Huskies Host No. 15 Providence Monday Afternoon

Monday, December 28

Storrs, Conn

3:00 PM

University of Connecticut

Providence

Photo by: Stephen Slade

12/27/2020 12:54:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey

Game Notes

Media Coverage

Video Stream: CollegeSportsLive.com/HockeyEast (pxp) Randy Brochu

Radio: UConn Sports Network from Learfield IMG College - ESPN 97-9 FM (pxp) Bob Joyce; (color) Rob Joyce

Audio Stream: TuneIn.com

Live Stats: UConnHuskies.com

Twitter: @UConnMHOC

Game Notes: UConn Providence

Ice Chips…

The UConn Huskies return home to the Freitas Ice Forum on Monday afternoon to take on the No. 15/13 nationally ranked Providence Friars. The Huskies are looking to end a five-game winless streak against the Friars (0-4-1) dating back to the 2017-18 season.
After beating No. 2 Boston College back on December 12, the Huskies have dropped two-straight, falling to nationally ranked teams UMass Lowell, 2-1, and Massachusetts, 6-2 last week
UConn comes into Monday's tilt off a 6-2 loss at No. 10 UMass last Wednesday. UMass dominated on special teams, scoring three power play goals while killing off all five UConn power play chances. The Huskies scoring came from junior Jonny Evans and freshman Hudson Schandor, his first collegiate goal.
The Huskies and Minutemen have now played three times this season. The Minutemen posted a 5-1 series opening win on their home ice in Amherst and the Huskies battled back from a two-goal third period deficit to earn a 2-2 tie before notching their first Hockey East shoot-out win, 2-1, in four rounds.
In the 2-1 loss at home to the No. 17 UMass Lowell River Hawks, the two teams were tied at 1-1 late into the third period before a Zach Kaiser goal with 2:50 left to play sealed the UML win. UConn junior Carter Turnbull scored his second goal of the season, and his first on the power play, in the loss.
Junior Jonny Evans is currently on a career-best four-game point streak and has tallied at least a point in five of the six games this season. Evans notched his second goal of the season at UMass and currently leads the team in scoring with six points (2g/4a). Evans came into the season as the Huskies leading career goal scorer and now has 19 goals in 55 career games.
Junior Carter Turnbull has a pair of goals and a pair of assists in the early going while classmates Marc Gatcomb and Kale Howarth also have scored twice this season.
The Huskies will make a roster addition for the second semester with the addition freshman forward Ryan Tverberg. Tverberg was announced as signing an NLI with UConn back in November and will enter school for the spring semester and bring added depth to the Huskies forwards. The 5-11 righty shot forward is from Richmond Hill, Ontario and spent the 2019-20 season playing for the Toronto Jr. Canadians of the OJHL and piled up 51 points in 47 games. He scored 26 goals and added 25 assists and was named to the OJHL All-Prospect first team. In the 2020 NHL Draft, he was taken in the 7th round by the Toronto Maple Leafs.
UConn will be without a pair of sophomores in forward Vladislav Firstov and defenseman Yan Kuznetsov who are currently with Team Russia at the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championships being held in Edmonton, Alberta, Dec. 25 through Jan. 5. Both Firstov and Kuznetsov were named to the final roster making history as the first Russian born NCAA student-athletes to make Russia's national team for the annual event. The Huskies previously have had three players appear in the prestigious international tournament under head coach Mike Cavanaugh (Tage Thompson - Team USA/2017*; Adam Huska - Team Slovakia/2016&2017; Jachym Kondelik - Team Czech Republic/2019). *-Won the gold medal
Junior goaltender Tomas Vomacka was named the Hockey Defensive Player of the Week after making 59 saves on 64 shots to earn four out of six points from No. 2/2 Boston College. The junior stopped 32 shots, including all 19 he saw in the first period, as the Huskies lost, 4-3, in overtime at Boston College. He came back and kicked out 27 shots and kept BC off the scoreboard for the first two periods in a 3-1 win over the Eagles.
The Huskies are back on campus for the first time since the 2013-14 season as they will play all their home games at the Mark Edward Freitas Ice Forum in Storrs. UConn has called the XL Center in Hartford home since joining Hockey East in 2014-15. Only two Hockey East schools have played games at Freitas in UMass Lowell and Merrimack.
In the 2020-21 HEA Preseason Coaches' Poll, the Huskies were picked to finish seventh in this year's polling of the league's head coaches. This will be the Huskies seventh season of play in Hockey East and in five of their first six seasons in the league, the Huskies have outplayed their preseason prediction.
The Husky lineup will feature eight NHL draft picks in 2020-21, a new program-high. That number climbed by three last month as sophomore Yan Kuznetsov (Calgary/2nd Rd) and freshmen Artem Shlaine (New Jersey/5th Rd) and Nick Capone (Tampa Bay/6th Rd) heard their names called in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft.