Hockey remains undefeated after three wins in Colorado
Utah State hockey took to the road this past weekend to put its 4-0 record up to the biggest test yet this season with a three-game set against Northern Colorado, Colorado State, and Colorado University.
Coming home now with a 7-0 record, it appears safe to say that the Aggies passed the test.
“This road trip is huge because you’re playing some of the top teams in the west,” USU head coach Jon Eccles said. “Having these games this early in the season kind of sets a standard and a gauge of where we are and what we need to improve in.”
The Aggies indeed set a standard for themselves this weekend while continuing to live up to the expectations that players and coaches had placed on themselves to start this season.
The three-game set opened up Thursday against Northern Colorado with a slow, but not rocky start for USU.
“There was nothing spectacular on our part,” Eccles said of the first period. “I felt like, for the most part, we controlled the puck. We had some chances and came up with some good saves.”
It was all uphill for Utah State from there.
“The second period was really different,” Eccles said. “We gained control of the puck and scoring chances started to come for us.”
Those chances came with the Aggies capitalizing on a handful of UNC penalties to bury four goals in the second period. Dave Wyman netted two on the power play while Billy Gouthro scored a power play goal of his own to go along with Matt Hamilton’s even-strength goal to give Utah State a 4-1 lead going into the second intermission.
Eccles said that the surge in scoring was due to every man on the ice doing his part to jump-start the offense.
“Our defense was really moving the puck up to our forwards out of the zone quickly,” Eccles said. “Our forwards were really pressing down in their zone and it caused a lot of turnovers and gave us a lot of scoring opportunities.”
The Aggies finished off the Bears in the third period with another power-play goal by Tyler Mistelbacher and a short-handed goal by Joel Basson to cruise to a 6-2 victory. Goaltender Cody Palmer had 22 saves for Utah State.
Friday’s game game saw the Aggies locked into a 1-1 tie after two periods against perennial power Colorado State. USU battled through 12 penalties, including two separate 5-on-3 power play situations for the Rams, both of which the Aggies killed to keep from allowing a single short-handed goal to CSU. Utah State rallied behind third period goals from Mistelbacher, Brendon MacDonald and Ty Johns to lead the Aggies to a 4-2 victory in what was expected to be USU’s toughest game to date this season. Dan Cornelius worked the crease for Utah State, stopping 34 out of the 36 shots he faced in the game.
For the third game in three days, Utah State faced Colorado University with what would be their first ever three-game sweep of the Colorado schools. Utah State started strong and appeared to be well on their way to accomplishing that goal before they blew a 3-2 lead to start the third period. The lead wasn’t gone for long however, as USU tied the game back up on a goal by Wyman, and appeared to take the lead shortly after on another goal that was waved off by the officials.
Sixty minutes of regulation ended with the scored locked at 4-4 and the sweep being left to be settled by sudden death. That killing blow was delivered in overtime by Utah State’s Gouthro to send Utah State to 7-0 on the season. Bryce Scherschel took over goaltending duties for Saturday’s game, the third goalie in as many nights for USU, and put forth arguably the most impressive of the three performances. Scherschel stopped 42 of CU’s 46 shots on the night.
Two of the teams that the Aggies handed losses to will be making return visits to Logan this coming weekend, as Utah State hosts Colorado State at home Friday at 7 p.m. and Northern Colorado for a Saturday afternoon game which will start at 3 p.m.
– matt.sonn@aggiemail.usu.edu