By Jared Shafran, News Staff
Fresh from taking down the top team in the country last week, the Northeastern men’s hockey team couldn’t continue its winning ways against another tough opponent – New Hampshire. The teams skated to a 2-2 tie on Friday night in Durham and the Wildcats prevailed on Saturday night at Matthews Arena by a score of 6-3.
Based on the results during the weekend in Hockey East, the Huskies will finish sixth in the conference and will travel to either Boston University, Merrimack or Maine for the quarterfinals next weekend.
Northeastern continues to be led by assistant coach Sebastien Laplante, who is leading the team in the interim as head coach Greg Cronin and assistant Albie O’Connell are suspended indefinitely for possible recruiting violations, which the university declined to comment on an ongoing investigation.
After getting out to a two-goal lead early in the second period Friday night, the Huskies allowed a comeback but held on for a 2-2 tie with the UNH at the Wittemore Center.
“I’ll give all the credit to UNH,” Laplante said. “They put pucks behind our defense and our defense got tired. We weren’t able to contain them coming through the middle of the ice and pressuring us. They did a good job of adjusting their forecheck.”
The Huskies took the early lead when they got the first goal of the game at 15:51. Sophomore forward Steve Quailer made a nice move around a defenseman as he carried the puck into the Wildcats’ zone. Quailer then waited and made a perfect pass to the stick of sophomore defenseman Drew Daniels, who wristed the puck past goaltender Matt DiGirolamo.
NU increased its lead on a power play goal by senior forward Wade MacLeod at 6:13 into the second period. Taking a pass from freshman linemate Brodie Reid, MacLeod skated between the circles to the slot and beat DiGirolamo with a low shot to the bottom right corner of the net. MacLeod has 17 goals on the season, leading the team.
But later in the period, the Huskies fortune took a turn for the worse as UNH, who is in the midst of a battle for the Hockey East regular season title for the second straight year, turned it on and wouldn’t go down without a fight.
The Wildcats got on the board with just over four minutes remaining in the second period when Connor Hardowa, a defenseman who was moved up to forward after an injury to Greg Burke, beat NU sophomore goalie Chris Rawlings to cut the Husky lead in half, 2-1.
Just a few seconds into the third period, it looked as if UNH got the equalizer when Stevie Moses shoved one past Rawlings on a second effort. But upon an official review, the goal was disallowed. Although the Huskies had caught a break, their luck didn’t last long. Just minutes later, NU took a penalty for too many men on the ice and Wildcat freshman Kevin Goumas tied the game with a power play goal at 7:32 of the third.
Rawlings stood strong for the Huskies for the remainder of the third, not allowing anything else to get past him despite a few prime chances for UNH and finished with 12 saves in the period.
Neither team was able to score during the extra five minute overtime and the game ended in a tie.
“This is a bunch that believes in each other and there’s a lot of confidence in that locker room,” Laplante said. “They’re being thrown a lot and they’re responding every game so my hat goes off to these kids because even though we had our backs against the wall, Chris [Rawlings] made some good saves to keep us in the game and I’m proud of the effort.”
But the Huskies didn’t get back the momentum they had early in Friday’s game, and surrendered a 6-3 loss to the Wildcats the next night back in Boston.
After a first period with many chances for UNH, the Wildcats finally broke through with 29 seconds remaining in the frame, as forward Mike Sislo blasted a slapshot past Rawlings for his eleventh goal of the season.
The lead was pushed to 3-1 by the end of the second period, after foward Stevie Moses and Hockey East scoring leaderforward Paul Thompson scored and the Wildcats were in control from there, cruising to a 6-3 victory.
NU received goals from freshman defenseman Luke Eibler, freshman forward Cody Ferriero, and MacLeod, who got his team-leading eighteenth goal of the season.
“I guess I’ll take the blame for not getting them ready in the first period,” Laplante said. “I thought we were ready. We were a little tentative, it took us a little while to get going. I love the way they responded in the second. Overall I thought we played better structurally for a longer period of time than we did yesterday, give them credit they got the bounces and they finished their scoring chances while we didn’t capitalize on the ones we had early on and had to play catch up.”
For Ferriero, the tally was his second of the season and his first since his first game in a Husky uniform Oct. 8
“I thought he was terrific,” Laplante said of Ferriero. “He skated really well, he’s playing with a lot more confidence, and if he can keep it going like this he’s certainly going to be an asset for us coming down the stretch.”
With one final weekend remaining in the regular season, Northeastern will finish with a home-and-home series with Boston University. The first game is Friday night at Matthews Arena and will serve as senior night, with gametime scheduled for 7 p.m.
“This is a fun time of the year to play hockey,” Laplante said. “We got one weekend against a terrific Boston University team. When you look at the way we’ve been responding to all this adversity I think it’s positive, and we’ll extract those positives and build on it to go into that BU weekend.”
