Ordinarily, Northeastern hockey coach Bruce Crowder would have been thrilled by last Friday’s one-sided victory by his team.
But as his players know, the schedule for the next month will determine what the Huskies will be playing for in the following three.
Nonetheless, the Huskies of Northeastern dominated the Huskies of Connecticut on Friday in thrilling fashion, winning 10-1 before a crowd of 2,849 at Matthews Arena.
Ten goals, 10 points scored by the first line (Mike Ryan scored two goals and added an assist, Jason Guerriero (2,2) and Mike Morris (0,3)), and 22 saves by old friend Mike Gilhooly gave something for the Huskies to build on. But of the next six games, all at home, three are against top five teams (Denver, Wisconsin and New Hampshire), another against a top-10 team (Maine) and two others against Hockey East foes (Massachusetts and Providence).
“We’ll find out a lot about ourselves in that stretch,” said Crowder in an interview with The News last week.
After Friday’s nine goal victory, Crowder can rest a little easier knowing that first game is out of the way.
“We played 60 minutes of hockey,” Crowder said. “We were able to roll four lines out there and everyone made a contribution. We paid good attention to detail.”
NU’s defense smothered UConn for most of the game, thanks in large part to sophomore Tim Judy and Brian Sullivan. The new first line on defense blocked shots and never let UConn sustain a major rush on offense.
“We’re deep this year,” said Sullivan. “We’ve always said the most important guy is that seventh defender. I think we are as deep as we’ve been.”
From the outset, Northeastern was able to generate several good scoring opportunities and, eight minutes in, NU got on the scoreboard when a flip into the zone by Jaron Herriman caught the stick of Brian Tudrick who scored one of his two tallies as he wristed the puck past Artie Imbriano to make it 1-0.
NU scored just 26 seconds after that, when senior Mike Ryan netted the first of his two tallies when he broke in alone.
Guerriero, who had four points on the night, made use of the new 15 second rule. Both teams have 15 seconds from the time the play is stopped until the puck is dropped to get to the face-off. Guerriero was ready. UConn wasn’t. Guerriero won the draw and ripped a wrist shot past Imbriano.
“I hope we get one like that in the Hockey East playoffs,” Crowder said with a laugh. “You gotta be ready and Jason was.”
Gilhooly kept UConn scoreless until the third period when, on a flurry in front of the net, Ron D’Angelo put home a deflection to make it 8-1.
Freshman Mike Morris, who has thrilled coaches and teammates with his desire to learn and his skills nearly polished to perfection, several times tried to hook up with Guerriero on a couple of nifty passes before he finally found the sophomore center in front with a nifty feed and Guerriero deposited it into the net to make it 8-0.
The Huskies will host No. 2 ranked Denver this Saturday at Matthews Arena at 7 p.m.
Notes: The 10 goals scored by the Huskies is the most goals scored by an NU team since a 10-9 edging of Chicago-Illinois…The Huskies haven’t lost a home opener under Crowder and have won seven consecutive home openers…Tudrick’s two goals nearly equals what he had all of last season. The sophomore scored just three goals all of last year.
