No. 6-seeded Northeastern men’s hockey (17-17-1, 11-13-0 HE) dominated the No. 10 University of New Hampshire Wildcats (14-20-1, 8-15-1 HE) 7-3 in the Hockey East tournament opening round March 11.
The Huskies outranked UNH in the Hockey East standings, so Northeastern had home ice advantage. Due to the closing of Matthews Arena, the game was played at Boston College’s Conte Forum. Luckily for the Huskies, they have had success on that ice, defeating BC last week, earlier this season and in last year’s Hockey East quarterfinals.
Throughout the game, Northeastern was aggressive and confident, making UNH bobble on the puck. Despite the bold play, the defense stayed composed, blocking 14 shots. Junior goaltender Lawton Zacher stood tall, saving 24 shots.
“We were kind of playing conservative I thought, even in the [defensive] zone,” said head coach Jerry Keefe. “And then I thought we started to move our feet a little bit more, started to pressure some more pucks and then we got our game going a little bit.”
The Wildcats came out hot, taking five shots before Northeastern managed one. However, the Huskies only needed one shot and two minutes and 10 seconds to find the back of the net.
Freshman forward Amine Hajibi grabbed the puck from the Huskies’ defensive zone before passing it up to sophomore forward Joe Connor as he entered the offensive zone. Connor and Hajibi got stuck on the right side of the wall with a couple of UNH players, but Hajibi got out of the mess with the puck. He passed to freshman defenseman Dylan Compton, who was sitting inside the blue line. Compton passed to freshman forward Jacob Mathieu in front of the net. Mathieu tapped the puck into the net past senior goaltender Kyle Chauvette.
“In this league, the season is not really long, so I think every game matters in the season,” Mathieu said. “But in the playoffs, the details are even more important, so we need to be sharp every shift, and I think tonight we did a great job as a team.”
This goal lit up the Huskies — they became more aggressive on plays and outhustled the Wildcats.
At three and a half minutes, sophomore forward Griffin Erdman got sent to the sin bin for hooking, but Northeastern killed the penalty.
At almost 17 minutes, Mathieu’s shot hit the pipe of the net, but the goal buzzer went off, causing some confusion on and off the ice. After review, the refs called no goal, which was met with a rowdy, negative response from The DogHouse.
The period ended with UNH outshooting Northeastern seven to three, despite the 1-0 Husky lead.
A little over a minute into the second period, UNH’s senior forward and captain Morgan Winters was issued a penalty for interference, but this did not slow the Wildcats down.
Freshman defenseman Alex Carr got around senior defenseman and captain Vinny Borgesi and pushed the puck past Zacher.
“Disappointed with giving up the short end goal. [I] didn’t think we were ready to start the period there,” said Keefe. “We responded the right way, and you know, when we’re moving our feet and we’re pressuring pucks and we’re connected, that’s when we’re playing our best.”
Keefe challenged for goaltender interference, but the goal stood, and the game was tied 1-1.
After losing their lead over a short-handed goal, the Huskies became weaker in their plays and did not have the same fire they possessed in the previous period.
When its lead began to slip, Northeastern found its groove again on a rebound goal by junior forward Tyler Fukakusa.
Junior forward Dylan Hryckowian drove the puck from the defensive to the neutral zone before passing to freshman forward Giacomo Martino. Martino brought the puck into Wildcat territory before sending it back to Hryckowian, but it bounced off the clash of Hryckowian’s and his opponent’s sticks and then off Chauvette. Fukakusa was hustling toward the net and pushed the puck backdoor to regain the lead, 2-1, just under eight minutes into the second period.
At 10 minutes in, the Huskies found the back of the net again.
Junior forward Matthew Perkins sat with the puck behind the Wildcat net before passing to Hajibi on the outer of the right faceoff circle. He skated towards the faceoff dot before sniping the shot into the net.
UNH answered two minutes later. Senior forward Kristaps Skrastins drove the puck further into the Wildcats’ offensive zone before turning at the left faceoff circle. He passed to sophomore forward Cam MacDonald, who hit the one-timer past Zacher for a 3-2 scoreboard.
Northeastern didn’t get defeated after this goal like the last one, instead scoring its fourth goal of the night at 17 minutes courtesy of Connor.
At the top of the right faceoff circle, Compton passed to freshman forward Jack Pechar in between the circles. Pechar immediately passed back to Mathieu, who sent the puck into the mess in front of the goal. Connor grabbed the puck and tapped it in. This was Connor’s 13th goal of the season, tying him with Martino for second-most goals of the season.
The Huskies scored their final goal of the period in the last 30 seconds. Similar to Hajibi’s goal, Mathieu brought the puck behind the back of UNH’s net before passing it to Compton at the right faceoff circle. The freshman sniped the one-timer into the net for his fourth goal this season.
“I would have thought that would have been a low-scoring type of game,” Keefe said. “But I’ll take the goals because our team had struggled a little bit … we’re slowly starting to put some goals together in multiple games here.”
Almost four minutes into the final frame, Compton was sent to the box for tripping.
Less than a minute into the power play, UNH’s junior forward Nick Ring took advantage of the extra player and narrowed the lead to two goals at 5-3.
From the top of the right faceoff circle, senior forward Cy LeClerc passed to MacDonald at the bottom of the circle. MacDonald sent the puck to Ring, who was in front of the net between two Northeastern defensemen, sophomore Jack Henry and senior Dylan Finlay.
Northeastern’s pressure on UNH — intercepting passes and forcing mistakes — kept the Wildcats at bay. The team was playing like it did last semester, before it started to self-destruct in the majority of its games and thus dropped out of the NPI rankings.
At 15 minutes, freshman defenseman Noah Jones was called for cross-checking, putting the Wildcats on their third power play. New Hampshire called a timeout a minute into the power play to try to set a game plan, but it didn’t work.
Twenty seconds out of the timeout, the team pulled Chauvette for an extra skater, but Northeastern quickly took advantage, with Perkins delivering the team’s sixth goal of the night. The transfer from Minnesota Duluth intercepted a UNH pass in Husky territory before sending it down the ice into the net.
Eight seconds after the Huskies resumed full strength, Jones collected a goal of his own — another empty-netter. Off an attempted Wildcat pass from behind Northeastern’s net along the board, Jones intercepted the pass and sent the puck down the ice.
With a minute remaining in the period, a fight broke out between Erdman and freshman defenseman Nick De Angelis. For the fight, De Angelis got two minutes for cross-checking, two minutes for roughing and 10 minutes for misconduct. Erdman received a lesser penalty: two minutes for roughing and 10 minutes for misconduct.
Despite the gap in the score, the two teams were evenly matched. In terms of shots, New Hampshire outshot the Huskies 27 to 24. Both teams’ coaches echoed this sentiment.
“I give UNH a lot of credit because that score was not indicative of the game itself,” said Keefe.
Northeastern will take on the University of Massachusetts (21-12-1, 14-9-1 HE) in Amherst Saturday, March 14 at 4 p.m. The team has faced the Minutemen four times this season, winning twice. Two of the matchups went into overtime, where the Huskies won one and lost the other.
“No surprises,” Keefe said. “They know us, we know them. We know their building … You know, their goaltender’s very good. Our goaltender’s very good. So, it’s going to be a good goaltending matchup. We just got to get to our game. Simple as that.”
