‘CATS COME FROM BEHIND TWICE TO HOLD ONTO FIRST PLACE
Is this any way to win a title? The UNH Hockey high wire act continued again this past weekend when the Wildcats had to come from behind twice in order to gain a 4-4 tie and 3-1 win against Northeastern University.

A Blake Kessel goal with just 13.3 seconds left gave the Wildcats an improbable 4-4 tie in Boston on Friday, then the next night Dalton Speelman and Paul Thompson scored 12 seconds apart late in third period to lead UNH to a 3-1 victory at the Whittemore Center. The win and tie gave the Wildcats a three point edge over Boston College in the race for the Hockey East regular season championship. The teams will settle things next weekend when they meet in a home-and-home series.

Despite sleepwalking through much of last weekend’s series against Vermont, the Wildcats somehow managed to gain three points with some late game heroics. The talk all this past week was how the team had to focus on consistency and play a full 60 minutes of hockey. Unfortunately talk did not lead to action as the ‘Cats were badly outplayed for long stretches in both games, but were still able to perform the same end-of-game magic act to manage an improbable win and an even more improbable tie.

Friday night UNH trailed by three goals in the second period, then by two in the third before Kessel’s goal gained them a tie (below). The Wildcats stormed the Northeastern end in the final minute, forcing Chris Rawlings to turn aside several shots from in close. With 15 seconds left NU managed to get a face-off, but UNH won it. Somehow the puck squirted back to Kessel, who took a couple of strides and whistled a wrist shot top corner past Rawling’s outstretched glove.

“Someone threw it out from the corner and it kind of bounced out to me,” Kessel said after the game. “I saw (Rawlings) was sliding across and he was still down so I just tried to get it up over top of him.”
UNH’s sixth tie in a record setting 10 overtime games was probably the most unlikely one of the season. The ‘Cats were outplayed for long stretches beginning with the opening period when Justin Daniels and Kyle Kraemer gave the Huskies a two goal lead. Daniels scored just 1:37 in on an easy 2-on-1 break after UNH turned the puck over at center ice. Kraemer then capitalized on another defensive breakdown at 8:06 when, left uncovered, he took a pass from Tyler McNeely and fired it past Brian Foster.

The Huskies took a three goal lead at 3:18 of the second on a Drew Daniels goal, then looked poised to put the game away when Nick Krates was called for hooking 44 seconds later. But UNH’s penalty kill counterattacked, with Peter LeBlanc spotting a streaking Mike Sislo at center ice. Sislo, (below) who had a hand in all four goals, broke in alone and beat Rawlings top corner at 4:40. LeBlanc then cut the lead to one at 10:28, scoring on the power play after Northeastern was called for a too-many-men penalty. UNH appeared to be back in the game, but when McNeely scored at 18:15, things didn’t look too good for the Wildcats.

After exhibiting little end zone pressure over the first two periods, UNH began to pick it up at the start of the third. The effort paid off with a Stevie Moses goal at 4:56, his centering pass deflecting off a Northeastern defender’s skate and into the net. A Phil DeSimone hooking penalty two minutes later resulted in what looked like a power play goal for McNeely, but an official’s review ruled goalie interference on Kraemer and the score was disallowed.

In the last ten minutes the action was frantic, with UNH getting the better of the play (they outshot the Huskies 20-7 in the period). Northeastern rang one of the pipe with 1:40 left, just before the Wildcats made their final thrust and accomplished their late game magic.

“We were lucky to squeak that one out,” Kessel said. “I’ll take it but we’ve got to stop doing what we’ve been doing the last few games. It’s kind of ridiculous the way we’ve been playing. You’ve got to come out ready to play every game and we haven’t done that since forever. We can talk about it all we want but we’ve got to execute out there and it just hasn’t happened. It’s time for everyone to step up. It’s big to battle back like that, but it’s disappointing how we came in. We keep talking about it but we just don’t do it. We can’t be having that type of stuff anymore. We’ve just got to out there and do it one way or another.”

“One way or another” didn’t happen the next night at the Whit until there were five minutes left. Trailing from the opening minute, and lifeless for long periods during the game, UNH finally got it together with Speelman’s third goal of the season (all against Northeastern) at 5:02 and Thompson’s game winner 12 seconds later.

Speelman’s goal came after Mike Borisenok won the face-off to John Henrion, whose shot was blocked out front. The puck came to Speelman, who hit the post with his first attempt. The puck came right back to him and this time he beat Rawlings before the goalie could react. “I don’t know how I ended up wide open but somehow I did,” Speelman said, “and I just put the rebound in. I was in the right place at the right time.”

With the sellout crowd finally jacked up, UNH won the ensuing face-off and sent the puck back down into the Northeastern zone. Thompson (right) took control on the left wing, circled the net and came out the other side where his backhander somehow squeezed its way through Rawlings’ stick and skates to give the Wildcats their first lead of the weekend. Improbable to say the least!

Northeastern, who had squandered the big lead at home the night before, went ahead just 38 seconds into the game. Kraemer collected a pass from Justin Daniels inside the blue line and fired from the high slot, beating Foster through a screen. It probably shouldn’t have, but the goal put the Wildcats back on their heels, allowing the Huskies to have a 13-6 shot advantage at the end of one.

Things were no better for the Wildcats in the second, a period when they had trouble getting out of their own zone, never mind executing at the Northeastern end of the ice. Through two periods the only thing that was keeping them in the game was Foster’s goaltending. He wound up with 24 saves and the first star of the game.

Thompson acknowledged afterward that the team was “pretty flat.” “We weren’t playing with too much energy and almost embarrassed ourselves,” he said. “We weren’t playing too physical. We weren’t connecting on plays. We weren’t playing our best hockey, that’s for sure. Luckily Foster kept us in the game and gave us a chance to win it and we picked it up in the third.”

Photos Courtesy of Josh Gibney

COMMENTS FROM THE COACH

The first half of the game on Friday we didn’t play great. Their third and fourth goals they just out muscled us out front. Sislo’s (shorthand) goal was huge. Sislo, LeBlanc, and Moses played a great game and that’s what we need. We can’t rely on Bobby Butler’s line every night. They made good decisions and scored important goals. They made big plays there at the end and Moses almost got the winner. I told the team they played hard to get back into the game. We played a good second half of the game. The guys managed the game well at the end. We even had chances to win it.
Last night I thought we were horrendous in the first period. The third period we were getting shots to the net and weren’t doing that earlier in the game. You can’t score if you don’t throw it to the net. It’s part of the game. It was a long battle all night, but we found a way to win it, especially in the last 10 minutes. It was a huge win for us. It gives us an opportunity to win the regular season against Boston College. ~Dick Umile