For over 38 minutes Friday, Vermont hung with seventh-ranked New Hampshire.<\/p>\n
Down, 1-0, late in the second, the Catamounts kept the high-powered Wildcats’ offense in check.<\/p>\n
UNH then scored the game’s next four goals, taking a 5-1 decision at Gutterson Fieldhouse.<\/p>\n
Matt Fornataro scored twice and Kevin Regan stopped 19 shots for the Wildcats, who have won three straight games and are 16-7-1 overall and 12-4-1 in Hockey East.<\/p>\n
The loss for the Catamounts (6-10-7, 5-6-5) snapped their season-best four-game unbeaten streak. UVM was 2-0-2 in that span.<\/p>\n
“It’s just a shame,” said UVM coach Kevin Sneddon. “I thought we played a great two periods. \u2026 It’s disappointing, we held a very strong offensive team to very few opportunities in the first two periods, and then we fell apart. I think we were not very good from the net out, in the third period.”<\/p>\n
“UVM’s a good team. They played very hard and there’s no question it was a good-paced game, back and forth,” UNH coach Dick Umile said. “They did a good job of keeping us out of that scoring area. We did a better job as the game went on to get in there, and in the third period, I thought we played very well, down low.”<\/p>\n
The first period was scoreless and a defensive battle. UVM outshot UNH, 6-3, in the period and had the better of the play, though most of the chances came from the perimeter.<\/p>\n
With 5:12 left in the first, UNH forward Thomas Fortney intercepted a Catamount pass at the offensive blue line and went in on goaltender Mike Spillane (16 saves). Spillane made a deft poke check to halt the scoring chance.<\/p>\n
Brayden Irwin nearly put Vermont up, 1-0, three minutes in to the second. He one-timed a Colin Vock pass from the goal line, hitting the left post flush from the slot.<\/p>\n
New Hampshire’s Bobby Butler squelched the momentum that Vermont had built. Butler gave the Wildcats the lead, taking a feed from James VanRiemsdyk on an odd-man rush and deposited it into an open net at 5:53.<\/p>\n
Spillane made three consecutive saves from close range — two on VanRiemsdyk — to keep the Cats within one, but, just as a UNH four-on-three power play came to a close, Matt Fornataro ripped a perfectly-placed wrister over Spillane’s glove at 18:41 to open a two goal advantage.<\/p>\n
You hate to take penalties in the offensive zone. We had great puck possession, we take an obstruction-interference penalty to give them a four-on-three,” explained Sneddon. “Now, you don’t want to give that team anymore space on the ice than you have to; and a four-on-three –they got a great look and buried their opportunity.”<\/p>\n
UNH tallied twice more in 29 seconds to push the lead to 4-0 at 5:59 of the third and put the game out of reach. Mike Sislo beat Spillane with a wrister from the left circle. Then, Spillane got a piece of a Greg Manz shot but not enough to keep it out of the net.<\/p>\n
Fornataro added his second of the night and 10th of the season, a one-timer from the top of the crease, at 9:10 to make it 5-0. Mike Radja set up the play from behind the net.<\/p>\n
Kyle Medvec ended Regan’s shutout bid at 15:20 of the third on a slap shot from the midpoint for his first career goal.<\/p>\n
UNH was one-for-three on the power play and UVM was held off the scoreboard on its three chances. The Wildcats had a 21-20 advantage in the final shot count.<\/p>\n
“I had no disputes about the way we played,” said Sneddon. “It was a costly freshman mistake on the first goal. We turned the puck over and it created a two-on-one, and then they score a legitimate power-play goal. Other than that, we played a pretty darn good two periods of hockey.”<\/p>\n
Vermont is off Saturday before facing Mass.-Lowell at 4:00 p.m. Sunday. New Hampshire is on the road next weekend for two at Maine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For over 38 minutes Friday, Vermont hung with seventh-ranked New Hampshire. Down, 1-0, late in the second, the Catamounts kept the high-powered Wildcats’ offense in check. UNH then scored the game’s next four goals, taking a 5-1 decision at Gutterson Fieldhouse. Matt Fornataro scored twice and Kevin Regan stopped 19 shots for the Wildcats, who […]<\/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:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8689"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8689\/revisions"}],"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=8689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8689"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}