Matthew Wood in on three goals as UConn beats Yale, 6-1, to advance to CT Ice final to play Quinnipiac
UConn was in a dominant mode as the new-look CT Ice tournament relaunched Friday.
The Huskies had the better of play from start to finish to beat Yale, 6-1, at M&T Bank Arena, outshooting the Bulldogs 33-25.
“I thought we played one of our best games last Saturday night against UMass, and our goal for this game was to pick up where we left off,” UConn coach Mike Cavanaugh said.
Matthew Wood, the highly touted freshman, had a goal and two assists for UConn (16-7-3), which will play Quinnipiac for the title on Saturday at 7 p.m.. Quinnipiac, ranked third in the country, defeated Sacred Heart 5-0 later Friday. UConn is ranked 12th.
“There are four trophies we can win and this is a big one.” said Justin Pearson, transfer from Yale, who scored the Huskies’ first goal. “We’re going to treat it like the biggest game of the year.”
UConn has never won the CT Ice, the four-team festival featuring the state’s Division I men’s hockey teams. The event was conceived by SNY-TV, to be played at Bridgeport, but the network pulled out and the event is likely to be rotated among campus sites going forward, with new arenas opened at UConn and Sacred Heart. In a last-minute agreement, SNY, which owns the rights to the name, allowed it to again be called CT Ice, and is televising the games, using the feed from Quinnipiac.
Once it was determined what the tournament could be called and where it could be watched, the focus was on the ice. UConn scored twice in the first period, Pearson getting it started with assists from Wood and Ryan Tattle on the power play. Ryan Tverberg scored on a breakaway at 17:45. The Huskies finished the period with a 12-1 edge in shots, 26-10 after two.
Wood, who has nine goals and 15 assists, scored on a bullet-like wrist shot from the right circle 2:09 into in the second, also on the power play, and the rout was on. Two minutes later he assisted on a goal by Samu Salminen.
“It has been a really fun experience for me, freshman year, figuring out everything,” said Wood, 17, the youngest player in college hockey and a potential first-round draft pick. “It’s been a process and I’m still continuing to learn every day. You always have to do that, whether you’re a freshman in college or a player in the NHL for 10 years.”
Cavanaugh chased Wood down in the far reaches of Western Canada to get him to UConn. Pearson and Wood play together on the first line, and Cavanaugh often finds them together on the ice when the others are through.
“[Wood’s] second on our team in points and for a 17-year-old kid, that’s pretty good in college hockey,” Cavanaugh said. “I just like the way he competes on the puck. He certainly can make plays, that goal he scored was a great shot, and he’s got that in his tool bag, but his compete on the puck has really impressed me.”
Roman Kinal and Jake Veilleux scored later in the second to make it 6-0. Yale (3-13-4) finally broke through with a goal against UConn’s Arsenii Sergeev (24 saves), scored by Qinton Ong with 11 minutes left in the game. The Bulldogs will play in the consolation Saturday at 4 p.m.
Pearson transferred because the Ivy League wouldn’t have allowed him to play a fifth year at Yale. He has eight goals and nine assists for UConn.
“It’s similar, the coaches ingrain hard work and competitiveness,” Pearson said. “It was definitely strange looking over and see all my old teammates and the jersey I wore for three years.”
Quinnipiac (19-3-3), which was ranked No.1 before losses at Cornell and Colgate last weekend, got two goals from Colin Graf and 17 saves from Yaniv Perets, who notched his fifth shutout. Coach Rand Pecknold got his 600th career victory. Perets shut out UConn 2-0 in the 2022 CT Ice final.
Dom Amore can be reached at damore@courant.com
