Skidmore Junior Alex Mykolenko scored a shorthanded goal that proved to be the game winner in an ECAC Men’s quarterfinal playoff game as they rallied past USM to earn a 6-3 victory on Saturday in Gorham.
Even a great USM student body turn out wasn’t enough to put the Huskies on top. The Thoroughbreds proved to be too much, scoring four goals on power plays and the winning goal with 8:44 left in the second period.
Ryan Boucher (Lewiston) got the scoring started early in the first period for USM, but Skidmore came back a few minutes later with a goal of their own using a power play to gather up a rebound and find the back of the net. Whenever the opportunity presented itself, the Thoroughbreds responded despite the lack of penalties called in the game.
Less than a minute later, the Huskies kept the action going scoring a goal off a rebound from a shot from the point. Zach Joy (Dover, NH) scored his 20th goal of the season on a put back, assisted by David Nies (Windham, N.H.) and senior Chris Travis (Scituate, Mass.).
The action in the first ended with a score of 2-1 in the Huskies’ favor and one minute to go on a power play. The Thoroughbreds successfully killed the penalty in the beginning of the second but a minute later, Nies found the net off a pass by Joy 1:06 into the period. The breakneck pace continued and Skidmore answered with a bomb from the blue line.
The hitting began to pick up in the second period and eventually led to a few more shorthanded lines for the Huskies who capitalized on their man advantage opportunity, and Skidmore got the equalizer after some heavy scraping around the net.
After a roughing call on the Thoroughbreds for hitting after the whistle, USM found themselves in the driver’s seat with the extra man. The special teams for Skidmore seemed to just be in the right place at the right time and got their second shorthanded goal of the contest from a backhand flip that caught goaltender Mason St. Hilaire (Saco) off-guard.
Skidmore killed another penalty, despite quality chances from the Huskies’ power play unit. Once they got back to full strength Skidmore added to their lead with a relentless attack diving for the loose puck around the net to give them a two goal lead at 5-3.
On the tail end of a power play kill, Skidmore connected on a pass across the ice that beat the USM defense leading to a breakaway for the Thoroughbreds, bringing score to 6-3 with eleven minutes left. The Huskies weren’t able to get many scoring chances and an early lead turned into a three goal deficit.
“Skidmore is a great team and when we lost our momentum, we just couldn’t get it back,” USM head coach Jeff Beaney said.
The Huskies will only be losing four seniors this year and look forward to a promising campaign in 2011 as one of the youngest teams in ECAC East Hockey Conference.