As the man said, if the UConn Huskies didn't have bad luck,  they'd have no
luck at all. Coach Bruce Marshall had his Huskies squad flying last night
and racking up yet another impressive shot total (42-22) against a much
improved Iona Gaels team. A full sixty minutes of intense effort to boot.
Yet try as they might, all they could come away with was a point.   And
lucky that. With only a minute to go in OT the Gaels somehow missed a wide
open net from point blank range.   Not to be outdone,  the Huskies raced
down the ice and returned the same exact favor.   A wild and woolly and
very exciting evening.
 
The mood on the UConn bench appeared somber, focused, and very
businesslike. The puck movement was much crisper and quicker than the past
two weekends with a lot of effective one touch tick-tack-toe movement. The
shots from the point were pretty much on target and on the ice.   The right
stuff. More than twice,  however,  UConn could have put the game away with
a quick and simple whack at the puck on net from in close. Most memorable
was Ryan Murphy's bid for his second of the night from fifteen feet with a
wide open net and no chance of recovery by the goalie. Murphy turned to his
caddie to make sure he didn't have too much club,  addressed the puck,  and
finally hit it. It traveled about a foot and a half before it hit a stick
hazard inserted at the last second by an Iona player. To be fair, the puck
came out to Murphy a little close to his skates, but still ....
Nonetheless, it was good to see Murphy score his first since returning to
the Huskies. He has a history of being a sniper, so if he gets hot watch
out.
 
I am sure that the coaching staff at UConn must be pulling their hair out
about the way their squad has completely dominated some teams recently and
yet come away with fewer points than would be commensurate with their
performance. They certainly played well enough to win last night. As a
completely casual and detached observer I can't offer much, although I
haven't seen many deflections on UConn's scoring attempts recently. Root
cause for that? Probably several. And I would also note that UConn seems to
have inadvertently found a way to take the home crowd completely out of the
game in their effort to make the game entertaining for the patrons. At
every whistle until every drop of the puck, the sound system pumps out
music at a rather loud level. This can range from entertaining (when the
hip-hop is kept to a minimum) to excruciating (all hip-hop). In any event,
nobody in the crowd can make themselves heard in that environment, so UConn
might as well be playing their home games on neutral ice as at Storrs.
UConn does a great job in making the hockey crowd feel welcome and have a
good time at the rink. It's a very friendly place, in fact. But perhaps
they could try just a little less hard in this area.
 
Well, next week UConn will face AIC. One question will be which AIC squad
will show up. The one which last week defeated the league leaders QC, or
the one which this week lost to previously winless Fairfield? I would not
bet on the latter as AIC has a long long history of playing UConn tough.
The Huskies have simply got to just keep working hard. Good things will
come.
 
        -- Dick Tuthill
 
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