HARTFORD, Conn.<\/b> — Overtime, a common theme in Connecticut’s season, was needed again Wednesday night and for the seventh time this season, UConn left with one point in a 2-2 tie with Providence.<\/p>\n
UConn started the night off strong, scoring in the first 37 seconds as Brent Norris scored on a rebound chance.<\/p>\n
“I thought we came out played a great first period, one of our best first periods of the year,” said UConn coach Mike Cavanaugh. “We had a lot of energy and we were on the puck.”<\/p>\n
Providence weathered the storm and found the equalizer at the mid-point of the first period as Brooks Behling’s shot had eyes and beat UConn goaltender Rob Nichols. <\/p>\n
“I don’t think we were ready to play to start the game,” Providence coach Nate Leaman said. “We were chasing the game for most of the first period.”<\/p>\n
The Huskies (8-12-7) once again jumped out to a quick start in the second period as Joey Ferris banked a shot just off the left post and by Providence goaltender Jon Gillies. <\/p>\n
That would be the last puck to beat Gillies (23 saves) on the night.<\/p>\n
The Friars (16-9-2) woke up after the UConn goal and the rest of the period belonged to them. Sloppy play by UConn enabled a 5-on-3 power play for Providence amd Nichols (33 saves) fought off several shots before Ross Mauermann found the back of the net on a rebound to even the score at two.<\/p>\n
Providence was outplayed early by the Huskies, but turned the tables on their opponents in the latter stages of the game. After the opening period, Providence held a 30-13 edge in shots for the rest of the night.<\/p>\n
“We started winning the battles.” Leaman said. “We lost a lot of faceoffs early on. As the game went on, we started winning those battles.”<\/p>\n
Providence carried the play in the third period, as well as overtime, but the Friars could not solve Nichols for the go-ahead goal. <\/p>\n
UConn did have one golden chance on a 2-on-1 up ice with just 6:50 remaining in regulation only to see Gillies come up with a fantastic stick save deflecting the puck wide of the open cage, and preserving the tie for Providence.<\/p>\n
“I think the goalies were the stars of the game,” said Leaman. “Jonny [Gillies] had that great save in the third and Nichols had several saves in the second period.”<\/p>\n
While the game ended in a tie. Cavanaugh was a little flustered after the game. <\/p>\n
“We wanted to get the two points tonight,” he said. “We didn’t, but any point this time of year going down the stretch fighting for a playoff spot is crucial.” <\/p>\n
This was just the fourth meeting all-time between the two clubs, but won’t wait long for the fifth as a rematch is scheduled for Saturday night in Providence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HARTFORD, Conn. — Overtime, a common theme in Connecticut’s season, was needed again Wednesday night and for the seventh time this season, UConn left with one point in a 2-2 tie with Providence. UConn started the night off strong, scoring in the first 37 seconds as Brent Norris scored on a rebound chance. “I thought […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"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:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20296"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20296"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20298,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20296\/revisions\/20298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20296"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=20296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}