![\"UConn's](\"https:\/\/sabafamily.net\/joshua\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/FirstHockeyEastGoal.png\")
<\/a>UConn’s Goal Vs. Merrimack<\/p><\/div>\n
At the beginning of October, UConn hockey started a new era by officially joining Hockey East.\u00a0 This season means some big changes for the Huskies as they will transfer to the top college hockey conference in the nation and also move to a new off-campus home, the XL Center in Hartford, and will also play five games at the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, which will be considered their secondary home.\u00a0 The Huskies are now receiving more publicity and are gaining a larger fan-base.\u00a0 Hence, the Huskies are finally achieving their goal of becoming a top college hockey team by joining the top college conference, something they have always been striving towards and moving towards.\u00a0 In college hockey, teams are divided into three divisions, with Division-III being considered the lowest division, and Division-I the best, and with each division having several leagues within them.\u00a0 Until 1998, UConn was in Division-III before they made the jump to Division-I in only one year.\u00a0 The Huskies adjusted right away, posting 20 wins the first year and won the league championship the next year.\u00a0 In 2003, they joined the Atlantic Hockey league, where they would stay until last year.\u00a0 With a history of continuing to move to the next highest level, UConn had been long vying for acceptance into Hockey East, but had never been accepted because they weren’t good enough.\u00a0 They had only had one winning season in 10 years, in a much simpler league than Hockey East, so Hockey East viewed UConn as clearly unqualified to join.<\/p>\n
That all changed in 2010.\u00a0 A year after only earning 7 wins, the Huskies improved thanks to the arrival of some high-scoring freshman, and their goaltender Garret Bartus who became near invincible.\u00a0 They finished the year with a winning league record, made it to the semifinals, and got home playoffs for the first time in four years.\u00a0 They started drawing larger crowds to their games with seeing four games where over 1000 people attended compared to the previous season’s dismal attendance records.\u00a0 So while the season was a big improvement overall, most people thought it was just a fluke, while on the contrary the Huskies only got better.\u00a0 The next season the Huskies posted 16 wins, the program’s most since 2007, earned home playoffs for the second straight year, and made it to the quarterfinals.\u00a0 Some player records were also recorded with Cole Schneider setting a record for the most goals and points in one season and goalie Garrett Bartus recorded a school record 5 shutouts.\u00a0 For the 2nd straight year as well, the Huskies attendance continued to rise, with the Huskies getting two sellout crowds during the year.\u00a0 This was big since the Huskies hadn’t even sold-out one game since 2007.\u00a0 Also, for the first time ever, the Huskies beat a team ranked as one of the top 20 teams in the nation, beating No. 19 Air Force in the playoffs, 3-1.<\/p>\n
That summer, UConn announced that they had been granted membership into Hockey East and would join officially in the 2014-2015 season.\u00a0 This meant some big changes with the Huskies now offering scholarships, and also having to move from their on-campus home the Mark Edward Freitas Ice Forum, to the XL Center in Hartford, until a new rink is built on-campus, since the new league required a larger seating capacity.\u00a0 The new league also meant tougher opponents, but the Huskies had two years until they joined Hockey East to prepare.\u00a0 Just as the Huskies future seemed bright, the 2012-2013 started out in turmoil.\u00a0 After only five games, head coach Bruce Marshall took a medical leave of absence, leaving assistant coach Dave Berard in charge of a team with a 0-4-1 record and who only scored 4 goals in their first five games.\u00a0 To make matters worse, Bruce Marshall stepped down as head coach in early January.\u00a0 Now the Huskies had a big problem: there was only two years until the Huskies joined Hockey East in which they were supposed to be training to become a better team to deal with better opponents and now they didn’t have a head coach.<\/p>\n
Ironically though the 2012-2013 season turned out to be the best season UConn had had in over a decade, and what Dave Berard did with UConn was amazing.\u00a0 The Huskies picked up 19 wins, the most since 2000, went to the semifinals, got home playoffs for the quarterfinals, and finished the #4 seed in the league.\u00a0 Two key players in this success were Trevor Gerling who scored 12 goals after only scoring 1 the previous year, and totaling 25 points, and Matt Grogan, who in December took over the job of starting goalie from Garret Bartus and was amazing going 14-4-3 on the year.\u00a0 The Huskies hosted Robert Morris in the quarterfinals after earning a bye of the first round by finishing in the top four.\u00a0 They swept Robert Morris with 4-1 and 4-3 wins, something not many people expected them to do.\u00a0 Unfortunately they would be eliminated in the semifinals by Mercyhurst in a 4-1 loss, pampered by bad luck.\u00a0 Still, it was a major improvement over even the past two years, and showed the team was definitely starting to play the way the needed to in order to be in Hockey East.\u00a0 Also for the third year their attendance and fan-base continued to grow larger, exhibited by an over-capacity, boisterous crowd on senior night, to see the Huskies skate to a 4-4 draw with Sacred Heart.<\/p>\n
Despite Dave Berard’s great one year tenure as interm head coach of the Huskies and the success he guided them to, he didn’t get hired as the new head coach.\u00a0 Instead, UConn hired Mike Cavanaugh, the now former associate head coach of Boston College who was at that position for 18 seasons, and a man UConn saw as well-equipped to lead UConn into Hockey East.\u00a0 The Huskies finished with a similar record to the previous season, sporting a 18-14-4 overall record.\u00a0 However, the Huskies unfortunately did not achieve the same amount of success in the playoffs as they had had in the past three years, losing in the quarterfinals.\u00a0 The Huskies finished 4th in the league, so they got home ice for the quarterfinals and got a bye of the first round.\u00a0 Since they finished in 4th they had to play Robert Morris for a second year in a row, except this time RMU would win.\u00a0 A bad-luck 4-3 loss to Army late in the season in which the Huskies scored 3 goals that were discounted, put the Huskies in 4th instead of 3rd which would have seen them play Niagara, whom the Huskies would have a had an easier time beating.\u00a0 Still the Huskies had a successful season.\u00a0 They created a new record for confrence points during the AHA era with 33 and tied the record for conference wins with 15.\u00a0 It was also the fourth year in a row that UConn’s attendance continued to rise, drawing a sellout crowd to senior night.\u00a0 The Huskies also set a program record attendance in December.\u00a0 The UConn Hockey Classic was to be played in Hartford at the XL Center for it’s final year.\u00a0 The Huskies played Sacred Heart in front of a record crowd of 2500, only for the new record to broken the next night when UConn beat UMass, 2-1, in front of a crowd of 2700.\u00a0 This season also capped the Huskies most successful four years in Division-I with 68 wins in those four years.\u00a0 The season also celebrated one of the most influential senior class in program history:\u00a0 Goalie Matt Grogan, who posted 25 wins after taking over the position of leading goalie mid-way through the 2012-2013 season, and set a program record for GAA (Goals Allowed Average) and most saves in a game;\u00a0 Brant Harris who set the record for Division-I career points with 112; Jordan Sims who picked up 101 career points and finally Billy Latta who garnered 98 career points.\u00a0 These seniors led the Huskies from the bottom of the league to be a championship contender every year and be good enough to enter into Hockey East.<\/p>\n
That brings us to the beginning of the current season.\u00a0 On October 5, 2014, the Huskies played Dalhousie in an exhibition game at their old on-campus home, the Mark Edward Freitas Ice Forum, to unofficially begin the Hockey East era.\u00a0 The Huskies won 3-1, in front of a surprisingly small crowd of only 800 people; a larger crowd was expected since it was UConn’s only on-campus game all season.\u00a0 The next game was their official season opener at Penn State, and the game that would officially begin UConn’s Hockey East era.\u00a0 The environment favored Penn State thanks to a noisy crowd of 6000 people at Pegula Ice Arena, and the Nittany Lions fed off the energy, using it to outshoot the Huskies 13-5 in the first, but neither team could find the back of the net, as UConn’s netminder Rob Nichols kept Penn State off the board with some fantastic saves.\u00a0 In the second, it would be the Huskies who would strike first.\u00a0 As the Huskies came up the ice on an odd-man rush, Brent Norris tried to pass to Evan Richardson, but his pass was deflected where it was picked up and shot in by Patrick Kirtland to put UConn up 1-0.\u00a0 This was the first Husky goal in the Hockey East era and as a Hockey East team.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Penn State would tie the game not long after as the Nittany Lions scored on a Penalty Shot to make a 1-1 game heading into the final stanza.\u00a0 In the third, the Huskies would once again take the lead.\u00a0 With less than five minutes to go in the game, Spencer Naas blasted a shot from the blue line through traffic in front of the net that would find the back of the net, putting UConn up, 2-1.\u00a0 The Huskies would hold the lead until Penn State scored with 48 seconds left in regulation when the puck was thrown toward goal and bounced in off a Nittany Lions’ skate.\u00a0 This goal sent the game to overtime, where Penn State held a 5-2 lead in shots but neither team found a game-winner.\u00a0 Since no one scored in overtime, the game went to a shootout.\u00a0 Penn State scored on their first attempt, along with the Huskies’ Evan Richardson.\u00a0 In the second round, neither team scored.\u00a0 In the third round, Rob Nichols stopped Penn State’s attempt, but Shawn Pauly scored for UConn to pick up the shootout win.<\/p>\n
The next game was also against Penn State to finish the weekend series.\u00a0 Except this game was much different because it was all Penn State.\u00a0 The Nittany Lions built up a 2-0 lead after just one period of play, and then made it 3-0 early in second.\u00a0 The Huskies would respond to make it 3-1 when Spencer Naas banged home a rebound for his first collegiate goal.\u00a0 That would be all UConn would get as Penn State would score three more in the second and one more in the third for a 7-1 win.\u00a0 The next weekend the Huskies traveled to Merrimack for their first ever Hockey East conference game.\u00a0 There was a ceremonial puck drop before the game.\u00a0 The Huskies would strike first late in the first period with a goal by freshman David Drake, for his first collegiate goal.\u00a0 The puck was attempted to be cleared by Merrimack but stopped by Drake on the blue line who then let a slap shot go that would find the back of the net with seconds left in the period to give UConn the 1-0 lead.\u00a0 The Huskies would use strong defense to hold this lead all the way until the third, where unfortunately Merrimack would tie it.\u00a0 With their goalie pulled, Merrimack shot the puck through traffic in front of the net on goal, which Rob Nichols would save as well as the first rebound but the second rebound would be put home to tie the game at one with a little over thirty second left in the game.\u00a0 The game would go to overtime, where Merrimack would complete the heart-breaker by scoring the game-winner for the 2-1 overtime win.<\/p>\n
The next game the Huskies had their unofficial home-opener since they were playing at their secondary home, Webster Bank Arena, where they were taking on Quinnipiac, who was ranked the 15th best team in the nation.\u00a0 Despite this the Huskies struck first.\u00a0 Jacob Poe received the puck on the blue line during the power play, and he fired a shot through traffic and his shot would be tipped home by Evan Richardson to make it 1-0 UConn.\u00a0 The Huskies went up by two when the Bobcats misplayed the puck behind their own net.\u00a0 UConn dumped the puck into the Quinnipiac zone, and Quinnipiac’s goalie came out to get it, and he dropped a pass to one of his teammates who was being trailed by Pauly and Gerling.\u00a0 The Bobcat player missed the puck and Pauly skated around the net but his wrap around attempt was denied but the rebound bounced over to the other side of the net where Gerling put it home to give UConn the 2-0 lead at the end of the first period.\u00a0 The Bobcats would retaliate quickly to start the second with a goal only 37 seconds in to make it 2-1.\u00a0 Later in the period however UConn regained their two goal lead.\u00a0 Freshman Corey Ronan carried the puck into the offensive zone but lost the puck in the corner, but he battled to regain possesion.\u00a0 He then sent a pass to Patrick Kirtland right in front of the goal who sniped a shot onto the back of the net to put UConn up 3-1 to go into the final period.\u00a0 Quinnipiac would control play in the third outshooting UConn 16-5 but couldn’t solve Nichols in the period, and UConn would tack on an empty-net goal by Jesse Schwartz, his first career goal, for a 4-1 win over No. 15 Quinnipiac, which was their first win as a Hockey East team and of the season, and it came in front of 1435 fans.<\/p>\n
Next, the Huskies traveled to Vermont to take on the Vermont Catamounts in a Hockey East confrence game.\u00a0 Vermont was then ranked the 17th best team in the nation; UConn had never beaten Vermont coming into the game.\u00a0 After a scoreless first period, Vermont would take a 1-0 lead in the second when a Catamount sniped a shot into the top left corner of the net on the power-play.\u00a0 Vermont would extend the lead to 2-0 in the third when Rob Nichols made the save on a shot but the puck trickled out through his pads and was shot into the net by a Vermont player.\u00a0 UConn would get their first goal of the game a little over the eight minute mark.\u00a0 Corey Ronan would pass the puck straight across the ice to Trevor Gerling who roofed the puck into the top of the net past goaltender Brody Hoffman, to make it a 2-1 game.\u00a0 Despite out-playing and out-shooting Vermont they would lose by that score.\u00a0 The Huskies’ record dropped to 1-3-1 with the loss and 0-2 in conference play.\u00a0 Despite the record, UConn has been more impressive so far this season then most people thought they would be.<\/p>\n
Stay tuned for next month’s recap of UConn hockey.<\/p>\n