BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
DURHAM, NH – The UCONN Huskies’ power play propelled their offense to an 8-3 rout over an injury-depleted Univerity of New Hampshire Wildcat team in a late Saturday afternoon contest.
Six different Huskies had multiple-point games en route to improving their record to the .500 mark at 5-5-1. The win allows them to climb into fourth place in the conference, just percentage points ahead of Providence College, who split their weekend series with Maine.
UNH drops to 3-7-1 and remains in sixth place. They have surrendered a staggering 21 goals in their three games this week.
UCONN Head Coach, Mike Cavanaugh, understood and acknowledged UNH’s injury issues.
“It was certainly a good win for our team. I also understand that’s an injury-depleted (UNH) team out there. (Angus) Crookshank, (Eric) McAdams, (Charlie) Kelleher, (Benton) Maass, and (Cam) Gendron, are five guys who play a lot of minutes for them.
“I tip my cap to them. They played (hard), but we wore them down as the game went on. I was happy with the way we played and responded in the third period. I’m happy we came away with a sweep on the weekend.”
UCONN RELENTLESSNESS
Two late second period goals turned the tide in UCONN’s favor. The dam completely broke UCONN’s way late in the third period due to their relentless play.
UCONN went up 3-2 off Jonny Evans’ hard work both, with and without, the puck.
Evans had a quality scoring chance on the left-wing side, but Taylor stopped it, but he was hit from behind in front of the Wildcats net by UNH’s Ryan Verrier, resulting in a delayed penalty.
UCONN used some quick, short passes before Ryan Wheeler, who was at the left point, received the biscuit from Jake Flynn. Wheeler walked it in from the left point to the top of the left-wing faceoff circle. Evans and Verrier battled in front of UNH goalie Ty Taylor, creating a widescreen that prevented Taylor from seeing the shot. The puck got by him at 19:30, giving Wheeler his first college goal.
“Wheeler works so hard every day. I was so happy to see him score. I didn’t even see the penalty, and for us to capitalize, that was a major turning point in the game.” Cavanaugh stated.
The ensuing powerplay UCONN did some more damage as another rear-guard was the scoring sequence’s focal point.
Carter Berger came from off the point to the left-wing boards and made a perfect back-door, diagonal pass to Hudson Schandor, who had a ton of open net to shoot for. Schandor buried his second goal, which would prove to be the eventual game-winner with 44.4 seconds left on the clock. UCONN headed to the locker room with a commanding 4-2 lead.
UCONN POWER PLAY FINDING LIFE
“The power play has been turning the corner. We’re playing with pace and shooting the puck. Good things happen. I really like the pass Berger made to Schandor for that first goal.”
Schandor’s goal tilted the game’s momentum towards UCONN, which UNH Head Coach Mike Souza acknowledged.
“We had talked about managing this game and not beating ourselves, whether not knowing assignments or extending shifts. We got caught after a long power play, take a bad penalty. We were chasing the game after that.
“We’re a pretty dejected team, and we knew it was going to be a tough stretch for us. Our goal is still to play our best hockey at the end of the year, and that’s still our goal,” the downcast head coach said.
In the third period, the goals came often and in various ways as the Huskies quickly pulled away from UNH.
Evans potted his second of the night on a dramatic hockey play.
Vladislav Firstov was at the right point and hit Jachym Kondelik on the right side of the net. Kondelik then made a blind, backhanded pass. Evans stepped right into it and scored his team-leading sixth goal making the score 5-2 at 13:04.
“That was a beautiful pass by Jachym, but I’d like to see him score some goals,“ Cavanaugh said of his 6’6 center, who is without a goal this season. “He has a great shot. I wish he would use it more, but he made two fabulous plays to Jonny on the first one, and on the second one, it was a real high-end play. We certainly need to keep driving our offense down the stretch.”
UCONN had to kill back-to-back early penalties that set the stage for the offensive blitz the rest of the period.
“The game was 4-2 at that point there, Tomas (Vomacka) made some big stops, smothering shots and not leaving any rebounds, and our PK came up with very good blocks as well.”
The Huskies went into overdrive with a revived powerplay on the weekend. Flynn zipped a low shot/pass, and Schandor, the freshmen from Vancouver, BC, tallied his second of the night into the short side at 15:33.
The freshmen class that had Cavanaugh beaming at their possibilities in the pre-season is getting more from players like Schandor at a quicker pace than he thought.
“He’s a complete 200-foot player. He plays defense, wins faceoffs, and he’s earned that ice time. I knew he was a good player. I didn’t think he was going to have such an impact on our team this early, and it’s nice to see.”
UNH GETS ONE BACK
Jackson Pierson put in a shot that came off the glass and returned in front of the net at 16:38.
UCONN John Spetz put on the jets inside the UNH zone, zipped around Filip Engaras and went forehand-to-backhand and put his goal at 17:03 for a 7-3 lead.
The exclamation point was a late game power play goal from the third line. Ryan Tverberg was open on the left-wing and buried his first college goal in his second game off a Nick Capone rebound into the short side to make it the 8-3 final.
The second time in UCONN history against UNH was that the Huskies scored 14 goals in a weekend series. Ironically the first was last year against UNH.
“It was good offensively for several of our guys, and it was nice to see some of them break out.”
The two teams kept up the same game pace from Friday night, as they combined for four goals in the first period.
UCONN was able to accomplish what all road teams want first to get the game’s first goal.
Evans bagged his team-leading fifth goal of the season at 3:53. The goal was set up by Kondelik, who had his team-best tenth assist. He also extended his point-scoring streak to five games, matching Evans’ team-high mark for UCONN.
UNH’s Alex Semandel made an ill-advised pass up the middle. Evans picked it off and quickly sent it to Kondelik, who swept in on the net, held the puck, and waited for Evans, who got a return pass and fired the shot into the net.
At 14:36 the Wildcats evened the game when winger, Kohei Sato, upgraded from the fourth line to start on the second line, proved his coach’s faith in him.
Sato was along the right-wing boards inside the UCONN zone. He had good puck possession and slipped a backhanded pass to Nick Cafarelli. The freshmen walked in uncontested and slipped a forehand shot through the five-hole for his first collegiate goal.
On the play, UCONN’s Brian Rigali hit him, and Sato fell awkwardly into the boards. Fortunately, he was only momentarily stunned.
UCONN regained the lead with 1:14 to go in the period. Rigali had a stable inside position in front of the net on Kalle Eriksson and made the perfect tip of Yan Kuznetsov’s left point shot.
Before the green light came on, which would signal the end of the period, UNH evened the game at two.
Verrier took a feed and moved in off the left point. With teammate Engaras in front and Spetz, a Huskies defenseman screened Vomacka thoroughly. Engaras’ redirection found the back of the net for his third goal of the year with 30.5 seconds left.
LINES:
Firstov – Kondelik – Evans
Gatcomb – Schlaine – Turnbull
Tverberg – Schandor – Capone
Robbins – Rigali – Linnell
Kuznetsov – Karashik
Berger – Spetz
Wheeler – Flynn
Kinal
Vomacka
GAME NOTES
Flynn had three assists, but Evans, Kondelik, Schandor, Rigali, Tverberg and Artem Schlaine, all had two points.
The UCONN PP went from last in the conference to seventh, from 7.1% entering the weekend to 17%.
