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UConn Men’s Hockey made quite the impression in its opening weekend.
They scored six goals on Friday and four more on Saturday afternoon as part of a two-game shutout streak to start the season for goaltender Rob Nichols in a weekend sweep of Alabama-Huntsville.
The Huskies now turn their focus to the first road trip of the year. They will be heading off to New York to face Colgate on Friday and then the Rochester Institute of Technology on Saturday.
Colgate has two games under their belt so far this year after an 11-24-2 effort in 2015-2016. The Raiders, who compete in the ECAC, the same conference as Quinnipiac, tied 2-2 with Army on October 1 and also played No. 4 Boston University on October 8, a 6-1 BU victory. Senior forward Tim Harrison has two points (1-1—2), tied with senior defenseman Jake Kulevich (0-2—2) for the team lead.
The Raiders also commit a lot of penalties but have been stout on the penalty kill. In eight minor penalties against BU, the Terriers were only 1-for-7 on the power play. In the opener against Army, Colgate committed 13 penalties for 37 minutes, which included a major and game misconduct for hitting from behind on Tim Harrison. They held the Black Knights to 2-for-13 on the man advantage.
Goaltender Charlie Finn has a 4.21 goals against average and an .855 save percentage. He did get pulled during the Boston University game.
Puck drop for UConn and Colgate will be at 7:00 p.m. on Friday.
The Huskies will then head to Rochester for a matchup with RIT. The Tigers are a former Atlantic Hockey foe and opened up their year with a weekend series against conference opponent Robert Morris. The Tigers won the first game on Friday by a score of 6-3 but couldn’t finish off the sweep, with Robert Morris taking the second game, 6-5. Saturday saw seven power play goals, three for RIT and four for Robert Morris.
RIT finished 18-15-6 last season and won the Atlantic Hockey championship. They received the conference’s bid to the NCAA Tournament and lost in their first game to Quinnipiac, 4-0.
Forwards Caleb Cameron (1-3--4) and Liam Kerins (2-2—4) are tied for the early points lead and goaltender Mike Rotolo has an 4.53 goals against average to go along with a .827 save percentage.
The Huskies and the Tigers matchup will begin at 7:05 p.m. on Saturday.
Especially on Saturday, this weekend see offensive fireworks for the Huskies. Each team allowed eight goals on the weekend, and UConn has appeared to be adept so far at getting the puck in the net. We’ll know a little more about the ceiling of this team by the end of this weekend.