Tyler Muszelik nabs win in return to UNH

Tyler Muszelik is plenty familiar with the Whittemore Center. During his first two years of college, it served as his home rink and he started 11 games there as a member of the UNH Wildcats.

But on Friday, Muszelik took the ice in a different role: As a visitor. He returned to Durham for the first time since transferring to UConn over the offseason and just so happened to get his first start since Nov. 15. Facing his former team, Muszelik backstopped the Huskies to an important 4-1 win.

Though he left the program on good terms — the net-minder went to dinner with some former teammates the night before — the victory held plenty of significance for Muszelik.

“No hard feelings but still — yeah,” he said. “The relationship I have with this place and the program and being here for two years, it was meaningful to win this game.”

Given all the history, Muszelik didn’t need any extra motivation on Friday night. That alone would’ve been a good enough reason to give him the nod between the pipes. Yet head coach Mike Cavanaugh maintained that Muszelik earned the start on merit, nothing else.

“He had a great week of practice and I thought it would be a good game for him to play,” he said.

Muszelik’s performance backed up that notion. Making his first appearance since Nov. 15 after being sidelined with a lower body injury, he stopped 27 of 28 shots and came up with some big saves along the way — none bigger than an acrobatic pad save in the waning moments of the first period to send UConn into the intermission up 1-0.

The lone goal he allowed essentially came in garbage time — a 6-on-4 situation with 1:49 left to cut a three-goal lead down to two.

In the locker room after the win, Muszelik received the hard hat — the team’s player of the game award.

“There was no question tonight who it was going to,” Hudson Schandor said.

Muszelik’s time at UNH didn’t go as anyone would’ve planned. Despite being a top goalie prospect from the US National Team Development Program and a sixth round pick of the Florida Panthers, he struggled to a 3.22 goals against average and .881 save percentage with the Wildcats. While it wasn’t a revenge game or anything of the sort, Friday night still wasn’t any old win.

“Moose does a great job not really showing that with us,” Schandor said. “But I think in the back of his head the entire time, he wanted this one pretty bad.”

Special teams operations

UConn’s penalty kill remained one of the most dangerous units in the country, burying its sixth shorthanded goal of the season — the most among all 64 Division I programs — in the win.

Afterwards, Schandor — who scored the shorty — credited new assistant Nick Peruzzi with instituting an ultra-aggressive penalty kill strategy. In the process, he gave the unit a new nickname.

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