UNH hockey team falls at UConn, 6-1
Feb. 25—The University of Connecticut men's hockey team scored in the opening minute and never looked back in its 6-1 Hockey East triumph over New Hampshire on Saturday at Toscano Family Ice Forum in Storrs, Connecticut.
The loss dashed UNH's chances of hosting a home playoff game to open the Hockey East tournament and ended its six-game unbeaten streak.
UNH (11-19-3, 6-14-3 Hockey East), which did not allow more than two goals in five of its previous six games entering Saturday, cannot finish with more than 26 league points. Eighth-place Boston College had 27 points entering its game against seventh-place Maine on Saturday night.
The Nos. 6-8 seeds will host the Nos. 9-11 seeds in the first round of the Hockey East tournament.
No. 16 UConn (19-10-3, 12-8-2) started last week with a 4-3 overtime triumph over Alaska Anchorage — its first game since being swept by the Wildcats in Durham Feb. 10-11.
"We knew coming down here that it was going to be a tough game for us," UNH coach Mike Souza said. "It's hard to beat a team three times, especially a quality team like Connecticut. They capitalized on their chances tonight. We didn't."
Huskies junior forward Ryan Tverberg scored on a wrister from the left circle 38 seconds into the game to open the game's scoring. He followed up with a transition goal that came with 4:23 left in the first period to double UConn's lead.
The Huskies took a 3-0 lead in the first intermission after freshman Tristan Fraser scored on a one-timer from the slot with eight seconds left in the opening frame.
Souza said he thought, at times, the Wildcats did a good job nullifying UConn's speed but that the Huskies defended the middle of the rink well. A lot of UConn's transition opportunities came because of the Wildcats overhandling pucks, he said.
Liam Devlin put the Wildcats on the board with a power-play goal 2:59 into the third period. The sophomore forward shot from behind the net and the puck deflected off Huskies freshman goaltender Arsenii Sergeev (29 saves) into the back of the net.
UConn responded by ripping off the game's final three goals over the last 12:15.
"When we used the glass and chipped pucks and didn't play snob hockey we did a nice job and we had some zone time," Souza said. "It was one of those games where you felt like you had one shift but we never had three or four good ones in a row. We really never pulled the momentum back in our favor for long stretches."
Jake Flynn, Samu Salminen and Jake Veilleux provided the Huskies' third-period insurance goals. UConn freshman forward Jake Black, the younger brother of UNH graduate-student forward Ryan Black, assisted on Salminen's tally.
Souza said Flynn's goal came because UNH could not clear the puck, Salminen's tally followed a Wildcats turnover and Veilleux scored his goal on a rebound try.
UNH senior goaltender David Fessenden made 27 saves. The Parker, Colorado, resident denied a Tverberg breakaway shot with a pad save and made a glove stop on Justin Pearson, a graduate-student forward from Nashua, between Flynn and Salminen's third-period goals.
Souza said he liked UNH's performance both on the power play (1-for-5) and penalty kill (3-for-3).
The loss is a frustrating one, Souza said, but added that the Wildcats are in a good place mentally entering their regular-season finale against Vermont on Thursday night (7) at the Whittemore Center, and the postseason.
"It wasn't our day so it's frustrating but I think the team's in a really good frame of mind," Souza said. "Making sure that we learn from it (the loss) but just get focused on our game on Thursday so that we can go out and be ready to go the following week when playoffs start."
