Utah State hockey upends BYU at home
The Utah State University hockey team returned home Friday to host the BYU Cougars at the George S. Eccles Ice Center and came away victorious by a score of 4-1.
In the first meeting between the two teams in Provo, the Aggies skated past BYU by the score of 5-4. For the “Pink on the Rink” game, there was no love lost.
USU started the first period with complete control of the puck, getting scoring chance after scoring chance. With his team on the ropes, BYU’s goalie Jared Manzella was the only answer to the offensive outburst and made several big saves. For the rest of the Cougars, their aggressive play amounted to little chances in the USU zone.
As the period moved along, it was clear that BYU was not going to get a goal 5 on 5, but an odd-man rush did prove fruitful at long last. Capitalizing on a 3-on-1 chance, a Cougar forward made the Aggies pay for a neutral zone turnover and fired the puck past USU goalie Colter Pritchard. This blip in play stung, but only for a moment as USU picked themselves up and went back to work.
After finding their groove again, the Aggies knotted the game up at one off Sean Johnston’s stick from Austin Moser and his brother contributing to build-up play. Shortly after the goal tensions began running high, as expected in a rivalry of this sort, leading to frequent scrums. This did not sway USU, however, as it once again settled into the BYU zone and finished off the period with more quality scoring chances.
The Aggies had a rough start to the second, as an early penalty at the 19:32 mark set the stage for a chippy period for both teams. During the penalty kill, Pritchard staved off quality chances from BYU and helped his teammates kill of the penalty. The tenacious goaltender stopped 43 total shots throughout the game, earning him a well-deserved star of the game. While the Cougars did gain momentum during the man advantage that carried over after it ended, USU’s goalie held the fort and kept the score tied at one.
Photo by Iain Laurence
Penalties kept plaguing both teams and each team exchanged infractions to break up any momentum either team enjoyed. USU came out on top after the barrage of penalties, scoring a goal at even strength. Forward Chris Cutshall notched the goal at the midway point of the period, with assists going to Moser and Keegan O’Brien. However, the penalty monkey on their back persisted and the Aggies committed a hooking penalty just one minute after their goal.
Unfazed by the unfortunate and untimely infraction, USU charged along and kept the Cougars on their heels during the kill, getting shorthanded chances to boot. Despite the revolving door of penalties and skirmishes throughout the period, the play went along at a surprisingly fast pace. At the 4:31 mark, to break the monotony of 5-on-5 hockey, BYU sent a player to the sin bin to give the Aggies a chance to extend their 2-1 lead.
The team did not disappoint with the man advantage and scored off the initial faceoff, only eight seconds into their power play. Gavin Lubin scored the goal off Cutshall and O’Brien’s assists to put USU up 3-1. After the goal, both teams went back to their extracurricular activities and spared no chance to express their displeasure with one another. During one scrum, in which a dogpile took place in front of BYU’s net, Cougar goalie Manzel was at the center of controversy when he attacked an Aggie player and was sent to the locker room for the remainder of the second.
The final period of the game proved to be the most consequential 20 minutes for the Aggies as they racked up more penalties and gave BYU opportunities to come back. At 13:55 of the period, Bradley Green was thrown out of the game for head contact on a Cougar player, much to the dismay of the team and the crowd. The game misconduct gave BYU a five minute penalty and a chance to chip away at the Aggies’ two-goal lead.
Then, to add salt to the wound, USU committed another penalty, creating a 5-on-3 penalty kill situation. This proved to be the turning point of the game.
he coach also pointed to the 5-on-3 penalty kill as a turning point of the game.
“If we were down and that was us on that 5-on-3, that’s game over,” USU head coach Todd Renae said. “That’s a chance you don’t often get… [but] we stayed composed and our kill was phenomenal.”
The Cougars were unable to take advantage of the extended power play. From that moment on, USU controlled every aspect of the game and did not let up.
After the kill, Renae pressed his team to keep the pressure on BYU and ‘put the foot on the gas’. Saying, “We’re not playing to not lose, we’re playing to win.”
Late in the period, Johnston stripped the puck from a Cougar defenseman and sealed the game when he put the puck past Mazella to extend the lead to 4-1.
Following the game, Renae shared his thoughts on the three-goal victory, his first home win as coach.
“The [team’s] effort level was noticeable from the drop of the puck, definitely fueled by the crowd,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for something to click with this team and I think something clicked tonight.”
Renae attributed the BYU-USU rivalry to the elevated number of penalties, especially with the game played in front of such a raucous crowd.
USU’s win over the Cougars marked their second victory of the 2019-20 season, with the team having gone 3-1 over its past four games. The Aggies remain home for their next game against Montana State, where they look to avenge their 5-3 from the last matchup between the two teams. The game starts at 7:00 p.m. and it will also be streamed on USU’s team YouTube channel.