Tyler Madden leads Northeastern past Maine in men’s hockey

Sophomore Tyler Madden had a career night with four points, including his first hat trick, to lead Northeastern past Maine, 5-2, before 2,021 fans in the opener of a two-game weekend series at Matthews Arena. Junior right wing Grant Jozefek (3 assists) and freshman left wing Aidan McDonough of Milton (goal, 2 assists) aided the cause with three points each.

“Awesome. The hat trick is pretty cool. But the most important thing is we came out with two points,” Madden said. “For me, I’m starting to feel the puck more and I couldn’t do it without Jozy (Jezefek) and Dunso (McDonough).”

NU coach Jim Madigan was clearly pleased with the extra jump his squad exhibited.

“A good night for our club. The first one (goal) set us up well and the first five minutes kind of set the tone. We kept building and feeding off each other from shift to shift,” said Madigan, whose team was 2-for-5 on power plays while generating a dozen shots with the extra skater.

Maine coach Red Gendron was not happy with the Black Bears’ (7-4-2, 4-3-2 HE) showing after going 0-for-5 on power plays.

“Not the best version of ourselves. That doesn’t take anything away from Northeastern. We’ll watch the film. We’ll learn from it and move forward,” said Gendron,. “We didn’t make a lot of smart plays with the puck. We turned the puck over and when you do that a good player will make you pay for that. He (Madden) is a terrific player. He played well tonight.”

The game featured a matchup of two teams that were mirror images. The Black Bears and the Huskies (7-4-2, 4-3-1 HE) each boasted a team offense average of 2.67 goals-per-game while the respective team defense was an identical 2.17 GPG.

It didn’t take long for Northeastern to take a lead when Madden, a Vancouver draft choice, escaped on a 2-on-1 with Jozefek. The pair traded passes with Madden canning the return pass into the open side at 1:09. Madden was back for more at 5:33, this time performing a give-and-go with McDonough. A Maine defender left Madden uncovered after the center slid the puck over to McDonough, who wisely returned the puck to Madden for the conversion. It was Madden’s 10th goal and represented his third career multiple-goal effort.

B’s draft pick Jeremy Swayman (22 saves), who entered the game with the nation’s fourth-best save percentage at .946 and ranked No. 12 in goals-against-average at 1.90, had little help in either of Madden’s tallies.

Maine stemmed the NU momentum with a goal at 11:08. Mitch Fossier fired a low wrist shot that caromed off the goal stick of NU goalie Craig Pantano, sending a reverberating sound throughout the building. Latvian product Edward Tralmaks buried the juicy rebound for his eight goal.

NU gained insurance at 5:18 of the middle period when junior center Zach Solow struck for a power play goal. Defenseman Jordan Harris fired the puck from the right point with Solow steering the puck off the crossbar. The rebound flew in the air and Solow swatted the puck into the net for his third goal. The officials checked video review before allowing the original ruling of a good goal to stand.

Madden, who turned 20 earlier this month, was near the end of a shift when NU’s defense stopped a Maine rush and fed the puck up ice to Jozefek, who chipped a pass to Madden, who beat Swayman to complete his hat truck at 7:52.

Down by three goals, the Black Bears stemmed the bleeding when freshman center Ben Poisson connected off an assist to Danish left wing Jacob Schmidt-Svejstrup at 11:41.

Maine was facing a steep climb after NU added another power play goal at 1:13 of the third. McDonough did the honors with a one-timer from the right circle for his fourth goal as Solow and Madden assisted. It was McDonough’s third multiple-point showing in the last four games while Madden equaled his single-game best with four points, produced last season at Merrimack.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2XBwcNI