AMHERST, MA – The #8 Northeastern Huskies were trounced by the #1 UMass Minutemen in a 6-1 defeat on Friday night.
The Minutemen scored three times in the opening period to set the tone for the game. Northeastern was unable to match their opponent in any phase of the game. Coach Madigan would call it their worst loss in several years.
Scoring opened up just 90 seconds into the game when senior forward Kurt Keats scored his first goal of the season, a tip-in from a shot just inside the blue line. Sophomore defenseman would get his first of three assists on the following goal when senior forward Jacob Pritchard netted the eventual game winning goal on the power play. Senior forward Brett Boeing made it 3-0 at 13:16 in the first, and Makar would earn his second assist of the night.
Things did not look up for Northeastern as the Minutemen tacked on two more goals in the second period. At the 8:37 mark, sophomore forward Oliver Chau scored his fifth goal of the season and freshman defenseman Ty Farmer earned his second assist of the game. Just over a minute later at 9:48, freshman forward Bobby Trivigno scored his sixth of the season and Makar earned his final assist of the game, his 19th of the season.
Sophomore goaltender Cayden Primeau, who had started the game, was pulled from the game and replaced with senior Ryan Ruck after the Trivigno’s goal.
Trivigno and Pritchard would end up assisting on the lone third period goal for the Minutemen when sophomore forward Philip Lagunov put one past Ruck just 19 seconds into the third period. A flurry of penalties including a ten-minute misconduct for unsportsmanlike conduct on sophomore goaltender Matt Murray – who served the 10 minutes himself in the penalty box, forcing freshman Filip Lindberg to finish the game – resulted in a 4-on-3 for Northeastern. With senior forward Pat Schule in the penalty box and two Minutemen residing in the neighboring sin bin, freshman forward Tyler Madden scored the lone Husky goal at the 8:45 mark.
Northeastern found themselves on the penalty kill six different times including five minutes for the major penalty committed by Schule. They were also outshot 38 to 16 and could not score when UMass had more than three skaters on the ice.
The Huskies will face UMass again on Saturday, January 19 at 7 p.m. in Historic Matthews Arena. WRBB will have pre-game coverage beginning at 6:45 p.m.