AMHERST – The No. 13 University of Massachusetts hockey played to a 3-3 tie with UConn through 65 minutes. But the Huskies took the shootout point for the Hockey East standings, 1-0 in four rounds on Friday evening.
UMass sits at 11-5-3 overall 4-3-2 in league action, while UConn moved to 8-9-2, 4-6-1 in Hockey East.
“Tonight’s game felt very similar to our last two games,” said UMass head coach Greg Carvel. “Another game in overtime. But another game that I thought we were slightly the better team and found a way to fight back and take the lead. The one thing with this team is they need to learn how to win. We take a penalty, I think an unnecessary penalty, to give them a power play, and then we didn’t do a very good job on the kill, obviously, but I like the way our team competes.
“I like the way we played. We played hard. For the most part, a lot of positives. We’re missing three really important players on our team right now, and this is the stretch where we knew we weren’t going to have them, and I think they were probably a difference, but I liked the way our team played tonight.”
Following a scoreless first, freshman Jack Musa put the Minutemen on the board 1:17 into the second period. Juniors Ryan Ufko and Scott Morrow created the opportunity for Musa, who buried the puck from the left faceoff circle on the power play for his eighth of the year.
UConn promptly tied things up just 43 seconds later. Samu Salminen won a defensive zone faceoff back to Tom Messineo and Messineo’s outlet pass set up Jake Percival with a partial breakaway that ended in the equalizing tally.
The Huskies then pulled in front, 2-1, midway through the period when Joey Muldoney collected a centering pass from Ryan Mahshie and sent a no-look off-balance shot toward the net that found its way under UMass netminder Cole Brady at the 11:38 mark with Messineo collecting the secondary helper.
Sophomore Kenny Connors pulled the Minutemen level with UConn at 2-2, 7:56 into the third period. Senior Linden Alger rimmed a puck around the boards that was collected by sophomore Cole O’Hara, who sent a centering feed to Connors at the doorstep, and Connors managed to tuck in a backhand behind the outstretched left pad of Ethan Haider.
UMass then took a 3-2 lead at 13:17 with freshman Aydar Suniev blasting a rocket through traffic for a power-play goal from Ufko and Musa, the eighth tally of his rookie campaign.
However, the Huskies responded once more with a power-play score from Hudson Shandor, set up by Salminen and Jake Richard with two minutes to play in regulation.
Both teams had opportunities in the extra frame, but neither would find the back of the net. The shootout then went four rounds before seeing a goal with Jake Flynn pocketing the deciding tally for UConn.
UMass ended the contest with a 45-30 shot advantage and went 2-for-5 on the power play, while the Huskies were 1-for-3.
Haider finished with 42 saves for UConn and Brady made 27 stops for the Minutemen.
Massachusetts will be back in action next Friday, January 12, when the squad will play host to Merrimack on the front end of a home-and-home at 7 p.m.
