The Forecheck: UConn's Christmas wishlist

Welcome to the revamped UConn Hockey Hub newsletter, now called The Forecheck, which catches you up on all the stories and trends with the team along with some quick takes and leftover notes from the weekend.

UConn’s Christmas Wishlist

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone. In the spirit of the season, we came up with a wishlist of things UConn needs for the second half that it can send to the North Pole.

Health

This wish is two-fold.

Injuries are part of the game — especially in hockey — but the Huskies got through the first half mostly unscathed. Among the team’s regulars, only Vladislav Firstov (one game missed), Nick Capone (one), Hudson Schandor (two), Jonny Evans (two) and Jake Flynn (five) sat out with injuries and only Flynn missed any significant time. We’ll see if that good fortune continues.

Secondly, the pandemic looks like it will be a major factor the rest of the way. The Huskies already had their last four games before the break postponed because of COVID issues within their own program. UConn will not only need to stay healthy over the final three months - they will have hope its opponents aren’t affected either.

A better power play

UConn’s penalty kill has been dynamite so far, which naturally means the power play has been terrible. The Huskies have only converted on five of 45 opportunities with the extra skater — three of which came against bad teams in Maine and Colgate.

While part of the unit’s problem is poor finishing — which has plagued the offense as a whole — the performances aren’t consistent enough, either. UConn will have a few games where the power play is fast and dangerous before reverting back to an endless string of passes around the point without any shots.

If all else stays the same, the Huskies’ ability to score on the power play will determine how much success they have the rest of the way.

More production from Jonny Evans, Vladislav Firstov and Carter Turnbull

While UConn’s offense has been good, it hasn’t been the explosive juggernaut we expected during the preseason. Much of that is due to the underwhelming production of Jonny Evans (2-4—6), Vladislav Firstov (5-3—8) and Carter Turnbull (2-2—4).

Evans has played well enough but isn’t at the same All-American level that he was last year. It doesn’t help that the senior spent a lot of time on the same line as Marc Gatcomb (5-7—12) and Jachym Kondelik (3-9—12) since there’s only so many points to go around. Still, Evans needs to be doing more.

Meanwhile, Firstov started the season on fire with three goals in his first two games but has one score in his last 11 outings. While he’s incredibly talented, Firstov can’t seem to put it all together for whatever reason. He did get benched for the second game of the UMass Lowell series with an injury and responded with four shots against Colgate, so maybe a turnaround is coming.

Finally, Turnbull still hasn’t emerged from the funk that enveloped him in the second half of last season. He’ll have moments where he looks like his old self — the goal he scored from a tough angle against Colgate being the prime example — but he still disappears for long stretches.

UConn’s offense ceiling is huge, but these three players are the key to unlocking that potential.

The ability to finish on breakaways

If UConn could finish on even half the breakaways it gets, it might be undefeated. Okay, that’s might be over-dramatic, but still, the Huskies have been excellent at creating breakaways. The problem is they’re terrible at finishing them.

It’s like the ghost of Brian Rigali — who unofficially led the nation in breakaways that didn’t result in a goal — is determined to haunt the program forever.

As long as UConn continues to do so well off the rush, the goals will come. The Huskies would just make life a lot easier on themselves if they converted on a higher percentage of them.

Week in review

News

• Ep. 40: UConn Hockey Hub Podcast

• Recruiting: Mike Cavanaugh discusses UConn's three signees, 2022 class

• UConn men’s hockey’s first half was successful, but more still to be desired

Play of the week

From UConn commit Tabor Heaslip:

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