By: Jason Mastrodonato, News Staff
The men’s hockey team sent 13 men to the penalty box, collected 48 penalty minutes and had two players earn game misconducts, yet still battled to a 2-2 tie against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Saturday night.
“Anytime you have two five-minute majors and three 5-on-3s against and you don’t lose the game, you’re lucky,” head coach Greg Cronin said. “We can’t play hockey like that and expect to win. It just destroys the game.”
The Huskies (0-2-0 Hockey East, 0-2-1 overall) couldn’t collect a win in their first out-of-conference game this season, and their second contest at Matthews Arena. RPI (0-1-2) had 13 penalties as well in a game where two NU players got ejected and at least one RPI player was injured.
“It was borderline nasty for two teams that don’t know each other that well,” RPI coach Seth Appert said.
The Huskies have spent more time in the penalty box (74 minutes) than any other team in Hockey East through the first three games, and have the fourth-highest mark in the NCAA.
Less than two minutes after the opening puck-drop, RPI sent a player to the box for cross-checking. But the Huskies couldn’t take advantage, failing to rip a single shot on goal. After going 0-8 in extra-man attempts in the game, NU has converted on just a single power play in 20 chances this year.
“That’s just not going to work,” Cronin said. “Your power play is your offensive catalyst and it’s really ugly when your power play doesn’t generate any chances. And we didn’t generate any chances the whole night. So we have to figure it out.”
With about seven minutes left in the first period, the Huskies collected back-to-back slashing penalties within five seconds of each other, giving RPI a 5-on-3 for almost two minutes. The Engineers converted 29 seconds later, when Bryan Brutlag deflected a slap shot from Tyler Helfrich to give RPI the early lead.
A few minutes later, with the referee’s arm in the air for a RPI penalty and an extra NU attacker on the ice, Rob Dongara converted a highlight-reel goal. Dongara scooped up a loose puck in front of the net, spun around and flung the shot into an opening barely big enough for the puck to squeeze through. The freshman forward’s shot knocked the goalkeeper’s water bottle off the net and into the air for NU’s first home goal of the new year and Dongara’s first collegiate goal.
Freshman defenseman Jamie Oleksiak also notched his first collegiate goal early in the second, slotting a wrist shot from the point that beat RPI goalie Allen York, an NHL draft pick of the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The goal was the fourth of the season for the Huskies, all four scored by freshmen.
Later in the second period, freshman forward Zak Stone sent Alex Angers-Goulet to the ice for at least five minutes, grasping his ribs after Stone nailed him into the boards. But the illegal hit resulted in a five-minute major and a game misconduct for hitting from behind.
The Huskies killed the penalty but took a few more in the period.
Chase Polacek, a senior who scored 26 goals for the Engineers last season and also hit a few posts during the game, snapped a shot from the point that trickled through freshman goalie Chris Rawlings to even the score, 2-2.
Rawlings made 30 saves in the game and has allowed six goals in his first three starts. He’s ranked in the top 20 in the country in both goals against average and save percentage.
In the final period, senior defender Randy Guzior joined Stone with an early exit. Guzior slammed an RPI player from behind and into his own bench, his head bouncing off the boards as his body fell to the ice.
“You just can’t go up to a guy and cross-check him in the back and think that that’s not going to be called,” said Cronin. “I thought, ‘What don’t you get here? How do you do this knowing you’re going to be sitting in the penalty box and your teammates are going to be shorthanded?’”
The Huskies applied pressure in the third period and got some scoring chances during the overtime period, but they couldn’t capitalize.
The last time the Huskies started out 0-2-1 was in Cronin’s first year at NU, the 2005-06 season. That team finished 3-24-7 and lost every one of its out-of-conference games.
“I’m kind of trying to figure out what we are,” Cronin said. “I think we’re starting to see some things, maybe some glue that’s going to give us that image that we’re trying to create. It’s just going to take some time.”
Northeastern will host No. 7 New Hampshire (1-1-1) Friday night in a key Hockey East matchup and the first conference game for the Wildcats.
Game Notes: Sophomore forward Justin Daniels sat out his second consecutive contest with an apparent high ankle sprain, but was seen limping around after the game without a protective boot. Freshman forward Braden Pimm and junior defender Drew Muench were held out for unidentified reasons. Sophomore forward Steve Morra earned his first start of the season and ripped three shots on net.
