UConn men’s hockey takes down No. 10 BU, 5-1

After a tough loss on Friday night, UConn men’s hockey bounced back with a convincing 5-1 win on the road against No. 10 Boston University on Saturday. The Huskies scored four answered goals over the final two periods to earn their first Hockey East victory of the year and improved to 2-1 on the young season.

Marc Gatcomb, Jonny Evans, Ryan Tverberg (x2), and Carter Berger all found the back of the net while Jachym Kondelik and Hudson Schandor each recorded a pair of assists. UConn goaltender Darion Hanson stopped 29 of the 30 shots he faced and made some big saves throughout the night.

The Huskies’ penalty kill went 2/2 on the night but their power play had a rough go, failing to score on any of its three opportunities and recording just two shots total.

For the third consecutive game, UConn struck first. Evans’ shot from the boards took a friendly bounce off the side of the net to the stick of Kondelik, who slid it across the crease to a wide-open Gatcomb.

The lead didn’t hold up long, though. Four minutes later, Hanson made a kick-save but knocked the puck straight into the path of BU’s Matt Brown. With no UConn jerseys around him, Brown had no trouble burying his shot into the open net to tie the game at 1-1.

That scoreline held entering the first intermission but the Huskies changed that quickly in the second. Just 47 seconds in, Evans scored his first of the year after Gatcomb carried the puck into the zone and slipped a cross-ice pass through a pair of defenders to him on the back post.

Nine minutes later, UConn added to the lead when Tverberg broke free on a breakaway and beat BU goaltender Drew Commesso. Tverberg used his speed to get behind the defense and flipped the puck into the net just before being laid out by a Terrier d-man.

Towards the end of the period, UConn weathered two BU power plays — one after Roman Kinal got whistled for high-sticking and another after Evans ran over a Terriers’ player well after the whistle. The Huskies killed off the first penalty while the latter overlapped into the third. With just seconds remaining on the second power play, Hanson made an incredible spinning save with his stick to rob BU.

Soon after, the Terriers thought they found their second goal when Max Kaufman finished a second-chance rebound only to have it waived off because of a cross-check by Tyler Boucher.

UConn capitalized on the break a few minutes later. Tverberg struck again when he tucked a shot from the face-off circle into the far-post past Commesso to give the Huskies some breathing room in the final period.

Berger added an insurance goal on a snipe from the slot to make it 5-1 which would hold for the final score. BU fell apart in the final minutes with three penalties — one of which the Huskies matched — and never mounted any sort of a comeback effort.

Up next, the Huskies will travel to Ohio State for two contests with the Buckeyes — the second and third games of a seven-game road swing for UConn. The opening game of the series will take place on Friday at 7 p.m.