NORTH ANDOVER — With yesterday's 4-1 win over UConn, Merrimack College is off to its second-best start since joining Hockey East 21 seasons ago.
They are winning, and they're scoring goals in bunches. Scoring had been a problem for the Warriors for years. In 2006-07, they owned the worst offense in all of college hockey.
But something about this team is different. As head coach Mark Dennehy puts it, this team was five years in the making. When Dennehy took over in 2005-06, he got into more of a rebuilding project than he expected.
"We have some better players now," said Dennehy. "When we play a certain way, we'll get chances. I don't for a second pretend that I invented this game, but there are things we've talked about in the locker room. We've done some things that we've done in the past but we couldn't take advantage of it before.
"We stretched the zone before, but we never got anything out of it. Now we are. We're not doing anything too different. We're just taking advantage of it."
Through six games the Warriors (4-2, 1-0 Hockey East) have scored 22 goals, the most since the 1997-98 team, which scored 40 goals albeit against a soft schedule which included Guelph, Ohio State twice and Union.
And how about this, the Warriors have scored the most goals in Hockey East ... better than perennial powers Boston University, Boston College and Maine.
"We have things rolling right now," said co-captain Pat Bowen, who netted the game-winner 13:40 into the first period. "Over the past couple of weeks our lines and special teams units have jelled. We have guys with really good vision, too. It makes it easier for everyone. We have a good mix of veterans and younger guys."
Merrimack's 4-0 start at home is its best start since going Division 1 23 years ago.
Midway through the second period the scoreboards went blank, causing a roughly seven-minute delay at a point in the game in which Merrimack was dominating the play. After play resumed, winless UConn (0-4) was able to put together several quality scoring chances against Andrew Braithwaite (23 saves) but the senior turned them all away.
"It shouldn't have affected us," Dennehy said of the delay. "One of our goals is to be mentally tough and mentally tough teams don't let that affect them. Did it affect us? I don't know, they had to wait, too. But we can't allow any excuses. There were times we got away from doing what we need to do to be successful."
Merrimack 4, UConn 1
at Lawler Arena, Merrimack College
UConn (0-4-0):0-1-0—1
Merrimack (4-2-0, 1-0 HE):2-1-1—4
First Period: 1. MC Jesse Todd 2 (Karl Stollery, Chris Barton), PPG, 12:33; 2. MC Pat Bowen 1 (Stephane Da Costa, Simon Demers), PPG, 13:40.
Second Period: 3. MC Chris Barton 6 (Karl Stollery), 1:02; 4. UC Justin Hernandez 1 (Alex Gerke, Andrew Olson), PPG, 6:57.
Third Period: 5. MC Elliott Sheen (Brandon Sadlowski, Adam Ross), PPG, 19:02.
Shots: Merrimack 12-4-15—31; UConn 6-7-9—22
Saves: MC Braithwaite (2-1-0) 6-6-9—21; UC Larson (0-4-0) 10-3-14—27
Power Play: Merrimack 2 for 9; UConn 1 for 6
Attendance: 1,794
Next: at Boston College Friday, 7 p.m.
Improvements on the way
Athletic director Glenn Hofmann detailed plans on Friday to finally finish the renovations at Lawler Arena, and coach Mark Dennehy wants to make the rink a feared destination.
"We want to make (Lawler Arena) a place teams don't want to come to," Dennehy said. "I like our rink. Our players like playing at Agganis Arena and the Whittemore Center and I don't want teams to like to come here."
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