BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
STORRS, CT – There’s been both good news and bad news week for UCONN Husky hockey thus far in the college offseason.
The bad news is the loss of center Artem Schlaine (New Jersey) to an undergraduate transfer to the Northern Michigan Wildcats (CCHA). According to a knowledgeable source, he also looked at staying locally with Quinnipiac University (ECACHL) in Hamden. He was the seventh leading scorer for the Huskies in the just concluded college hockey season. He would have been tenth on the Wildcats this year.
Cassidy Bowes, 23, will also be on the move to a yet undisclosed school. If it is a college he goes to, it will likely be a Western regional one as he was also looking at possibly returning home and playing in Canada. Major Junior or Junior A are not options as he’s aged out. With Schlaine, it’ll be the second undergraduate transfer to date nationally.
GOOD NEWS
Meanwhile, there is good news. UConn will be adding incoming freshman Matthew Wood. The winger is considered a high-end prospect who last played for the Victoria Grizzlies (BCHL), where he was the league’s leading scorer this past year with 45 goals and 40 helpers for 85 points.
Wood will be the fourth player from the Victoria program taken by UCONN in its Division-I history.
Physically, he’s reminiscent of Tage Thompson at 6’4 185 lbs. with room to grow. A 2023 NHL Draft eligible forward, in early CSB rankings, he is expected to go high and early. He could pass Thompson, who remains the highest-drafted Husky ever, when in 2016, he was selected 26th overall by the St. Louis Blues. He was traded to the Buffalo Sabres, where he leads the team in goals scored with 32.
Wood will enter UCONN a year earlier than expected next fall. Thompson did the same as a 17-year-old freshman.
MORE NEWS
Of the 181 college players to sign, UCONN has nine and one undergraduate. Second is Michigan, with eight nine and five undergraduates to go pro. Finally, Michigan Tech has eight and no undergraduates. Fellow Hockey East member UMASS and the University of Minnesota-Duluth also have eight.
Sophomore Ryan Tverberg was named a CCM/ACHA Second Team All-Star selection. However, he will return for his junior season unless Toronto can shed some cap space by the NHL Draft to be held in Montreal in June and offers him an NHL ELC deal.
A UCONN player has been selected for the second straight season as an All-American. On Friday last week, Tverberg was named All-American, joining Jonny Evans as the second Husky to earn the honor since 1998, when the team entered the program in Division-I.
Tverberg had a solid sophomore season with a team-high 14 goals and 18 assists, and 32 points. Both placed him as second-best on the team. He finished with four goals and three assists in 14 games last year matriculating in the second semester after getting an NCAA waiver.
OTHER ALL-AMERICANS
Only eight other Huskies have ever been selected All-Americans over the years. Seven of them came when the program played Division-II and Division-III before 1998-99.
Henry (Harry) Geary (Ridgefield) (1986), Todd Krygier (1987-88), a former NHL’er who played with the Hartford Whalers for two years and 13 games with the New Haven Nighthawks-AHL) and is presently an assistant coach with the AHL Grand Rapids Griffins and has two sons competing collegiately presently at Michigan State (Big 10).
Both were drafted by NHL teams, son Christian by the New York Islanders and twin brother Cole by the Florida Panthers.
His eldest son Brock played for the Michigan State Spartans for three seasons before transferring to Arizona State his senior season, their first in Division-I. He is out of hockey now.
Bryan Krygier (Todd’s brother and the boy’s uncle) (1991-92), Chris Potter (Wesleyan University-NESCAC (Middletown) has been the head coach for 19 years) (1993), Bryan Quinn (1995), Ryan Equale (Wilton) (1996) third all-time leading scorer in school history with 188 points and Eric Linkowski (Danbury-Immaculate High) (1998).
Jonny Evans became UCONN’s first Division-I All-American last year.
