UConn Men’s Hockey Overrun by No. 3 UMass 7-4

First Period:

0:00- and the game is on! Adam Huska is in net for the Huskies, with Roman Kinal and Wyatt Newpower on the blue line. Ruslan Iskhakov, Benjamin Freeman and Kale Howarth is the forward line.

1:34- Bobby Travigno scored on a juicy rebound right in front and UMass has an early 1-0 lead.

3:50- Jake Gaudet is called for tripping and the Huskies get on the power play. They convert 14.9 percent of the time.

6:58- Wyatt Newpower takes a rough interference penalty behind the play and UMass heads up a man for two minutes.

9:54- Newpower redeems himself with a great goal. Iskhakov made a great feed to the junior at the left point and his shot through tons of traffic found twine. 1-1 tie.

13:29- Freshman Kale Howarth tips in a shot from Benjamin Freeman for his first career goal and the Huskies have the lead. Mullins Center is downright silent now after a rowdy start.

14:10- UConn might give back all the momentum here. Justin Howell gets called for high sticking and if UMass has another power play like they did the first time, it’s going to be a tie game without another two minutes of heroic play from Adam Huska.

20:00- UConn was outplayed early and the UMass offense is for real but the Huskies are on top after 20 minutes thanks to some timely offensive play against Matt Murray, who with a 1.74 GAA and .936 save percentage headed into tonight, is no slouch between the pipes.

Second Period:

0:00- and the period is on! The Huskies were outplayed early but they were able to get two past Matt Murray. They need to keep pressing if they want a victory.

2:11- That was a much better start. Karl El-Mir draws a hook on Ty Farmer by being strong on the puck in the corner and the visitors head to the power play for the second time after a weak effort on the first one.

5:05- Saucy, saucy mitts from Marc Del Gaizo who gets around the defender and roofs it on Huska. It’s tied again and the students are abuzz again.

13:50- Miles Gendron takes a holding call while in possession of the puck and the Minutemen, who are 0-for-2, will go back to the power play.

14:29- Mitchell Chaffee gets a little space in the slot and one-times the puck past Huska to give the Minutemen a 3-2 advantage.

19:57- UConn is going to get a power play that spills into the third. Anthony Del Gaizo goes for roughing.

20:00- It was a second period that more or less mirrored the first, just that UConn was the team that had strong numbers but headed to the dressing room trailing. They’re going to have to use the 1:57 of power play time as a springboard to alleviate their third-period bugaboos.

Third Period:

0:00- and the period is on! 1:57 of power play time remains and the Huskies looked strong on the last one, let’s see what happens on this one.

0:34- Karl El-Mir redirects a hard pass from Jachym Kondelik and this one is all tied up. The final 19 minutes or so are going to be real fun.

5:24- Mitchell Chaffee grabs his second of the night. Kale Howarth lost a puck battle up by the blue line and the puck got down to the sophomore level with the circles and the tough angle shot surprised Huska. 4-3 Minutemen.

6:34- Jacob Pritchard takes advantage of two UConn defenders crashing below the goal line and makes a nice move to score against Huska. It’s 5-3 now.

7:33- Bobby Travigno gets held on a breakaway by Philip Nyberg and he converts on the penalty shot. Three goals in 2:09 and things have gone sideways very quickly for the Huskies here in the third.

8:41- Ty Farmer goes to the box for holding and it’s time for the Huskies to try and climb back, down 6-3.

16:25- Ruslan Iskhakov grabs his third assist of the night and Kale Howarth has his second goal of the evening and his collegiate career to bring it to 6-4 Minutemen.

18:36- empty-netter puts it away for UMass and that will do it.

20:00- final score is UMass 7, UConn 4. That was entertaining for sure.

———

UConn men’s hockey suffered a tough loss at the hands of the No. 3 UMass Minutemen on Friday. The game was up-and-down and fast paced, as each team made scoring look easy on a pair of strong goaltenders.

In the first, UConn looked to be the weaker team but they emerged with the lead. In the middle frame, the script was flipped and UMass had the advantage after the Huskies outplayed them.

However, the hosts’ offensive skill was just too much as they scored three times in 2:09 in the third period to take a 6-3 lead after Karl El-Mir had tied it up with a power play goal early on in the stanza.

Next up is a home-and-home with Boston College, which kicks off on Thursday at 7 p.m. inside the XL Center.