The Northeastern men's hockey team displayed its versatility on Saturday night, grinding out a much closer victory than Friday's series opener, sweeping Vermont via 4-2 victory at Gutterson Fieldhouse.
With the triumph, Northeastern pulled into a seventh-place tie with Massachusetts in the Hockey East playoff race after both New Hampshire and the Minutemen lost on Saturday evening.
The Huskies used four different goal scorers in juniors Robbie Vrolyk and Alex Tuckerman, rookie Dan Cornell and sophomore Cody Ferriero to keep a frisky Catamount club at bay.
Senior captain Mike McLaughlin centered a third line with Vrolyk and Tuckerman that accounted for two goals and five assists in the triumph as the veteran registered Northeastern's second-consecutive playmaker (three assists) in as many games.
Junior goaltender Chris Rawlings was the anchor once again for the Huskies' defensive corps, turning aside 23-of-25 UVM attempts. Vermont goaltender Alex Vazzano earned a rare start and slipped to 1-3-0 on the season with 24 stops. Rawlings is back to .500 on the year with a 10-10-3 record.
Northeastern's power play unit, which erupted for three goals on Friday night, was not allowed to flash its skill as the Huskies had only one power play opportunity on the evening. Northeastern's penalty-killing unit stopped three of UVM's four power play opportunities.
Game Notes
• Northeastern matched a program-best with its fourth-consecutive victory against Vermont on Jan. 28. The Huskies have defeated the Catamounts in four-straight outings only one other time in the 49-game series history. The last time spanned from Dec. 13, 1980 to Jan. 18, 1984.
• Northeastern's win on Saturday night at Vermont marked the Huskies' first conference sweep of an opponent this season. Northeastern also defeated Providence and UVM on consecutive nights back on Nov. 18-19, but it was NU's first consecutive victories over a league foe. Northeastern's longest winning spell over a Hockey East foe is now against Vermont (4-0-0). Providence is second, having been unbeaten in three games against the Friars (2-0-1).
• Mike McLaughlin skated in his 113th-career contest on Jan. 28 and within that span, he'd never tallied two assists in one game. At Vermont on Saturday, he registered three. McLaughlin followed up Braden Pimm's act from Friday night as both skaters registered a playmaker in consecutive outings at Gutterson Fieldhouse. For McLaughlin, the three-point performance counted as the first of his career. It was his second multi-point outing of the season and seventh of his career.
• Alex Tuckerman logged his first multi-point outing on Jan. 28 at Vermont with a goal and an assist since his overtime heroics on March 15, 2009 in the Hockey East quarterfinals against Massachusetts. Tuckerman sent the Huskies to the Hockey East semifinals with an overtime goal along with a tally in regulation. It marks Tuckerman's fifth-career multi-point game.
• Robbie Vrolyk scored his first goal of the season and first since netting one at Boston College on Feb. 18, 2011. The goal curbed a 31-game goal scoring draught for the Boylston, Mass. native. Vrolyk also added an assist, marking his second career multi-point game and first since a pair of goals at UMass on Feb. 13, 2010.
• Rookie Dan Cornell's goal on Saturday in Burlington counted as his second game-winning goal of the season. The Abington, Mass. native's first-career game-winning goal came against Notre Dame in the 9-2 victory on Dec. 2.
• Garrett Vermeersch has scored at least one point in 11 of his last 13 games, accounting for 14 points within that spell (6-8-14). He is riding a three-game point streak into the Massachusetts game.
• Along with Vermeersch's point streak, Anthony Bitetto, Braden Pimm, Mike McLaughlin and Cody Ferriero are also riding point streaks. Pimm is on a three-game streak (1-4-5), while Bitetto (0-2-2), McLaughlin (1-3-4) and Ferriero (4-1-5) are all on two-game spurts.
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Jim Madigan postgame press conference (at Vermont - Jan. 27, 2012)by Northeastern89 views
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