CANTLON: (SAT) UCONN RALLIES LATE TO BEAT OR BU 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – The hockey gods were in Hartford Friday night.

The Huskies were outplayed in the final 39 of the game’s 40 minutes. They made the last 1:19 of play count and won 4-3 in overtime on Sasha’s Payusov’s game-winner 19 seconds into overtime.

BU’s Patrick Curry turnover went to Brian Freeman on the left-wing and he sent the pass across to Payusov and he put his 12th of the season and second game-winner into the net for the victory and sending the crowd of 5,653 into a frenzy.

“Freezie made a great play. He got the puck, made the pass and it was an easy tap in goal,” Payusov said with a wide grin of his second game-winner of the season.

For Freeman, he knew exactly what he wanted to do the minute he got the puck.

“That was some of the chemistry Sasha and I have developed over the years. I knew he was going to be crashing the net. He was right behind the goalie and put it in for us.”

For head coach Mike Cavanaugh, it’s nice when the hockey gods shine on you.

“Hockey gods reward teams that play the right way. I think we’re a team that plays the right way. We continually put pucks in deep and Ben went to the net and we got a shot and that’s how you have to play the game. Look at all the goals scored tonight, except the first one by BU, everything else was from within three feet of the net, that’s where you have to play the game.”

The Huskies knew that crashing the net for the tying goal would be required as they got a six-on-five when UCONN pulled starter Tomas Vomacka, and during a previous timeout assistant coach, Joe Periera, a West Haven-native drew it up and it worked.

The Terriers had the Huskies hemmed in with a victory within their grasp, but UCONN snatched it away.

UCONN’s got it down to the right-wing half wall to Jachym Kondelik and he snapped a shot from on top of the right-wing circle that Sam Tucker stopped, but Freeman was lurking behind the goal line and hid his 6’5 frame and was able to use his reach and batted the rebound behind Tucker with 56 seconds left in the regulation.

“Coach Periera drew up the play and we put the puck on Jachym. (He) got a great shot on the play. I really wasn’t supposed to be there, but I was glad I was,“ Freeman laughed as he thought of the turn of events on the game-tying play. “I was just trying to get into it. I just waited for Jachym to shoot the puck and it was just laying there. I was in a soft spot just fortunate enough to put it home.”

For Mike Cavanaugh, the sense of escaping with two precious points was there as he was decompressing from the wild turn of events.

“Clearly, I was happy with the win in kind of a unique game. We came out and played very well in the first. Tomas played well, made some saves. The second was completely the opposite. In the third, not a lot was happening as BU they’re a good team, kept us from getting to the blue paint area. We lost a tough game in OT last week (in Maine) because we sat back and I told the kids this week if we get to overtime and we will let not sit back. Incredibly, that happened tonight and when we tied it up that’s all the kids talked about on the bench,” remarked Cavanaugh.

His counterpart, Albie O’ Connell was composed, but clearly trying to process what had just happened to the Terriers, who despite playing an excellent road game, came out on the short end of the stick.

“When you play good and you feel you played a good game, and you get that in the last minute and then they score again, it really gets to you. It shows you gotta play the full-60 and overall, we played a good game. You can’t take away what they did. We had four guys around the puck (on the game-tying goal) counting the goalie, we had five. At some point, you gotta protect your goal. That’s something we have to work on and get better from,” remarked O’Connell, who was coming off the heels of a loss to Northeastern in the Beanpot final in OT.

Doubt was not in UCONN’s mind despite what seemed like dire circumstances.

“We were down, but we never thought about losing. We wanted to win and we got it. We have a lot of guys who can score goals here. We never doubted,” remarked Payusov, who spoke with a degree of certitude when battling for a playoff spot.

For Ben Freeman, he was certain of the outcome despite what the scoreboard said. “We never wavered. There were ebbs and flows in the second period we were very resilient tonight.”

A TV timeout aided the Huskies as well.

“We had a little meeting and got that TV timeout. We got back to the bench and said we need to calm down and stick to our game plan and we came right out afterward,” Payusov, a senior, stated.

It was also after BU had kept them pinned in their own end of the ice and came close to getting the insurance goal.

UCONN has an early chance at the left side of the net to tie the game as Payusov put a shot on net that the grad transfer from Yale, goalie, Sam Tucker, (Wilton) stuck out his right pad and stopped at 2:45.

The first period belonged to UCONN. The second belonged to BU as they scored three times to take the lead.

Case McCarthy launched a shot from the right point. It went off the top of Vomacka’s glove and into the net at 4:26 to cut the lead to one.

The Terriers persistently broke the Huskies down, dumping the puck and being physical on the forecheck and got their second goal halfway through the period.

BU freshmen, Robert Mastrosomine, went around a stick check from Harrison Rees waited for the last second and sent a perfect net-front short pass to Jack DeBoer who easily smacked home his third goal of the season.

Then late in the period BU’s Patrick Curry, behind the net unchecked, fished a backhand pass through the box to Cam Crotty at the right point. He beat an open right side that was left by Vomacka as he came out to challenge the shot at 17:35 for his third of the season.

The first period was all UCONN. The Huskies took a 1-0 and no surprise Carter Turnbull scored it.

In the left-wing corner, he out-muscled two Terriers, went to the net and slipped the puck between the legs of a third Terrier, retrieved and jammed it in on the forehand at 11:12 for his 11th goal and the 1-0 lead.

UCONN tallied a second on the powerplay.

The red-hot Wyatt Newpower from the right point drilled a low shot. Tucker made the save despite a screen of Kale Howarth, but he had a solid position in front and swept the puck into the net for his fourth goal of the year.

UCONN had a decided edge in shots at 15-9, but Vomacka made the saves that kept BU off the board.

Early in the game, he stopped an open Logan Cockerill took a pass from Jeff Wise who was behind the Huskies net, but Vomacka glove hand snatched away a sure goal at.5:32

Then late in the period he twice stymied Curry had hit the side of the net and in a net-front scramble, he found the puck with 20.9 seconds to go.

Then with 3.9 seconds left New Canaan’s Patrick Harper was on the right-wing as a lefty shot took a cross-ice from Trevor Zegras, a fellow Avon Old Farms alum, but Vomacka again had the glove hand low to the ice and scooped up the shot.

NOTES:

The UCONN Huskies record is now at the .500 mark at 13-13-4, 10-8-2 HEA. Boston University drops to 12-10-8, 9-6-5 HEA.

UCONN is in sixth place, one point behind the Terriers, with 22 points and are two behind Maine in fourth place who beat Vermont 6-1.

Boston College destroyed Northeastern 10-1 last night.

The Huskies and Terriers travel to Boston for a rematch at 7 PM at the Agganis Arena at BU on NESN.

Terriers’ Ethan Phillips from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. His parents have been the billet for two NHL first-rounders with the Halifax Mooseheads (QMJHL), Swiss-born Nico Hirschier (Devils) and Czech native, Filip Zadina (Red Wings).

Terriers have several sons of former players skating on their team. Jamie Armstrong is the son of Bill Armstrong, who played for the Bruins. Gabriel Chabot, his father Frederic Chabot, Jack DeBoer’s father is Peter DeBoer is the head coach of the NHL Las Vegas Golden Knights.

Former Husky, Max Letunov, in his second NHL game scored his first NHL goal against Edmonton on a three-on-two rush winding up with the puck and turning and firing it into the net on ex-Sound Tiger Mikko Koskinen.

He was returned to the AHL San Jose Barracuda where he is having a breakout season on the last-place team.