Chris Murray’s power-play goal with 3:36 remaining in the third period lifted fourth-ranked New Hampshire over No. 15 Vermont 2-1 at Gutterson Fieldhouse, Saturday.<\/p>\n
The senior defenseman’s shot from above the right circle found its way through a maze of bodies in front of Vermont goaltender Joe Fallon to secure a sweep for the Wildcats (16-3-1, 12-1-1 Hockey East).<\/p>\n
Contrary to Friday, when UNH beat UVM from the opening faceoff in a 7-1 drubbing, the Catamounts (11-8-1, 6-4-1) played a much better all-around game, getting back to what has made them successful. Vermont, known for smothering defense, limited the high-flying New Hampshire attack to 27 shots and outshot UNH by eight.<\/p>\n
“They came out and did a great job, Vermont,” said UNH coach Dick Umile. “It was a great college hockey game. Two good teams going at it up and down, and obviously, it’s a huge win for us.<\/p>\n
“We just beat a real good hockey team for the weekend,” he said. So, I’m really pleased with the overall effort of the team, and how well they played.”<\/p>\n
UVM coach Kevin Sneddon began his post-game comments singing a far different tune from the night before, “We came into tonight’s game worried about the process and that we had to quickly mend some things in a short turnaround time,” he said. “I’m just very, very proud of the guys. Obviously, they’re very disappointed right now — they played a heckuva hockey game. … It’s unfortunate that we lose on a penalty kill, one of our strengths, but I don’t know if we could’ve played much better.”<\/p>\n
Vermont tallied 10 shots in the first period, one less than it had all game in the series opener.<\/p>\n
Joe Fallon was on his game in the period, stopping 12 UNH attempts on goal, including a stellar pad save on Jacob Micflikier in the slot. The Hockey East goaltender of the month for December also stoned Trevor Smith three times from the slot.<\/p>\n
UNH got on the board first just :48 into the second period. Smith registered his third goal of the weekend collecting a rebound of a Matt Fornataro shot off Fallon’s pad, The goal, Smith’s 14th of the season, also was assisted by Jerry Pollastrone (two assists).<\/p>\n
Colin Vock knotted the game for Vermont just :55 later. Vock and Chris Myers had multiple whacks at a loose puck in front of UNH goaltender Kevin Regan before Vock potted his seventh.<\/p>\n
From that point on, UVM outshot UNH 16-7 in the period, buzzing around the offensive zone for much of the period.<\/p>\n
UNH had a great opportunity to break out on top again, late in the period, when Patrick Cullity took a hooking minor. The penalty kill did its job limiting the Wildcats to one shot, setting the stage for a tight third period.<\/p>\n
Each team had opportunities in the final period, but both goalies did their part to keep the game deadlocked.<\/p>\n
“They had their chances,” Umile said. “We got some penalties [in the third] and Kevin kept us in there until we had an opportunity to win it.”<\/p>\n
That came when Kyle Kuk took an interference penalty at 15:03, which led to the game winner.<\/p>\n
“[Craig Switzer] slid it over to me, there was a few guys screening Fallon,” Murray said explaining the play. “So I just tried to pick a spot … and it ended up going in the corner for me.”<\/p>\n
UNH went 1-for-4 on the power play while UVM was held scoreless during its seven chances.<\/p>\n
Regan made 34 saves; Fallon had 25.<\/p>\n
New Hampshire faces in-state rival Dartmouth Saturday at the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, N.H., while Vermont travels to Boston for two with Northeastern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chris Murray’s power-play goal with 3:36 remaining in the third period lifted fourth-ranked New Hampshire over No. 15 Vermont 2-1 at Gutterson Fieldhouse, Saturday. The senior defenseman’s shot from above the right circle found its way through a maze of bodies in front of Vermont goaltender Joe Fallon to secure a sweep for the Wildcats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7839"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7839"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}