With three weekends to play in the Hockey East regular season, the UConn Huskies are playing some of their best hockey at the perfect time.
Ninth-year head coach Mike Cavanaugh has liked the effort his team has put forth since the puck dropped in 2022, but three power-play goals doomed the Huskies in a Jan. 2 non-conference loss to Harvard. Setbacks to American International, Boston University and New Hampshire followed in three of the next four games.
Things can change in a hurry, though.
Since their Jan. 21 loss against the Wildcats, UConn has won six consecutive Hockey East games to vault all the way up to second place in the league standings, just two points behind UMass Lowell -- which is tied with Massachusetts for first place -- with two games in hand. Their only loss in that span came against No. 2 Quinnipiac in the Connecticut Ice Championship.
“After losing those three in a row, I think we’ve done a pretty good job of buckling down, trying to limit the other team’s quality chances and not compromising defense for offense,” Cavanaugh said. “When you do that, you end up creating more chances. … We’re pretty deep up front. We can roll all four lines, so that’s probably been the best part of our game.”
Recent opposing coaches such as Merrimack’s Scott Borek and UNH’s Mike Souza have touted the Huskies as having perhaps the most talented forward group in all of Hockey East, with senior captain Jachym Kondelik (team-leading 26 points), top linemate Vladislav Firstov and reigning All-Star Jonny Evans among those leading the way. On the “third” line, sophomore Ryan Tverberg leads the team with 12 goals.
The players know the level of talent that is present in the room. In recent weeks, the goals have been falling up and down the lineup. Friday’s 6-4 win at Boston College marked the Huskies’ third straight game with six goals, which marked a first in the program’s Hockey East era.
“We’ve had the talent all year, but we had some bad puck luck or guys just not burying,” said senior captain Carter Turnbull, who has scored goals in three straight games. “I think the last few weeks we’ve been burying pucks and having fun doing it. That’s the biggest difference.”
During the Huskies’ second win of the season at BC Friday, it was Turnbull who scored the deciding goal and continued a run of recent strong play on the second line with Evans and Gunnery grad Marc Gatcomb (Woburn, Mass.).
Turnbull also scored a goal and an assist in Tuesday’s 6-2 win at Merrimack, whose only two losses since Jan. 8 have come against UConn. The Warriors responded with a 4-1 Sunday win at Vermont.
“He’s been playing great hockey,” Cavanaugh said. “The whole line has been really good. They’ve got a good mix. They all skate well, but Gatcomb provides a lot of physicality, Jonny distributes in the center and Carter can finish. They read off each other pretty well, they work hard and make great plays together.”
“(Cavanaugh) has put together a few combinations that are working,” Turnbull said. “... I think our line just emphasizes skating and winning battles, then we kind of let our skill take over.”
Three standings points at any time of the year are the same, but the Huskies finish their season with four out of six games against teams in the top-15 of the PairWise Rankings. It’s UMass first, then Northeastern in home-and-home sets over the next two weekends.
This team sends a great deal of experience to the ice and has been battle-tested throughout the year, as evidenced by earning six of their 16 wins against ranked opponents.
Allowing BC to score three times in a combined seven-goal first period was not how the Huskies would have drawn it up. In fact, it was the exact opposite of the recent successful game plan. But, they bounced back for consecutive goals in the second. Winning all kinds of games is the sign of a good team.
“We’re more of a team that tries to play with good structure in the defensive zone and then get creative on offense, but we started selling out to score goals, and you can’t do that against BC because they have some elite forwards,” Cavanaugh said. “Our team knows that’s not how we want to play. But, we were scoring as well, so it was good to win.”
Streak status
Boston University has won six straight and 12 of its last 14 games entering Monday’s Beanpot Championship after scoring four unanswered goals to win Thursday night at Providence, 4-1. Jay O’Brien (Hingham, Mass.) scored twice and assisted on Wilmer Skoog’s game-winning goal to finish the two-game series against his former team with three goals and two assists. UMass Lowell transfer Matt Brown has points in nine games in a row.
The Terriers will face three-time defending Beanpot winner Northeastern, which earned a 4-2 Friday win at UMass Lowell to halt the River Hawks’ hopes of a three-game season sweep. Senior defenseman Julian Kislin opened the scoring with his first career goal in his 104th game, and freshman T.J. Semptimphelter made 16 of his 25 saves in the third period.
Quinnipiac suffered its first regulation loss since Oct. 23 and just its third of the season overall, dropping a 3-1 Saturday decision to Clarkson. The Bobcats cut their deficit to one on senior Michael Lombardi’s (Barrington, R.I.) extra-attacker goal with 2:12 remaining, but the team’s seven-game win streak following a Jan. 22 overtime loss at Cornell was snapped.
Merrimack scored four unanswered goals -- including one by sophomore Alex Jefferies (Lunenburg, Mass.), giving the team a power-play goal in 11 straight games -- to topple Vermont in a Super Bowl Sunday matinee, 4-1. Vermont had shut out UNH two nights earlier on the strength of sophomore Gabe Carriere’s 23 saves.
Maine responded from being shut out in back-to-back games by defeating defending national champion UMass in a 3-2 overtime decision Friday. Freshman Donavan Villeneuve-Houle scored the game-winner in overtime to lift first-year coach Ben Barr’s Black Bears past Greg Carvel, his boss for the previous five years. The Minutemen responded for a 4-2 win as Garrett Wait scored twice and senior captain Bobby Trivigno assisted on three of the four goals.
Harvard’s only loss in its last six games came against BU last Monday night as the Crimson bounced back to shut out Yale, 2-0. Sophomore Alex Laferriere scored his team-leading 12th goal of the season and junior John Farinacci added his sixth in the last nine games.
High (altitude) performance
Holy Cross enjoyed its best weekend of the Atlantic Hockey season, earning five out of a possible six points from a set at Air Force. The Crusaders have won four of their last five games after a pair of 3-2 victories in Colorado, including one in overtime.
Senior Anthony Vincent (Wilton, Conn.) scored the deciding goal as part of a two-point Friday night, while junior goaltender Erik Gordon earned his first win of the season with 35 saves. Junior Grayson Constable tallied the winner and three teammates had multiple points apiece on Saturday. Sophomore Jack Ricketts scored in each game, matching the team lead with eight goals this season.
The first-time sweeping success continued for Sacred Heart, which snagged 5-3 and 3-1 wins over Bentley. The Pioneers built a three-goal lead in Thursday’s first period to set the tone for the weekend before Colorado College transfer Troy Conzo netted the winner. Senior Austin Magera tallied his 11th career game-winning goal in the series finale.
Freshman defenseman Conner Hutchison, who had played in just three games in the first semester, scored the team’s first and last goals of the weekend. Junior Neil Shea (Marshfield, Mass.) has points in three straight and 15 of the last 19 games.
THREE MORE STARS:
Hockey East - Liam Devlin & Nick Cafarelli, New Hampshire
The two Massachusetts natives broke scoring droughts with second-period goals in the Wildcats’ 3-0 Sunday shutout of UMass Lowell. Devlin’s (Needham, Mass.) highlight-reel goal on the power play at 11:36 stood as the game-winner, his eighth of the season and first since Jan. 8.
https://twitter.com/UNHMHOCKEY/status/1492955301963714560
Cafarelli (Middleton, Mass.), who didn’t return to the lineup until Dec. 3 following an injury on opening weekend, netted his second collegiate goal and first this season with 3:03 left in the middle frame. His goal proved to be more than enough support for senior Mike Robinson (Bedford, N.H.), who pitched his ninth career shutout with 32 saves.
ECAC - Clay Stevenson, Dartmouth
The sophomore netminder helped the Big Green bounce back from a Friday loss to Brown and stopped all 37 shots he faced in a 1-0 win over fellow ECAC Hockey and Ivy League rival Yale the following night. The performance marked the first career shutout for the former BCHL top goaltender and came just a week after a 41-save performance at UMass Lowell.
Yale held the 37-15 shot advantage in the Saturday night game, but Dartmouth junior Mark Gallant (Concord, Mass.) scored the only goal 5:47 into the opening period and Stevenson made it stand up.
Atlantic - Chris Dodero, American International
The senior forward from West Chicago, Ill., posted a goal and an assist in Thursday’s 5-1 win over Army West Point, which ensured that the Yellow Jackets would host an AHA Quarterfinal series and finish no lower than third in the Atlantic Hockey standings.
Dodero has nine goals this season, including three in his last five games and five in the last 10 following the weekend. His two points matched the effort of freshman defenseman Lius Lindner, who was a plus-4 in the victory against the Black Knights.
THIS WEEK’S HAT TRICK:
1. Beanpot and more on Monday: Just before the Beanpot reaches its conclusion on Monday night at TD Garden, there will be a pair of makeup games involving New England’s ECAC teams as Brown hosts Colgate and Dartmouth travels to Princeton looking for a second consecutive win. Both of those Monday contests will begin at 5 p.m., before the Beanpot final at 7:30.
The two ECAC teams will remain at home for the penultimate weekend of their regular seasons as Quinnipiac plays the Big Green and then travels to Harvard for a key clash, and Brown (and Yale) hosts the Capital District rivals from Union and RPI, who are all within four points from sixth through ninth in the standings.
2. Hockey East race heats up: Several of this upcoming weekend’s Hockey East games will be critically important, but the home-and-home set between Massachusetts and Connecticut could have the biggest impact as it pits two of the top four teams in the standings. The border rivals are separated by just two points entering their Friday meeting in Hartford, Conn.
Elsewhere, Providence and UMass Lowell will also see each other’s buildings, but the Friars will be looking to bounce back from their five Hockey East losses in a nine-game stretch since January when they head north Friday. Beanpot rivals BC and Northeastern will meet twice more, while Maine hosts New Hampshire and Vermont heads to Merrimack for two games apiece.
3. Holding it down at home: The Atlantic Hockey race is also coming down to its final two weekends, and AIC will be looking to get closer to a fourth consecutive regular-season title when it heads to Mercyhurst. Sacred Heart is also set for a road trip to play twice at Canisius.
The league’s other two New England clubs will skate on home ice for the weekend. Bentley takes on Air Force for two games, while Holy Cross hosts Army West Point in a series that will begin Thursday night.
