By Jonathan Raymond
A simple slap from the blue line was all it took for junior defenseman Denis Chisholm and the No. 12 Huskies Friday night in a 4-3 win over visiting Brown.
Late in the third, Chisholm skated to the blue line and smacked at the puck to keep it in the Brown zone. His shot found a clear lane and slid by Brown goalie Mark Sibbald’s right side, netting him the game-winner just a minute and a half after Brown had evened the score at three on a power play.
“The puck came back to the point and I took a shot on net and it went right in,” Chisholm said. “That’s what happens when you shoot the puck on net.”
Despite the victory, the Huskies found themselves struggling out of the gate. They were called for five penalties in the first period, which led to a five-on-three and four-on-three that both resulted in Brown goals, leading to a 2-0 first period deficit.
The slow starts have been a fixture for the team so far this season. Opponents have scored first in 10 of the Huskies’ 12 games this year, though NU has gone 7-3-0 in those games.
Head coach Greg Cronin said he isn’t worried about the team’s strange tendency to go down early and come back.
“You tend to magnify one game. At BC they obviously played well the first period there, but in the game before that, with Lowell, we were fine. Up at [New Hampshire] we were a little flat. But I don’t know, I don’t have an answer for it. It’s definitely a trend, and I don’t know why it’s happening,” he said. “But the good thing is we’ve managed to come back in all those games. We fall and then we come back.”
The team was able to respond, as freshman forward Steve Silva busted out with two goals in the second period. The first came off a deflection from freshman defenseman Drew Muench’s shot, and on the second he took the rebound from junior forward Ryan Ginand’s shot and put it in net. It was Silva’s second two-goal game of the season, giving him five points (four goals and an assist) on the year.
Cronin said he was impressed by the play of the young forward.
“He could have had four goals. I thought he played really well. He was real visible,” he said.
With the game tied at two in the third period, the Huskies took a lead early on senior forward Jimmy Russo’s breakaway goal. His first attempt on the breakaway was stopped, but the goalie left a rebound right in front of the net and Russo dumped it in for his second goal in the last two games.
“I just got a pass from Kraemer, and I saw that I had a little step on the [defense], so I just tried to go as fast as I could to the net and I held the defender off and got a shot off and the goalie actually left a rebound right there for me, so it was kind of a nice little tap in,” Russo said.
The one-goal win was the team’s third in a row and the fourth of its seven-game unbeaten streak. Russo said the team’s attitude and unity are reasons why the team continues to pull out the close victories.
“The whole team believes in it, everyone pulls their rope, and that’s why we’re winning one goal games,” he said.
The crowd of 3,059 was largely anchored by students filling out the upper rim at Matthews Arena, the Dog House territory. Cronin said it was this vocal group that helped spur the team and keep the team’s energy up throughout the game.
“The fact that the crowd was so strong and vocal, I think that really energized our team,” he said. “I have to be frank with you, I don’t know if we win that game if it’s in an away building. Our crowd was really vocal. It was very uplifting for us.”
The Huskies travel to Schenectady, N.Y. to play Union Saturday, their last game before a 20-day holiday layoff. They return to action in Wisconsin at the Badger Hockey Showdown Dec. 28 and 29 and resume Hockey East play Jan. 4 in Orono against Maine.
To follow the road action while home for break, tune into WRBBRadio.org to listen to the game live with Keith Lavon and Pete Martin.
