BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
CHESTNUT HILL, MA – UCONN earned two points in a wild 6-4 road win over Boston College at Kelley Rink. Carter Turnbull, Jachym Kondelik, and two goals from an unexpected scoring source defenseman, Jarrod Gourley, as UCONN won its sixth straight Hockey East contest and their second straight win at the Kelley Rink.
UCONN is now tied with Boston University in points but also has two games in hand and one more win over the Terriers. The Huskies are winning games and looking to secure a home playoff date. Their record is now 16-11-2-1-2 overall and 12-6-0-2-1 in the conference.
“We’re certainly pleased with the three points tonight. That’s not how we wanted to play against BC. We know how strong they are up-front and on the rush. We didn’t want to trade chances back-and-forth, but we did. We were fortunate enough to score as well. Certainly, not the blueprint we drew up as a game plan.
“Overall, I was happy with the win, but there is a lot we have to work on,“ said an exhausted UCONN head coach Mike Cavanaugh in his post-game remarks.
The Eagles, uncharacteristically, find themselves in eighth place in Hockey East. Their record is 10-15-4 overall and 5-10-3-0-1 in Hockey East play. This loss ended a tough week for them, as they lost in the Beanpot, and then for a second time this season at home to UCONN.
The Huskies are off until next weekend when they will play the conference’s first-place team and the defending national champion, the UMASS Minutemen in a home-and-home series.
FIRST PERIOD FLURRY
It was a blizzard of goals between the Huskies and Eagles who had a combined seven goals off 17 shots in the first period.
The Huskies scored first as Ryan Tverberg (Toronto) tallied off a two-on-one break-in, feeding Artem Schlainen (New Jersey) who found the open net and buried his fourth goal of the season at 1:21.
“Turnbull’s been playing some great hockey. Since Christmas he has been outstanding. The whole line has been doing a nice job for us,” remarked Cavanaugh of the Turnbull-Jonny Evans and Marc Gatcomb (the Gunn School) trio.
He liked the team’s start.
“It was a good way to start, but I didn’t like giving away that many chances,” He said.
The Eagles responded with Jack Dempsey sending a cross-ice pass to Casey Carreau who was wide open on the right-wing side. He buried his fourth of the season at 4:49.
Five minutes later, at 9:49, UCONN regained the lead as a BC turnover by Trevor Kuntar that was forced by Kondelik (Nashville) was found by Vladislav Firstov (Minnesota). He made a drop pass back to Kondelik, who had a team-best five shots, who then moved in alone on the right-wing. Kondelik registered his eleventh goal of the season from the face-off circle. Kondelik now has eight goals in his last 13 games.
SCORING WAS NOT DONE YET
BC’s Colby Ambrosio was in his zone and sent a head-man pass to speedy defenseman Mitchell Warren at center ice.
Warren motored down the left-wing past UCONN’s Chase Bradley and circled the net and then threw the puck back at the net. Darin Hanson made the save but left a rebound. Liam Izyk got to the puck before John Spetz and poked his first goal of the season into the net at 13:20 putting deuces on the scoreboard.
”That’s not how we wanna play. We want to play with more structure in our own zone. We compromised ourselves defensively when pucks started going in. We were selling out to score goals and you can’t do that against Boston College because they have forwards who can hurt you on the rush.”
Gourley had seven Division-I goals in three years with the Arizona State Sun Devils to his credit. He scored the next two goals.
At 13:56, Turnbull was on the right wing with two BC Eagles, Justin Wells and Patrick Giles marking him. He zipped a cross-ice pass to Gourley as a third BC player – a mid-season Yale transfer from last year – Jack St. Ivany (Philadelphia) made a blocking attempt who deposited his second goal of the season behind Eric Gop.
GOURLEY
In the offensive zone at 14:12, Hudson Schandor won the draw clean from BC’s Gentry Shamburger (Avon Old Farms) in the left-wing face-off circle. Gourley stepped into a rolling puck off the left point and blasted it to the short side past Gop to make it 4-2.
Gourley’s only previous collegiate two-goal game was against Brown in his sophomore year on January 11, 2020, when he scored the game-winner. In his previous goals, they have all been against ECACHL teams during his junior and sophomore years.
He hasn’t had two goals in a game before that since his days at the Grant Fuhr Arena with the AJHL Spruce Grove Saints.
“He’s been great all year long. He brings a great level of maturity to our team and a calming influence to our defensemen. He can really shoot the puck. It was really two big goals for us.”
The Eagles cashed in with 39.9 seconds left in regulation as Izyk registered his second of the game. He redirected a pass from Ambrosio who was behind the net. The Eagles went to the locker room only trailing by one at 4-3.
IN BETWEEN LOCKER ROOMS
After seven goals, and in between periods, his players did the majority of talking, but the coaches were heard too.
“It was a combination of both. We have a very experienced team. They knew this was not how we wanted to play this game. It was not the recipe for success against Boston College to keep trading chances with them. They drove the conversation more than I did.”
The goal didn’t faze UCONN as they scored twice in the second period to expand their lead they never lost.
“The second period was more in how we wanted to play. I thought we controlled that period and we got a fortunate bounce (on the first goal we scored). Carter Turnbull made a nice move on his goal and I liked how we were playing,” said Cavanaugh.
They restored the two-goal lead as Aidan Hreschuk attempted to exit the BC end of the ice, but lost the puck to an unforced error by Turnbull who went off on a breakaway before making a nice backhand-to-forehand move for his eighth of the season at 7:16.
Schandor (plus-3) made another good play and with solid puck protection on Hreschuk chasing him in the BC zone, sent a solid backhand pass to a wide-open Kevin O’Neil. He raced in and beat Kuntar to the loose biscuit and made a nice finishing move and swept in his fifth of the season at 10:01 through the five-hole. The goal gave UCONN a commanding 6-3 lead.
BC’S Casey Carreau closed out the scoring with his second of the night and fifth of the season at 15:34 to make it closer than it was.
NOTES
Jack St. Ivany had a tough night for BC at minus-4, and Pat Giles had a pointless night, a minus-3, and went without a shot on goal.
LINES
Gatcomb-Evans-Turnbull
Firstov-Kondelik-O’Neil
Schandor-Schlaine-Tverberg
Capone-Veilleux-Bradley
Berger-Spetz
Wheeler-Rees
Flynn-Kinal
Gourley
Hanson
Terness
SCRATCHES
Metcale
Puskar
Pasquale
Wojchiwchowski
