BOSTON, Mass. - The UConn men's hockey team went on the road to No. 14 Northeastern Friday night and came away with a 4-1 win at Matthews Arena with four different Huskies finding the back of the net.
UConn improved to 8-6-2 on the season with the win. Junior Jonny Evans (North Delta, British Columbia) scored the game-winner, his team-leading 12th on the season while freshman Artem Shlaine (Moscow, Russia) picked-up his first career goal.
After dropping the first 10 meetings with Northeastern in the all-time series, UConn has five of the last seven match-ups after Friday's win.
The Huskies had a 17-10 shot advantage in the first period but fell behind on a Northeastern power play goal from Zach Solow. UConn went on to score four-straight as Shlaine and Evans made it 2-1 in the second period and juniors Ryan Wheeler (Lancaster, N.Y.) and Kale Howarth (Red Deer, Alberta) finished if off with third period goals.
Junior Jachym Kondelik (Budejovice, Czech Republic) picked-up two more assists to raise his season total to 16 on the season.
UConn outshot Northeastsern on the night, 42-25 as junior goaltender Tomas Vomacka (Trutnov, Czech Republic) need make just 24 stops to get the win. NU goaltender Connor Murphy made 38 saves in taking the loss.
1st period:
After killing off UConn's first power play chance of the night, Northeastern took advantage of their first power play scoring the game's first goal at 10:10. Solow but home his seventh goal of the season just 10 seconds into the power play chance, getting a redirect on a shot by Jordan Harris from the slot to put Northeastern up 1-0.
2nd period:
UConn struck twice in the second period as Shlaine picked-up his first career goal and Evans buried his team-leading 12th of the season. The Huskies tied up the game at 7:55 as UConn got a break-away chance off a Northeastern turnover. Sophomore Vladislav Firstov (Yaroslavl, Russia) threaded a pass to break out Shlaine who went five-hole to beat Murphy for his first collegiate tally.
The Huskies made it 2-1 at the 10:04 mark on a Kondelik to Evans score. UConn broke the puck out of deep in their zone and Kondelik carried it in, feeding an oncoming Evans on the left wing. The junior worked across the goal face, getting Murphy moving before putting it in the back of the net five-hole for a 2-1 lead.
3rd period:
UConn made it 3-1 as Wheeler scored his second of the season at 5:54. Sophomore Ryan Tverberg (Richmond Hill, Ontario) kept control of the puck in the NU zone and fed an oncoming Wheeler who walked into the slot and whistled a wrister past Murphy stick side for a two-goal lead.
NU pulled the goaltender in the closing two minutes and UConn came up with the empty netter to seal the win. Coming off a face-off win in their zone, Kondelik controlled the puck and fed Howarth into the NU zone who buried it on the open net for his fourth of the season.
Next Up:
The Huskies will return to action on Tuesday, February 9 when they travel to UMass Lowell for a 5 pm match-up with the River Hawks. The game will be available live on NESN.
