It may have been a fear of sinking deeper into mediocrity for the Northeastern men’s hockey team.
Or perhaps it was the series of gut-wrenching losses, namely 3-1 and 2-1 defeats to Boston University and UMass-Lowell, respectively, that suddenly saw the Huskies a point away from the eighth spot in the standings.
Either way, NU (8-11-3, 4-6-2) played like they never had before this season, quite literally, in a 6-0 wallop of Providence College (6-13-3, 2-9-3) Saturday night at Matthews Arena.
“The points are very important,” said Husky coach Bruce Crowder after Saturday’s game, a night after NU and PC skated to a 3-3 tie, the Friars matching each of the Huskies’ goals. “We took five out of six during the regular season [against PC]. I’ve said this, we were due for a night like this where we had some things go our way. We’ve played very good hockey since the break, and maybe haven’t had the record to show it.”
Crowder was able to witness a list of occurrences in Saturday’s game that he hadn’t seen thus far this season — namely, a role reversal from senior defenseman Tim Judy and 5-foot-6 right winger Jared Mudryk.
Judy launched his second goal of the season at the 9:49 mark of the second period, his team’s fourth goal of the night, which seemed to send the Friars back to Providence. Judy approached the net on a 2-on-1 with freshman Josh Robertson and connected on a crowd-pleasing one timer.
A noticeably upset PC coach Paul Pooley pulled the plug on his starting goalie, David Cacciola, replacing him immediately with freshman Tyler Sims, and called an early timeout.
“Tonight was the first time we didn’t have great goaltending,” Pooley said, now in his 11th year in charge of the Friars. “I feel bad for those guys, because they’ve been working hard, but we’ve got to fight through it. Northeastern did some good things tonight; they shot the puck on goal, and good things happen when you shoot the puck.”
Then, with 35 seconds remaining in the period, Mudryk stood as Husky netminder Keni Gibson’s last hope on a 2-on-1 opportunity for PC.
Playing the point on NU’s penalty kill, Mudryk made a diving stop on Bill McCreary’s and Torry Gajda’s rush. Gibson, who recorded the seventh shutout of his career in his 100th game as a Husky, wasn’t quite sure who was in front of him during PC’s best chance of the night.
“Muddy and I were joking about him being on the point, that maybe he should be a defenseman now,” Gibson said. “I thought it was Tim Judy in front of me, and then I see No. 9 and said, ‘What’s going on here?’ I’ve got to give [Mudryk] credit for that.”
It was also a night in which Hockey East’s third leading scorer, Husky captain Jason Guerriero, did not have a part in any of his team’s goals. Neither did the team’s second leading scorer, Mike Morris, who mans the first line alongside Guerriero.
Instead, freshman Carter Lee, a ninth-round draft choice of the San Jose Sharks in the 2003 NHL Draft, who hadn’t played for the Huskies since Nov. 23, recorded his first two collegiate goals, leading an offensive attack that featured all four lines.
Chuck Tomes, a third-line defenseman, added his first goal of the year, while freshman Josh Robertson and Mudryk contributed to the balanced attack as well with goals of their own.
“You look down the score sheet and there’s no Guerriero and no Morris, and that’s an encouraging sign for us if we can keep that up,” Crowder said.
Lee, who tallied the final two goals for the Huskies, at 5:20 and 18:54 of the third period, had been examined by the NU coaching staff in practice, while working on every facet of his play to make his way back to the ice for Northeastern.
“It was all coach’s decision,” Crowder said of Lee’s lack of playing time. “He’s a young man that we’ve really been trying to get to work hard. He’s got an NHL shot, there’s no doubt about it. We talked to him a couple of weeks ago and asked him what the best part of his game was and he said his shot. I said, there’s no designated shooters in hockey, so you’ve got to go get it and you’ve got to battle and you’ve got to compete. He made the most of the opportunity tonight.”
Lee, a native of St. Louis, relished every minute of his time.
“To finally get up and earn my chance was an honor in itself,” he said. “Obviously, the result was even better. The first thing I thought of when I scored was, finally it’s over. I finally got it out of the way. The first two are probably the hardest to get, so to get them out the way, it’s a feeling I’ve never felt in a long time.”
Tomes opened up the scoring halfway through the first at 10:16, in an evenly matched period that saw the Friars take an early lead in total shots, 10-9.
Deep near the blue line, Tomes fired one into the left corner of the net, which flew right past Cacciola. Steve Sanders initiated the score with a well-timed pass from the left side.
Chris Chaput nearly tied things up for Providence just over two minutes into the second with a shot from an undefended position in the slot. Gibson stood tall, however, taking away Chaput’s effort with a glove save.
“I’ll take that as an assist or two,” Gibson said of the play, laughing. “We had better legs on the night, we were better conditioned. We were rolling all four lines, and we were out working them. It’s definitely something special every time in your career when you get one [shutout], but I’m going to have to go ahead and credit my team for this one.”
A night before, NU and the Friars skated to a 3-3 tie, which allowed an underachieving Providence team to pull, at seven points, within one of the Huskies in the standings.
The offensive rush was its usual self with Morris netting two, and Guerriero adding another. Guerriero assisted on the first two, adding another memorable night to his final year in a Husky uniform.
PC, however, scored after each of NU’s goals, as Nate Meyers, Jamie Carroll and McCreary all tallied in order.
The Huskies will have a chance to prove themselves again on Friday night in Chestnut Hill, as they face off against No. 2 Boston College, fresh off of a two-game sweep of No. 8 BU. Then, on Saturday, NU returns to Matthews Arena to host Merrimack College, currently dead last in Hockey East play (1-11-1). Both match-ups will start at 7 p.m.
