University of Connecticut Athletics
UConn Opens Series with Northeastern Thursday
1/6/2021 12:00:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey
Media Coverage
TV (Sat.): NESN (pxp) Tim Neverett (color) Bill Spaulding
Video Stream: (Thur.) CollegeSportsLive.com/HockeyEast (pxp) Randy Brochu | (Sat.) NESN.com (Outside New England): CollegeSportsLive.com
Radio (Thurs): UConn Sports Network from Learfield IMG College - ESPN 97-9 FM (pxp) Bob Joyce; (color) Adam Giardino
Audio Stream (Thurs.): TuneIn
Live Stats: UConnHuskies.com (Thur.) NUHuskies.com (Sat.)
Twitter: @UConnMHOC
Ice Chips
Originally scheduled to face UMass this week, the UConn Huskies will now take on the No. 14/15 nationally ranked Northeastern Huskies. The Huskies will play host to Northeastern on Thursday afternoon for a 3:30 pm match-up at the Freitas Ice Forum then travel up to Matthews Arena on Saturday, January 9 for a 7 pm face-off live on NESN.
The Huskies split their season-series with NU last year, losing at home, 5-2, in the XL Center and winning 3-2 in overtime on the road in Boston. After losing their first 10 match-ups with Northeastern, UConn is 4-2-0 in their last six meetings with the Huskies.
UConn heads into this weekend's match-ups off a seven point week where they posted a 2-0 shutout over No. 15 Providence and split with New Hampshire, getting their first road win of the season, 2-1, before falling at home in overtime, 2-1.
The UConn roster will be bolstered with the return of sophomores Vladislav Firstov and Yan Kuznetsov who have been with Team Russia at the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championships since the November. The duo played in the season-opening series with UMass (Nov. 20-21) then departed back to Russia to join the national team. The two and their Russian teammates finished fourth in the tournament.
Both Firstov and Kuznetsov made 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
For the second time this season, UConn junior goaltender Tomas Vomacka was named Hockey East Defensive Player of the Week. The junior netminder stopped 98 of the 101 shots he faced last week. He opened the weekend registering his second career shutout, stopping 37 shots in a 2-1 win over No. 15 nationally ranked Providence. He made 30 saves to help the Huskies earn their first road win of the season, 2-1 at New Hampshire. Vomacka finished the week with a 30-save effort in a 2-1 overtime loss at home to the Wildcats.
On the season, Vomacka has played every minute for the Huskies and owns a 2.52 goals against average and a .923 save percentage. He ranks fourth in Hockey East in save percentage.
Sophomore defenseman Roman Kinal got the game-winning goal in the Huskies' 2-1 win at New Hampshire last Friday night. It was Kinal's second career goal and his first time finding the back of the net since his freshman season during 2018-19. Kinal was forced to miss all of last season due to an injury. He has played in all nine games this season and has three points (1g/2a), eight blocked shots and is a +5 on the year.
Junior Jonny Evans saw a career-best six-game point streak (3g/5a) come to an end in Saturday's overtime loss to UNH. He has tallied at least a point in seven of the nine games this season. Evans leads the team in scoring with nine points (3g/6a) and is tied for sixth in Hockey East in points. Evans came into the season as the Huskies leading career goal scorer and now has 20 goals in 58 career games.
Junior Jachym Kondelik is on a three-game point streak after recording four assists in last week's games. He leads the team with six assists and is tied for fourth in Hockey East. He is UConn's current active scoring leader with 55 points (12g/43a) in 76 games.
Junior Marc Gatcomb scored his third goal of the season on Saturday against UNH and it came on the power play. It was UConn's third power play goal on the season and ended a 0-16 streak with the extra skater. The Huskies have struggled on the power play thus far, going just 3-for-42 (.071).
The Huskies will make a roster addition for the second semester with the addition of freshman forward Ryan Tverberg. Tverberg was announced as signing an NLI with UConn back in November and will enter school for the spring semester. 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 (26g/25a) in 47 games. In the 2020 NHL Draft, he was taken in the 7th round by the Toronto Maple Leafs.
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.
With the addition of Tverberg, the Husky lineup will feature nine NHL draft picks in 2020-21, a new program-high. That number climbed with the 2020 NHL Draft this fall as sophomore Yan Kuznetsov (Calgary/2nd Rd) and freshmen Artem Shlaine (New Jersey/5th Rd), Nick Capone (Tampa Bay/6th Rd) and Tverberg (Toronto/7th Rd) heard their names called.
