Stollery Nets Two as Merrimack Defeats #12 UNH 3-2
Video
of Stollery's first goal
NORTH ANDOVER, MA - Karl Stollery (Camrose, AB)
registered his first career two-goal game as Merrimack improved to
9-1 at home, tops in the country, snapping UNH's 11-game unbeaten
streak in a 3-2 victory in front of 2,614 fans at Lawler Arena.
Merrimack (9-13-0, 6-9-0 HEA) and New Hampshire (12-8-4, 11-3-3
HEA) will conclude their season series Saturday night at the
Whittemore Center at 7 p.m.
With both teams skating four aside to open the third,
Stephane Da Costa (Paris, France) broke in on
Brian Foster, only to be robbed off a sprawling save by the
netminder, but Stollery was there to slap home the rebound into a
vacated net just 29 seconds in, giving the Warriors the 3-2
advantage.
Merrimack held on from there, outshooting UNH 18-8 in the third
and 43-30 in the game, to improve to 9-1 at home, tops in the
country and the best record after a ten-game span in school
history.
“Coach came in and settled us down between the second and
the third,” Chris Barton said. “We were playing well
and just had to stick with our game.”
“I saw Da Costa going in by himself,” Stollery said.
“He made a great play and a nice save by their goalie and I
joined the rush and it was just sort of sitting for me with an open
net. We had the momentum going into that intermission before they
scored the goal but we didn't let it bother us and we knew we
would have to come out strong in the third.”
Andrew Braithwaite (Kingston, ON) picked up his
second straight win with 28 saves, including 11 in the first period
and seven on Bobby Butler.
The Warriors opened the scoring at 6:43 of the first as
Chris Barton (Calgary, AB) notched his
team-leading 13th of the season putting home a rebound
off a Jeff Velleca (Waterbury, CT) shot. Da Costa
pushed the puck up the ice to a dangling Velleca, who broke in
two-on-one with Barton to give the hosts the early advantage.
After Butler evened the score on a two-man advantage tally 49
seconds into the second, the Warriors notched a power-play marker
of their own as a Stollery wrist shot from the point escaped
traffic in front and beat a screened Brian Foster at 11:17.
J.C. Robitaille (Des Ruisseaux, QC) and Barton
picked up the assists on Stollery's first of the night as the
Merrimack power play, ranked second in the country, struck for its
26th power-play goal of the season.
The Wildcats pulled even with just two seconds remaining in the
second, as Paul Thompson knocked in his 14th of the
season after Braithwaite robbed Butler with a glove save. Thompson
found the loose puck next to Braithwaite and tucked it in the near
post to even the score.
But Merrimack turned the tide back in its favor to start the
third, getting what proved to be the game-winner in the first
minute and using a sustained attack to limit the quality scoring
chances in front of Braithwaite for the remainder of the game.
The Warriors, who had not beaten UNH in the last six meetings in
North Andover, have now beaten nine different teams, six in Hockey
East, at home, including UNH, BU, BC and Vermont. They also equaled
last season's entire output of 72 goals in tonight's game.
Stollery, Barton and Da Costa each had multi-point games in the
victory, as Merrimack's power play was 1-for-7 on the night,
compared to 1-5 for UNH.
Foster was stellar, keeping his team in the game with 40 saves,
as Merrimack fired a season-high 43 shots, tying its output from
two weeks ago against Boston University. Foster came up with
numerous saves in odd-man rushes, including stops on Carter
Madsen (Okotoks, AB), Jesse Todd (Camrose, AB) and
Elliott Sheen (Lethbridge, AB).
