By Eoghan Kelly, News Staff
It turns out that, for the men’s hockey team, a weekend in Burlington, Vt., was just what the doctor ordered.
The Huskies got back on the winning track, sweeping back-to-back games against the University of Vermont Catamounts in style, 8-3 and 4-2, Friday and Saturday night at Gutterson Fieldhouse. The wins halted Northeastern’s four-game losing streak and boosted the Huskies’ record to 10-11-3 overall and 6-11-2 in Hockey East.
With eight conference games remaining in the season, the Huskies are tied with the University of Massachusetts-Amherst for seventh place in Hockey East with 14 points. Hockey East playoffs begin March 9, with the top eight of 10 teams, based on conference points, earning a seed.
“We’re obviously pleased that we obviously got the four points this weekend,” head coach Jim Madigan said. “I thought at times we played really well and had a real strong forecheck goings … [We are] pleased with our effort as our team, pleased with the fact that we got the four points and we’re back into the race.”
Going into the weekend, the Huskies scored only six goals over their previous four games, including losses to then-No. 6 Boston University (4-3), then-No. 4 Boston College (2-1) and then-No. 14 UMass-Lowell (4-0 and 3-2 in overtime).
But against the Catamounts (5-19-1, 2-15-1 Hockey East), who had gone 3-12 in their last 15 games, Northeastern surpassed the six goal mark before the weekend was even half over.
The Huskies dilivered eight goals Friday night, three from sophomore forward Cody Ferriero’s hat trick, who also registered an assist for his first career four-point night. The Huskies saw six different skaters tally goals and twelve players overall register points in Friday’s routing of Vermont.
Junior forward Garrett Vermeersch continued his point streak when he opened the game’s scoring with a backhander over the blocker of Vermont senior goaltender Rob Madore 4:17 into the first period. Vermeersch has scored 14 points in his last 13 games.
“[Vermeersch is] an offensive player and we’ve been telling him to go to the net and shoot the puck,” Madigan said. “Garrett’s got a good stick. He’s a goal-scorer … If he continues to drive to the net and be hungry around the net, then he’ll get some opportunities.”
Senior center and captain Mike McLaughlin made it 2-0 at 9:05 when he ripped a one-timer past Madore for his fourth goal of the season on Northeastern’s first of six power plays.
The Huskies added another pair of tallies in the second period at almost identical times as the first, 4:25 and 9:36, courtesy of junior forward Steve Quailer on the power play and freshman forward Adam Reid, bringing the score up to 4-0.
“It was nice for our offense to get going tonight, scoring eight and taking the lead early in the first,” Madigan said. “Obviously in the third period we jumped up a little bit. So it’s great to get back in the win column for us.”
The Essex native tallied the Huskies’ next three markers, the second and third of which came only two minutes and 21 seconds apart in the third period. Ferriero’s his hat trick on the power play at 12:32 in the final frame put Northeastern at three-for-six for the game.
“[We had a] good power play, we moved pucks there,” Madigan said. We’ve been trying to just get pounding pucks to the net. We hit a couple posts on the power play, as well as went three-for-six, so obviously happy with that.”
Northeastern’s special teams play wasn’t flawless. The Huskies allowed a shorthanded goal at 13:45 into the second period to freshman forward Kyle Mountain, brother of Northeastern junior back-up goalie Bryan, and the penalty killing unit allowed a power play goal late in the third on Vermont’s final of six man-advantages of the game.
Freshman Ludwig Karlsson added a late tally to give the Huskies an eight-spot, their second-highest single-game tally of the season. The Huskies put up nine goals in a 9-2 victory over Notre Dame Dec. 2.
Saturday night’s match-up was much more disciplined.
Vermont allowed Northeastern only one power play in the season series finale between the two sides, while the Huskies gave up only four to the Catamounts, their lowest total in four games. But the Catamounts still managed to earn a power play tally when they scored with sophomore goalie Alex Vazzano, starting in place of Madore, pulled with two minutes to play.
“We’ve been fighting internally, just our intelligence level all year long, just about taking too many undisciplined penalties and I thought we fell victim to it again tonight,” Madigan said. “Those [are] situations that we’re really not pleased with and we’ll have to address those, because if we’re going to continue to climb back into this race, that can’t happen.”
The six-on-four tally made the score 3-2, bringing Vermont to within one after the Huskies had picked up goals earlier in the game.
Junior forward Robbie Vrolyk started the game’s scoring 6:56 into the opening period with his first goal of the season. After Vermont freshman forward Kyle Reynolds leveled the score at 1-1 midway through the first period, junior forward Alex Tuckerman put the Huskies back on top with his third goal of the season at 5:38 in the second. Freshman defenseman Dan Cornell made it 3-1 with a wrister from just inside the point nearly five minutes later.
Ferriero added an empty-netter 19 seconds remaining in the game to give him five points on the weekend, earning him co-Hockey East Athletic Republic Player of the Week honors.
“We’ve talked about it all year long, We believe we’re a real good five-on-five team,” Madigan said. “If we can keep in that rhythm in getting pucks in deep and then buzzin’, that each line feeds of the next, and that’s what you saw. Our guys really were putting pucks to the net, we were going to the net hard … And as I said, the rest of the bench was just feeding off the next line.”
Northeastern swept its season series with Vermont, outscoring the Catamounts 16-6 in three games.
With the University of New Hampshire and University of Massachusetts-Amherst each losing a pair of games over the weekend, to No. 8 Boston College and No. 11 UMass-Lowell, respectively, the Huskies leapfrogged UNH in the standings and will battle for sixth place when they take on the Minutemen Friday night at Matthews Arena at 7 p.m.
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