UConn Men’s Hockey Preview: Sacred Heart

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First Period

0:00- and the game is on! Karl El-Mir, Max Kalter, Evan Richardson the forwards, David Drake and Johnny Austin are the D-pair, with Rob Nichols in goal.

1:51- Alexander Payusov off for holding. Sacred Heart with the first power play of the day.

2:46- UConn gets their first shorthanded goal of the season. Jesse Schwartz shoveled the puck to Corey Ronan, who streaked behind the defense and did the rest. 1-0 UConn.

12:20- Tage Thompson finds a loose puck in the slot and scores for a 2-0 UConn lead. Assists to Benjamin Freeman. UConn is now shooting 50%.

13:53- Austin McIlmurray off for slashing. UConn’s first power play of the afternoon.

20:00- the period has ended, the Huskies shot 33% and only 15 shots were taken between the two teams.

Second Period

0:00- the second period begins with 36 seconds of penalty kill time for UConn.

0:07- 5-on-3 time. Karl El-Mir off for hooking.

0:36- UConn survives.

1:36- Ruslan Rahkmatov called for holding and 31 seconds of 4-on-4 will commence.

3:36- back to five-a-side hockey.

8:52- Justin Danforth puts a shot on net and the rebound finds Jordan Minello’s stick, who had an open side to shoot at. 2-1 UConn.

9:12- Benjamin Freeman goes off for tripping.

20:00- UConn up 2-1 after 40 minutes.

Third Period

0:00- UConn looks to hold on and beat Sacred Heart for the first time since leaving Atlantic Hockey.

1:42- Tage Thompson off on a tripping call. UConn up 2-1.

5:05- on a weird tip-in, Minello gets his second of the game. Mitch Nylen gets the assist on the initial shot.

8:14- and Sacred Heart takes the lead. Austin McIlmurray stuffs it in through the scrum. 3-2 Pioneers.

10:44- Jesse Schwartz off for holding. The Huskies are unraveling at the seams, trail 3-2.

12:34- this is certainly not good. 4-2 Sacred Heart.

14:10- Kory Kennedy gets called for a penalty to put UConn on the power play.

20:00- that was not good. 4-2 Sacred Heart wins.

Preview

UConn Men’s Hockey struggled mightily in a 5-2 loss against No. 4 Boston College on Tuesday and is looking to get back on track against the Sacred Heart Pioneers (4-7-2) on Saturday at the XL Center.

The Huskies have a lengthy history with Sacred Heart, a former conference foe who they have an all-time 29-28-5 record against. UConn has lost both meetings against the Pioneers since leaving Atlantic Hockey for Hockey East.

Sacred Heart hosted a weekend series with Niagara last weekend in which it earned a split, winning the opener 4-3 before losing 4-0 in the finale on Saturday.

The Pioneers also had a Tuesday mid-week game, getting a 7-3 win over American International, who the Huskies tied last month. Two of their four wins this year have come against AIC.

Sacred Heart is one of the worst teams in Division 1, scoring just 2.15 goals per game while being shut out 13 games. Thirteen of their 28 goals this year have come against one team, in those two wins against American International.

The Pioneers also have allowed 3.53 goals per game and convert only 13.7 percent of their power plays. The lone bright spot is the 19th-best penalty kill in the country at 85.4%.

Senior forwards Evan Jasper (6-5—11) and Jordan Minello (6-3—9) are tied for the team goals lead while sophomore defenseman Liam Clare (0-9—9) leads in assists.

Sophomore Brett Magnus and junior Nathan Perry have split the goaltending duties. Magnus has appeared in eight games, all of which were starts. Perry started the remaining five and relieved Magnus twice.

Magnus has allowed 3.41 goals per game and has a save percentage of .885, with Perry having slightly better numbers in a smaller sample size. He has a GAA of 2.93 and a shade better of a save percentage, at .881.

The puck will drop in Hartford at 2:05 p.m.