Union men’s hockey played its most-complete game of season in Mayor’s Cup

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ALBANY — First-year Union men’s hockey head coach Josh Hauge has been looking for a consistent game from his team all season long.

After watching the Dutchmen rout RPI 6-0 in Saturday’s Mayor’s Cup game at MVP Arena, Hauge would love to bottle that game up and open it up again when they resume ECAC Hockey play this weekend when they visit Colgate and Cornell. There are eight games left in the regular season, and Union is battling for home ice for the sudden-death first-round game in the ECACH tournament.

Union goalie Connor Murphy was a big factor. He made 28 saves for the shutout.

But getting many of his players on the scoresheet, especially his upperclassmen, was a key reason the Dutchmen cruised to their seventh Mayor’s Cup title. Of the 14 players who recorded at least one point, half of them were upperclassmen. Three of them had two points — junior forward Ville Immonen had a goal and an assist, and senior forward Owen Farris and junior defenseman Nic Petruolo collected two assists each.

“I thought our older guys set the tempo right away, really from the opening faceoff and carried it all the way through,” Hauge said. “I would agree it was probably our best effort of the season.”

For Immonen, it was his best game of the season. He had just one goal coming into the game. That goal came Oct. 15 in the 8-5 loss at RIT.

Immonen’s second-period tally snapped a 10-game goal-scoring drought. He nearly scored in the first period, but was turned away by RPI goalie Jack Watson.

“He was awesome [Saturday],” Hauge said. “He deserved to score in the first period. I was really glad he got rewarded in the second. He was playing hard. He was playing physical, protecting the pucks. That was a great game by him.”

PETRUOLO, McISAAC SUSPENDED

Petruolo and RPI’s James McIsaac will be getting Friday off.

The pair will serve a one-game suspension after they got into a fight with 1:29 left in the game. It happened at the RPI blue line. Petruolo cross-checked McIsaac, McIsaac retaliated and the two squared off. Both players kept their gloves on as they punched each other.

“If there was one downside of the game, it was that because [Petruolo] played outstanding,” Hauge said, “and was really happy for him to take a good step in his game and was excited to see how that would work on Friday. Unfortunately, he’ll just have to get ready for Saturday.”

SURPRISE STARTER

At Tuesday’s Mayor’s Cup press conference, RPI head coach Dave Smith said that goalie Jack Watson was going to be out several weeks with an undisclosed injury.

On Saturday, Watson was the starting goalie. He made 12 saves in two periods of play before being replaced by Brett Miller to start the third period.

“He had a shorter week because of some injury stuff that had gone on,” Smith said. “He touched the ice on Wednesday and felt good. He went full go on Thursday and went full go on Friday.”

Hauge was surprised to see Watson’s name on the line chart.

“I didn’t know if … he was playing a mind game with me or something,” Hauge said. “[A] first-time head coach and [Smith] is going to tell me that one guy was going to start and then comes with a different one. Luckily, we’ve prepared for all three of their goalies because they have three pretty good ones.”

BY THE NUMBERS

Some interesting numbers coming from the Mayor’s Cup.

155:37

Number of minutes that the Dutchmen have held RPI without a goal since John Evans scored 4:23 into the second period of the Engineers’ 2-1 win Oct. 28.

147:21

Number of minutes that the RPI men haven’t scored a goal in the Mayor’s Cup. Zach Dubinsky was the last RPI player to score, coming at 17:19 of the second period in the 2020 game that ended in a 1-1 tie after 65 minutes.

75:07

Number of minutes the Union women’s team had gone without a goal in the Mayor’s Cup until Riley Walsh scored at 14:58 of the first period.

13

Number of consecutive goals that the Dutchmen have scored against the Engineers since falling behind 2-0 in the Oct. 28 game.

3

Number of career shutouts Murphy has against RPI. Also the number of goals the RPI women scored Saturday, the most goals a team has scored in the five years of the women edition of the Mayor’s Cup.

Contact Ken Schott by email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @slapschotts.

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