NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. — Merrimack and Northeastern met for the first time this season and the host Warriors skated off with a 4-2 win on Friday night.
Jared Kolquist scored the first two goals of his career, while goaltender Colin Delia earned his first career win.
“Anytime you get two points in Hockey East, it’s good,” said Merrimack coach Mark Dennehy. “I didn’t think we played very well tonight. Obviously rattled after [goalie] Ras[mus Tirronen] got run over to start the game. Our freshman goaltender came in and played well for us. He was the No. 1 star for us.”
The first period, each team traded a goal. It was also a very physical period right from the start. Just 20 seconds into the game the Huskies drove to the net and ran Tirronen, who was shaken up and left the game.
Just 34 seconds later, Merrimack found the back of the net when Chris LeBlanc was fed a pass from Brian Christie and beat Clay Witt by the right pad to give the Warriors a 1-0 lead.
Two and a half minutes later, Northeastern found the back of the net on a power-play goal by Torin Snyderman to tie the game 1-1.
The Huskies had a bid late when Mike Szmatula found Snyderman cross ice, but Delia made the pad save to keep the score 1-1 going to the second period.
Merrimack started the second period with a power play, but wasn’t able to get the goal as Northeastern killed off the penalty. With 12:18 to go in the period, the Huskies dumped the puck in the corner and it took a weird bounce in front of Delia, but Ben Bahe made a huge block with a wide-open net to keep the score 1-1.
Seven minutes remained in the second when the Warriors were on the power play and Kolquist scored his first on a shot from the point that went between the pads of Witt, giving Merrimack the 2-1 lead. Northeastern nearly tied the game up with 5:40 to go when Marc Biega turned the puck and created a big chance, but Delia (30 saves) made a huge pad save to keep the score 2-1 Merrimack to end the second.
Throughout the first five minutes of the third period, Northeastern controlled play getting traffic in front of the Merrimack goal. Kolquist found the back of the net for a second time when he scored 6:13 into the period to give Merrimack the 3-1 advantage.
Witt kept the Huskies within two when he made a couple of key stops on a Warriors’ power play with 11 minutes remaining. Bahe had a shorthanded bid for Merrimack when he came down the ice with speed and went backhand, just wide of Witt.
Northeastern came within one when Kevin Roy tallied a goal to bring the score to 3-2, but Jace Hennig added an empty-net marker in the final minute to ice it for the Warriors.
Witt made 26 saves in suffering the loss.
“It was hard-nosed game [and] they’re a hard team to play against,” said Huskies’ coach Jim Madigan.”Undisciplined penalties are the root of our problem.”
