UConn beats Quinnipiac 4-1 to earn first NCAA Tournament victory

UConn men’s hockey played an inspired first period and rode the momentum to victory in its first NCAA Tournament game on Friday, topping the 3-seed Quinnipiac Bobcats 4-1 at PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Tristan Fraser, Ethan Gardula, Hugh Larkin and Joey Muldowney had the tallies for the Huskies while Callum Tung sparkled in goal, stopping 21 of 22 pucks with some big saves to boot. Muldowney’s was his 28th of the year, putting him two behind Boston College’s Ryan Leonard for the national lead.

It took each team a bit of time to get settled but the Huskies got their feet under them first and it paid dividends.

UConn broke through at the 8:25 mark. Tabor Heaslip gained the zone and fed Larkin at the top of the right face-off circle. The graduate student had time for a wrist shot that deflected off a defender and beat Quinnipiac goalie Dylan Silverstein high to the blocker side to make it 1-0. Larkin, the only Husky to play in an NCAA Tournament game prior to puck drop, recorded the program’s first-ever goal in the event.

Up to that point, UConn had much of the possession but hadn’t set up to establish true, sustained pressure. The goal changed that as the Huskies immediately started to get more high-danger chances.

That was demonstrated just over six minutes later when Gardula doubled his team’s lead with an incredible effort. As Quinnipiac tried to break out, the winger made the steal just inside the blue line and broke in free. He got Silverstein to bite on a nifty move then buried a backhander to push the Huskies’ lead to 2-0 at 14:32 of the period.

Jake Richard took a cross-checking call in a scrum with 3:02 left in the period. Quinnipiac, which came into the night with a 29.9 percent conversion rate on the power play that leads the country, didn’t convert but it used the time with the extra skater to level the ice and set the stage for a comeback bid in the second.

The Bobcats asserted themselves more in the middle stanza and struck right after killing off a penalty that had a few dangerous UConn chances. Jeremy Wilmer and Mason Marcellus got on on a 2-on-1 and converted past a diving John Spetz and a sprawling Tung to get on the board.

That seemed to snap the Huskies out a brief funk and they started to carry the play again, culminating in an opportunistic tally. A deflected shot found its way to Jake Percival, who had a look at a wide-open net but had his shot blocked. Luckily, the puck bounced to Fraser, who was parked in the middle of the slot and flicked the puck into the net at 14:13 to give UConn a 3-1 advantage.

The Huskies again took a penalty late in the frame, potentially giving their opponents a lifeline. This time it was Spetz, who got the gate for slashing with 4:39 remaining. The penalty kill ultimately looked much more up to the task the second time around and would go to the dressing room up two goals after 40 minutes.

A desperate Quinnipiac team came out hard in the third and very nearly scored about four minutes into the frame. A shot got past Tung and hit the crossbar, then sat in the crease behind him but before a Bobcat found it, Viking Gustafsson Nyberg cleared it to preserve his team’s lead at two.

The chances kept coming for the Bobcats when Fraser took an interference call at 7:20 but UConn again fought off the man advantage and even got a decent shorthanded chance as it expired.

Just a few minutes later, UConn nearly experienced disaster as the Tung took a skate to the mask and went down in obvious pain with 9:18 remaining. After examination from the trainer, he was deemed good to go and remained in the game. Tung was immediately tested with a 3-on-1 but he robbed the Bobcats with a pair of stops.

Muldowney iced the game at 17:15 with an empty-net goal, sending UConn to the Allentown Regional final.

The Huskies (23-11-4) will face the winner of 1-seed Maine and 4-seed Penn State on Sunday at either 4:30 p.m. for the right to go to the Frozen Four.