Saturday, February 6, 1993 at Volpe Complex, North Andover, MA
HOCKEY EAST GAME
New Hampshire Wildcats (12-13-2, 7-9-1 HE 4th) 1 0 2 0 - 3
Merrimack Warriors (11-14-2, 5-12-0 HE 8th) 0 3 0 1 - 4
FIRST PERIOD MC-NH
1. NH1, Sean Perry 4 (Tom O'Brien), 16:59. 0-1
SECOND PERIOD
2. MC1, Matt Adams 5 (Dan Gravelle, Chris Ross), 2:47. 0-1
3. MC2, Jim Gibson 12 (Wayde McMillan), 8:31. 2-1
4. MC3, John Barron 4 (Teal Fowler, Ross), 18:42. 3-1
THIRD PERIOD
5. NH2, Glenn Stewart 14 (Jason Dexter, Jim McGrath), 12:48. PPG 3-2
6. NH3, Greg Klym 14 (Eric Flinton, Jesse Cooper), 16:46. SHG 3-3
OVERTIME
7. MC4, Barron 5 (Fowler), 3:07. GWG 4-3
SHOTS ON GOAL: New Hampshire 12-13--9--2 = 36
Merrimack 10-15--7--2 = 34
SAVES: UNH, Brett Abel (L, 9-11-1, 63:07, 34 sh-30 sv).
MC, Mike Doneghey (W, 10-9-1, 63:07, 36-33).
POWER PLAYS: UNH 1 for 5. MC 0 for 5.
PENALTIES: UNH 10/36. MC 10/36.
REFEREES: Drew Taylor, Bob Fowkes. LINESMAN: Dennis Hughes.
ATTENDANCE: 1,222.
THREE STARS: 1. C John Barron, Merrimack (2-0--2, GWG).
2. G Mike Doneghey, Merrimack (36 sh-33 sv).
3. G Brett Abel, UNH (34 sh-30 sv).
John Barron fired a screen shot under the cross bar off the faceoff at
3:07 of overtime to give Merrimack a 4-3 win at home over UNH. The goal
was Barron's second of the game and kept Merrimack unbeaten in OT this
season at 3-0-2. UNH lost its sixth game in their last seven outings.
It was a well-played game on both sides and very exciting, in stark
contrast to the BC-Merrimack game of the night before. Trailing 3-1
after two, UNH got a PPG and a SHG in the hard-fought third to tie the
game and force OT before Barron's winner.
While UNH lost a chance to regain third place from Providence, which was
idle, Merrimack remained in 8th but moved within a single point of 7th-place
Northeastern, which was also idle. The win was Merrimack's 5th of the
season - their 2nd-best win total in four years of HE play next to the 7
wins in 1990-91.
THE GAME
Tempers flared only 35 seconds into the game as a battle after the whistle
resulted in UNH's Bob Chebator and Merrimack's Wayde McMillan and Mark
Cornforth being sent to the box with roughing minors as well as 10-minute
misconducts. While fighting for the puck along the boards, Chebator
cross-checked Jim Gibson in the back of the head (uncalled), and Cornforth
came along and hammered Chebator back. UNH went on a power play which
proved to be negated at 1:56 when Scott Malone drew a slashing penalty
and earned himself an extra 10 for protesting the call. With Cornforth,
Merrimack's best defenseman, out for 12 minutes, Bryan Miller moved back
to D temporarily from his newly-found forward position, so Merrimack was
able to adjust.
Both goalies were outstanding in the first and throughout the game as well.
Brett Abel was tested with about 7 1/2 minutes left when Matt Adams put a
hard shot on that Abel stopped, and then Dan Gravelle had an open net but
Abel somehow made the glove save. Merrimack began to crank up its offense
after this flurry as the Naylor-Fowler-Atkinson line, which was pretty
nonexistent in recent games, forechecked well and kept the puck in the
UNH zone for several minutes.
A strange call came at 16:25 when UNH's Kevin Thomson and Merrimack's
Adams went off for matching minors. Thomson had just been leveled by
a hard check on the far side of the ice, and on his way across to the
bench, he came upon Adams and gave him two punches to the head. Adams
just stood there and did nothing, but he got a penalty as well, presumably
for giving a poor imitation of a punching bag.
UNH got on the board at 16:59 when two fourth-line freshmen clicked for
a pretty goal. Tom O'Brien fed Sean Perry on a bang-bang play and Perry
beat Doneghey for his 4th of the year and a 1-0 lead, which brought the
fish onto the ice. Unlike at UNH, the Merrimack rink crew wasn't sure what
to make of this, and it took a few minutes for them to come out and remove
it.
After the evenly-played first, Merrimack scored three times in the second
in one of its best periods of the year to take a 3-1 lead. Gravelle beat
Greg Klym up the left side and fed Adams for the flip-in, Adams' 5th of
the year. The combination of Gravelle and Adams seems to have been working
well lately. Also assisting on the goal was Chris Ross, who was seeing
action in only his third game of the year and second on defense. Ross was
pressed into duty on D as Alex Weinrich is out indefinitely with what I
believe to be a knee injury, and Ross played a great game considering he
never played defense at Merrimack before Friday night. He picked up two
assists in the game, his first two points of the year, and was a stabilizing
presence on defense, also being credited with +3 on the night.
With Tom Costa serving a tripping penalty, UNH put together a good bid
when Stewart fed Dexter in front, but Doneghey robbed him. After the
penalty was up, Merrimack scored again to go up 2-1. McMillan poked the
puck free at center ice and carried it up the right side on a 2x1. He
drew Abel out and then passed across to Jim Gibson for an easy goal,
Gibson's 12th of the year at 8:31.
Merrimack continued to keep the pressure on, but Abel was immense. First
he stopped Barron on a bang-bang play with 5 min left, then he foiled
Gravelle on a wraparound attempt, and then he made two more big saves
with about 2 1/2 min left when he made a save on Gibson and then on Hodge
who appeared to have an open net.
But a UNH line change allowed Merrimack to get its third goal with just
1:18 left in the period. The Warriors got it up ice quickly, then when
UNH desperately tried to clear it out, Ross kept it in the zone and fed
Fowler high in the slot. Fowler found Barron down low and Barron knocked
it in for his 4th of the year. The assist gave Fowler his 100th point at
Merrimack, an outstanding accomplishment for the team's captain.
With 7 seconds left in the period, matching penalties were handed out to
Gibson and UNH's Kent Schmidtke, but UNH seemed to get the short end of
the call since Gibson had committed an initial penalty that was in the
process of being called when he and Schmidtke then took a few shots at
each other. UNH coach Dick Umile was livid at what he rightly saw as a
poor call that deprived his team of a power play, but in communicating
his disgust to the officials after the period as the teams were heading
off, he was hit with a bench minor for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Merrimack was unable to do anything with the power play in the third,
however. UNH, which has that fighting spirit and never seems to give
up, worked hard in the third and we were treated to 20 minutes of
virtually error-free, hard-fought hockey on both sides. Merrimack
displayed a defensive intensity the likes of which we haven't seen all
season, right down to Doneghey whose concentration was on as he kicked
away shot after shot. But just two mistakes defensively by Merrimack
were all the Wildcats needed to pull back into a 3-3 tie, and both came
on the special situations. First, at 12:48, UNH scored on the power play
when Glenn Stewart was left uncovered to Doneghey's left and he banged in
a cross-ice pass from Jason Dexter. That made it 3-2.
UNH kept up the pressure even when down a man. After Stewart went off
for holding at 15:53 when he ran Gibson into the boards and hauled him
down, Merrimack was caught up ice on a line change and somehow, Eric
Flinton and Klym were up at the Merrimack blue line. Flinton fed Klym
who went in on a breakaway, and he buried the puck behind Doneghey for
his 14th goal, driving the large UNH crowd into a frenzy. The game
was tied 3-3, and as it headed into OT, the Wildcats appeared to have
all the momentum and were poised to deliver the knockout punch with an
extra-session winner.
But it didn't turn out that way. Both teams played hard again in the OT
and both goalies were equal to the task; Klym had a great chance to win it
with 2 1/2 min left but his shot went off the post. Then, at 3:07, with
the draw to Abel's right, Fowler won it back to Barron, and he fired a
quick shot through a screen that Abel never saw; it went just under the
crossbar and gave Merrimack a 4-3 win in a game that neither team really
deserved to lose.
POSTGAME
Barron was the clear #1 star, not just because of his two goals including
the winner, but because he played his best game of the season at both
ends of the ice. Both coaches had to be happy with the effort shown by
their teams, especially with the game on the line in the third, and even
though UNH's losing slide continues, they worked hard and fought back
to tie. But their offense just doesn't seem to be what it was a few
weeks ago. Part of the reason for that has to be that Rob Donovan, who
had been leading the 'Cats in scoring with 16-17--33, has been out since
Jan 22 with a broken collarbone. Also, Eric Royal (8-17--25) sprained
his right knee Friday night against BU and will be out for about 2 weeks,
the same prognosis as Donovan.
Still, Dick Umile's line changes that have Klym and Poole no longer
playing together seem to be hurting the offense, at least from this
viewpoint (keeping in mind that I haven't seen the 'Cats closely since
a few weeks ago). They were a deadly combination in the 2nd MC-UNH game
with each coming up with 6 points in that game, but now Poole is down
on the second line with Flinton and Dexter. That line was the most
impressive tonight, but it lacked the influence of Klym.
Abel has had an outstanding season in this, his senior year, after having
played only six games in his first three years. Coming into tonight,
his GAA was 3.96 and he had a record of 9-10-1, and he has seen quite a
few shots lately - 41 last night vs BU and 34 tonight vs Merrimack, and
in total, he stopped 67 of 75 shots on the weekend for a save % of .893.
Snow, Dunham, Herlofsky, Cashman and Roloson may be getting much of the
ink for goalies in HE, but Abel is the unsung hero and is a big reason
why UNH is sitting in 4th right now in a rebuilding year.
In a weekend in which they probably should have come out with two wins,
Merrimack gained only a split, but that is enough to keep them within
a point of Northeastern. The Warriors seem to be on a roller coaster
as far as whether they're going to show up or not each night. They still
have a chance to finish higher than 8th, with Northeastern struggling.
Next weekend, Northeastern will host Maine twice, while Merrimack has a
home-and-home with BU. Merrimack played BU tough the first time around,
losing only 5-2 and 5-4, but the Terriers are the hottest team in the
nation at 16-1-1 in their last 18. Merrimack will probably root for BU to
win the Beanpot on Monday and then hope to catch them offguard next weekend;
I think a split is a distinct possibility. Either way, Merrimack will
tangle with the Huskies in two games the following weekend, and those two
games will probably decide who will finish last.
UNH will meet up with Providence Friday night at Snively Arena in the
front end of a home-and-home. Merrimack plays at BU Friday.
---
Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] Color Voice of the Merrimack Warriors
(Any opinions expressed above are strictly those of the poster.) *HMN*
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