The moment wasn't too big in UConn's NCAA Tournament debut

UConn men’s hockey played 1,835 games over 65 seasons before it made an NCAA Tournament contest. In contrast, its opponent on Friday night, Quinnipiac, has made the last six tournaments and won the whole thing in 2023.

Despite that, Mike Cavanaugh’s team looked like the one that had been there before. After a short feeling-out period, the Huskies established themselves with a strong first period and ended the first stanza with a 2-0 lead that would hold the rest of the night for a 4-1 victory.

“That's a real battle-tested program over there. They've been coming to these tournaments for a long time now,” Cavanaugh said. “For us to play as well as we did tonight, I was really proud of our guys and proud of our team. It was a really good win for us and we're excited to be moving on to Sunday.”

After getting jumped by Maine in the Hockey East Tournament final and heading to the dressing room after 20 minutes in a 2-0 hole that was too big to climb out of, UConn was ready this time around.

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