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- Weekly Roundup: Taking a journey through UConn's Hockey East-Era records
Weekly Roundup: Taking a journey through UConn's Hockey East-Era records
Plus an update on the "big-time" defenseman the Huskies were after.
Team news
UConn didn’t land a commitment from the “big-time” defenseman who visited this past weekend. Sounds like the Huskies are on to their plan b.
Work has begun on the new rink:
And so it begins... 🚧🏗️
Heading into the weekend with a peek at some of the first work done this week building our new home #IceBus
🏒🚍— UConn Men's Hockey (@UConnMHOC)
9:24 PM • Jun 11, 2021
Taking a journey through UConn’s Hockey East records
UConn men’s hockey’s record book is… complicated, to put it lightly. The various records are generally split into two groups: The Division I Era (1998-present) and everything before that.
Most of the overall records are ridiculous and out of reach for modern players. For example, the career points leader is Bryan Krieger (1988-92) with 219 (92 goals, 127 assists). The Division I career points leader is Brant Harris (2010-14) with 112.
In fact, the top 15 point-getters all played during the Huskies’ Division III days, as did all but one of the top 15 goal scorers.
The season records aren’t much better. Krieger once collected 38 goals and 54 assists (92 points!) in 1991-92. For reference, Cole Schneider set the Division I points record with 45.
While it’s technically all the same program, Division I UConn and Division III UConn are worlds apart. Using the Division I records allows us to properly contextualize the achievements of current players.
At the same time, a lot has changed for the Huskies since joining Hockey East in 2014. For starters, the talent base of the roster is significantly higher now that they can hand out scholarships and the opposition is much, much tougher than Atlantic Hockey.
Because of that, we felt it was important to have a distinction between the old days, the Division I era, and the Hockey East era. And since UConn just completed its seventh season in the conference, there’s enough data to compile a Hockey East Era record book for the Huskies.
A few notes: These aren’t just stats from Hockey East games but all games from 2014-15 onward. If someone (like Shawn Pauly) played two seasons in Atlantic Hockey and two seasons in Hockey East, only his junior and senior year numbers are counted.
Here are some highlights from it:
The leaders
Spencer Naas is the career leader in goals scored with 49 while Max Letunov holds the career record for assists (60) and points (95) — the latter of which is 18 more than Ben Freeman and Naas, the next closest players.
As for single-season records, Tage Thompson set the high water mark for goals with 19 in 2016-17 while Letunov holds the record for both assists (24) and points (40) from the same year.
In goal, Tomas Vomacka’s freshman year ranks as the best (qualified) season by a goaltender with a 2.32 goals against average and a .922 save percentage. Rob Nichols recorded four shutouts during the Huskies’ first season in Hockey East while turning away 1,052 of 1,146 shots faced — both of which are records as well.
In the face-off circle, Jesse Schwartz won .614 percent of draws in 2017-18 while Freeman won 359 in 2019-20, which are each best for the era.
Records in sight
Both Jonny Evans and Jachym Kondelik will have a chance to set some records going into their senior seasons.
Right now, Evans ranks fifth in goals scored with 31. He needs two to reach Thompson, four to catch Letunov, nine to match Sasha Payusov, and 18 to draw even with Naas. This past year, Evans scored 0.61 goals per game, which would come out to 22 in a normal, 36-game campaign, so the top spot is certainly in reach.
Kondelik, meanwhile, is all but guaranteed to pass Letunov for the most assists in the Hockey East Era as long as he stays healthy. Kondelik finished his junior year with 55 career assists, just five behind Letunov.
Both players could also challenge Letunov’s record of 95 career points. Kondelik is 23 points away while Evans is 31 points back. Kondelik has averaged 23.67 points per season in his career while Evans would’ve been on pace to rack up 45 in a 36-game season this past year.
Max Letunov is clearly the best player of the era (so far)
In UConn’s Hockey East Era, Letunov is one of four players to score more than 30 goals and owns the record for the most assists and points — all while playing just three seasons with the Huskies. Since nobody else has come even remotely close to putting up the same levels of production over a similar period of time, Letunov is pretty clearly the best player UConn’s had in Hockey East… so far.
There aren’t many great goal scorers…
One thing that stands out in the records is the lack of great goal scorers. Just five players have scored more than 30 goals and only eight have reached the 20-goal plateau — four of them needed all four years to hit that mark.
Going season-by-season, 16 players have buried 10 or more goals in a single campaign but only four — Letunov, Naas, Payusov, and Thompson — have done it twice. UConn has yet to have a player score 20 goals in a season as well with Thompson coming the closest with 19 in 2016-17. Nobody else has put home more than 16.
…but Sasha Payusov was one of them
During UConn’s Hockey East Era, there have been 13 occurrences of players scoring 12 or more goals in a single season. Payusov is responsible for three of them.
As a sophomore, he tied Letunov and Naas for the team lead with 12 goals and followed it up with a 16 goal campaign as a junior — bringing him even with Letunov’s 2016-17 campaign as the second-most in a single season. As a senior, he and Carter Turnbull both led the squad with 12 goals.
Payusov seemed to fly under the radar his entire career, maybe because he wasn’t the flashiest player. But he always found a way to put the puck in the back of the net and is easily one of the best forwards to play under Cavanaugh.
Rob Nichols was a monster (but we knew this)
Rob Nichols owns every single career record for UConn in Hockey East: Goals against average (2.77), save percentage (.914), shutouts (8), shots faced (2,538), saves (2,341), games played (80), and minutes played (4,696:43). He’s also the only goaltender with multiple shutouts in a single season — and he did that three years in a row. In the overall record books, Nichols holds the second-best GAA (2.66) and faced the fourth-most shots.
What’s most impressive about Nichols is he did it all during the Huskies’ early days in Hockey East — true #IceBus days — when they were typically overmatched and needed 30+ saves from him to earn points. More often than not, Nichols delivered.
Considering the opposition he faced, Nichols has a strong argument as the best goaltender in program history — across all eras.
Kale Howarth and Brian Rigali can’t be separated
Here’s a quirky stat: Kale Howarth and Brian Rigali’s UConn careers both ended this past season and the two players finished with the exact same totals: 16 goals, 18 assists, and 34 points. The only difference is Howarth put up those numbers in three years while Rigali did it in four.