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Weekly Roundup: What we know about UConn 11 games into the season

Taking stock of the Huskies after a two-loss weekend.

November 18, 2021

Welcome to the UConn Hockey Hub newsletter, which catches you up on all the stories, trends, and anything else you might have missed, along with some quick takes and leftover notes from the weekend.

Weekend thoughts

  • Instead of getting into the fine details of UConn’s two-loss weekend, let’s look at the bigger picture of where this team stands after 11 games.

The good

Ryan Tverberg

The sophomore has been UConn’s best player with a team-high nine goals and 15 points — both of which are four more than the next closest player. Tverberg’s scored a goal in each of his last five games and has carried the offense on his back at multiple points this season. It’s hard to imagine where the Huskies would be without him.

Jachym Kondelik

While Tverberg is getting most of the attention, Kondelik has been excellent as well. He has a team-leading eight assists and is second to Tverberg with 11 points, but the senior’s play goes beyond the numbers. Kondelik’s ability to carry the puck into the zone has been invaluable and he’s been one of UConn’s best forecheckers.

Marc Gatcomb and Hudson Schandor

Both Gatcomb and Schandor warrant a mention as well. Gatcomb is in the midst of a breakout senior season with four goals and five assists along with a team-leading 41 shots. He also has more blocks (8) than four of UConn’s seven defensemen.

Schandor is tied with Kondelik at eight assists, though he’s yet to find the back of the net. What’s more impressive is he’s reached that mark after missing time with a cut on his leg. Schandor rarely stands out but he consistently makes plays for the Huskies. He’s looking more and more like one of Mike Cavanaugh’s most underrated pickups.

Lack of bad losses

Despite having some disappointing performances this season, the Huskies have avoided bad losses. Going by Pairwise, the worst team to beat them has been Boston University, who currently sits 43 out of 59, one spot behind Dartmouth. The Huskies are 5-1-0 against teams with a losing record. UConn also dropped a point at No. 58 Maine, but earning 5-of-6 points at Alfond Arena isn’t a bad weekend.

Surviving a road-heavy slate

Through 11 games, UConn has played just three at the XL Center. While the Huskies haven’t helped themselves by going 1-2-0 in those games, the constant travel — especially with long trips to Ohio State and Maine — is a grind. Since UConn’s joined Hockey East, it’s failed to win more than five road games in four different seasons. The Huskies are already 5-3-0 away from home this year.

The bad

Record against plus-.500 teams

While UConn has taken care of business against bad-to-mediocre teams, the Huskies are 1-4-0 against teams with a record above .500.

The lone win came against Northeastern and that game has proven to be an early turning point in the season for them. Talent-wise, UConn can go toe-to-toe with any team in the conference but so far, it hasn’t proven itself to be anything more than a pretender among the elite in Hockey East.

Jonny Evans/Carter Turnbull/the offense as a whole

With his score on Saturday, Evans drew even with Harrison Rees for the sixth-most goals on the team with two. Turnbull, meanwhile, has just two points on the year — a goal and an assist.

Last season, Evans led the team with 14 goals and 29 points. Two years ago, Turnbull was tied with Sasha Payusov for a team-high 12 goals. While both players have performed well, their lack of production has been a major disappointment this season and is emblematic of UConn’s offense as a whole.

Despite the bevy of talent at forward, the Huskies haven’t been an explosive scoring team. At 3.27 goals per game, UConn is tied for 20th nationally — which isn’t bad, but doesn’t account for the offense’s inconsistency. In three of the Huskies’ five losses, they’ve scored one goal or fewer.

UConn’s offense has been far from its biggest problem this season but it also hasn’t come close to reaching its ceiling. For the Huskies to look like the team they were expected to be at the beginning of the year, they need to start putting the puck in the back of the net more often and on a more consistent basis.

Special teams inconsistency

On Saturday, UConn had its worst special teams game of the season as it went 0/3 on the advantage and allowed three goals on Providence’s three uninterrupted power plays.

That was a rare hiccup for the Huskies’ penalty kill, which has been mostly reliable this season. The power play continues to be a problem, though. After an excellent start in its one opportunity against Sacred Heart, the unit went on a 0-16 drought before turning it around at Maine. While UConn looked good with the extra skater at Providence, it doesn’t matter when the puck doesn’t go into the back of the net.

Without the special teams firing, the Huskies will continue to struggle against the better teams on their schedule.

In the middle

Darion Hanson

Hanson had arguably his best game of the season on Friday night against BC and then his worst performance of the year on Saturday night at Providence. The best thing that can be said about the goaltender is that he’s given UConn a chance to win every night aside from last Saturday, though that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Hanson’s been fine and with good defense in front of him, he probably won’t make many back-breaking mistakes. But it doesn’t look like he’s going to single-handedly win the Huskies many games either.

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