BURLINGTON, Vt. - The Vermont men's hockey team received multi-point efforts from six different players and skated past Concordia 7-1 on Saturday night in exhibition action at Gutterson Fieldhouse. The Catamounts open up the regular season next Friday (Oct. 12) at seventh-ranked UMass Lowell.
Captain H.T. Lenz opened the scoring at the 6:51 mark of the first period as Kyle Mountain deflected a puck to the junior at the left side of the crease. Lenz fired a quick wrister to beat Concordia goalie Loic Boivin stick side to open the scoring. Brett Bruneteau picked up the second assist on the play.
The Catamounts doubled the lead less than six minutes later as a loose puck off the stick of Pete Massar found Robert Polesello in the low slot. The freshman made a move around Boivin to the right side of the cross and slid a backhander into the lower corner to make it a 2-0, as Bruneteau added another assist.
Polesello added his second tally of the night at 12:09 of the second period after a lengthy scrum in front of the Concordia net. The puck squirted through Boivin's pads and after video review, the call on the ice was upheld. Massar and Jonathan picked up the helpers on Polesello's second tally.
Roughly three minutes later, the Stingers finally got on the board as Etienne Archambault chipped a puck into the air toward the UVM blueline. The puck bounced and was picked up by Eric Bouchard, who skated in along on Billy Faust and deked it five hole on the rookie to cut the lead to 3-1.
In the final frame, the Cats erupted for four tallies and put the game out of reach. Tobias Nilsson-Roos scored from a bad angle just 39 seconds into the frame to push the lead to three, and Nick Luukko slipped a slap shot underneath Antonio Mastropietro's glove at the 4:43 mark to make it 5-1.
Vermont added two more in the third courtesy of Mountain and Lenz to cap the scoring. The Catamounts out-shot the Stingers 47-14 and had a 34-9 edge in the first two periods. Brody Hoffman started the game in net and made six saves to pick up the win, while Faust (four saves) and John Vazzano (three saves) also saw time.
UVM and UMass Lowell face off at 7 p.m. next Friday as both teams begin the regular season and Hockey East slate. Lowell defeated Toronto 5-2 in its exhibition game tonight. Radio coverage begins at 6:30 p.m. on WVMT 620-AM and online at SportsJuice.com, as Alastair Ingram calls the action from Tsongas Center.