Merrimack drops a disappointing series opener to Vermont
NORTH ANDOVER - Vermont scored four straight goals to erase an early Merrimack lead and secure a 4-2 win over the Warriors on Friday night at Lawler Arena.
The loss dropped the Warriors to No. 28 in the Pairwise, and more importantly, helped create a quagmire in the middle of the Hockey East standings. The Warriors are in seventh place, one point behind UMass Lowell for sixth but the River Hawks have a game in hand. UMass beat No. 1 Boston College last night, which moved the Minutemen just one point shy of the Warriors in eighth place. Vermont is only three points behind the Warriors in ninth place.
“[Vermont] played a really good game,” said Merrimack coach Scott Borek. “We tried to force the game through them, and you can’t do that. We gave them easy looks and played in our own end a lot because of that. That was disappointing.”
Nick Pierre scored his fourth goal of the season on the power play with 16 seconds left in the first period, but after that, it was all Catamounts. Joel Maatta scored twice for UVM — the first goal came on the power play — and Colin Kessler added a power-play goal in the second period to give UVM a 2-1 lead. Simon Jellus’ goal gave the Catamounts insurance before Maatta added an empty-netter late.
Antonio Venuto scored on the power play with 45 seconds left to cut the deficit to 4-2.
Penalties were a big problem for the Warriors
Vermont had its first power-play of the night just 1:51 into the game, and the Catamounts had five of the game’s first six power plays before Daniel Sambuco was given a game misconduct and a major penalty for boarding Zach Bookman in the third period.
“We earned our problems [with penalties],” Borek said.
“[Bookman] got hit really good,” Borek added. “I haven’t talked to him yet. I think there were some good signs, but we’ll find out more [Saturday] morning.”
As fans were filing out of Lawler Arena, Vermont challenged for a major penalty at the buzzer and Ty Daneault was given a major penalty and game misconduct for slashing UVM goalie Axel Mango.
Warriors can’t get anything going on the major power play
The Warriors added a late power-play goal on the major, but that was after the Catamounts added an empty-net goal. Until then, the Warriors had trouble establishing offensive-zone pressure.
“They were really aggressive and we played very slow,” said Borek. “That was the whole game, but it was certainly on that last power play. They turned the puck over on us and we couldn’t get much established. It just wasn’t a very good game by us.”
Borek thought the Warriors started slow, and never got going.
“You just can’t flip a switch,” Borek said. “We started slow, and we continued to play slow with the puck and that really hurt us. Max [Lundgren] made some huge saves to keep us even in the game. We needed to help him out and play better with the puck.”
Vermont (11-13-3): 0-2-2--4
Merrimack (12-16-1): 1-0-1--2
First Period: 1. MC Nick Pierre 4 (Zach Bookman, Ty Daneault), pp, 19:44.
Second Period: 2. UVM Joel Maatta 6 (Isak Walther, Will Zapernick), pp, 4:25; 3. UVM Colin Kessler 10 (Sebastian Tornqvist, Will Zapernick), pp, 18:10.
Third Period: 4. UVM Simon Jellus 8 (Isak Walther, Joel Maatta), ev, 12:59; 5. UVM Joel Maatta 7 (unassisted), sh/en, 17:56; 6. MC Antonio Venuto 8 (Michael Emerson, Trevor Griebel), pp, 19:15.
Shots: MC 10-6-13--29; UVM 15-9-8--32
Saves: MC Lundgren (57:52) 28/31; UVM Mangbo (59:14) 27/29
Power Play: MC 2 for 3; UVM 2 for 5
Pen-PIM: MC 7-25; UVM 3-17
Attendance: 1,984