.
