By Brittany Burke
The goaltending core of the CCSU hockey club got its workout this weekend with three net-minders seeing ice time in games against the University of Massachusetts and Western Connecticut State University.
The Blue Devils have always had strong goaltending options, and with this season’s departure of Ross Mocko the team has been using the goalie combination of Greg Coco and John Palmieri. However, at the start of the new semester, CCSU added a third goalie to their line-up, sophomore Zach Gosselin.
Gosselin got his first start against the WCSU Colonials and helped his team secure the victory with a shut out performance and 10-0 final.
“My job is to go out there and stop pucks whether he plays me or not, if he gives me a shot I’m gonna go out there and do it,” said Gosselin.
The win Saturday night was the team’s third against their in-state rivals and their first of the second semester.
“We haven’t won in it seemed like three or four months so we got a couple goals in and were really feeling it and feeling good and got the momentum,” said Jack Johnson. Johnson had two of the 10 goals scored against WCSU Saturday night.
In the previous night the Blue Devils played the UMass Minutemen in Newington resulting in a 7-3 loss for the home team.
UMass managed to get up early scoring five goals on Coco in 18 shots before the first intermission. Before the start of the second Adams made the decision to pull Coco and put in Palmieri.
“It is always tough pulling a tender, you know Coco has been a back bone of this team for a long time its just one of those things when we’re trying to shake things up, light a fire, do something to get these guys refocused and that’s what we came up with and I think it worked to an extent,” said Adams.
The decision to switch goalies proved to be beneficial with UMass going scoreless in the second. The rest of the game had the two teams each scoring a pair of goals, but the initial five points was the padding UMass needed.
Defensively, the team was short handed and despite the goalie switch and a power play goal scored by Frank Pisano early in the third (his second of the game) the team couldn’t rally enough to get the win.
“I think we definitely worked hard and battled through our injuries and certain lack of commitment on certain people’s parts, but I liked the flow of the defense and getting more playing time back to back,” said Ryan Pereira. Pereira was one of just four defensemen dressed for the game playing side-by-side with teammate AJ Gemmell.
While the defense still struggled the following night the offense hit a stride against the Colonials. The Blue Devils consistently scored on WCSU’s young goalie class leading their rivals 5-0 going into the third.
“I’m happy that we got some offense going tonight, defensively I would have liked to have been better, supporting pucks and moving up the ice as a unit but its hard to stay focused when the game gets out of hand,” said Adams.
Two more goals were scored less than three minutes into the third to give them the seven-point advantage. With a final score of 10, CCSU saw goal contributions from six different players.
Adding to Johnson’s two was, Mazurkiewicz (2), Pisano (2), Evan Mink (2), Brian Fay (1) and Rob Ribino (1).
With CCSU dominating on offense, the third period got increasingly chippy as the Colonials scrambled to get pucks in the net. Despite their efforts Gosselin continued to come up with the major saves to keep the Colonials off the scoreboard.
“It was a fun game to play,” said Gosselin. “It got a bit chippy toward the end. Obviously it’s tough to play some of those games because the first two periods the flow is pretty good but then the third period you got 10, 15 minute stand stills. It’s tough to kind of stay focused in games like that.”
The team has a three-game weekend next week playing home Friday and Saturday against Bryant and NYU and then on the road Sunday against Montclair. It will be up to Adams who takes the spot in net and it is clear after this weekend he has a lot to think about.
“From a goal tending stand point it’s a good issue to have, now it’s just picking who’s hot when they’re hot and guess who’s going to have a good game,” said Adams.