After NCAA tournament run, there's no turning back for UConn hockey

Allentown, Pa. — In the gloom of the locker room, that cauldron of swirling pride and pain that fills these spaces when a season suddenly stops, UConn men's hockey coach Mike Cavanaugh asked each of his players to go thank their captains. The freshmen, sophomore, the senior transfers, they each paid their respects to Hudson Schandor and John Spetz. "Our captains set a culture here that we're going to keep going with," said sophomore Joey Muldowney, who scored on goal, and twice narrowly missed the game-winner in overtime Sunday night. "And I couldn't thank those guys enough. They're true warriors and what UConn hockey is all about." The Huskies got as close to the NCAA's Frozen Four as a team could get without getting there. After Muldowney hit a post with one shot, as had another deflected at the last second, Penn State scored the game winner at the Allentown Regional, Matt DiMarsico's goal ending 77:46 of tension-filled, elimination hockey. It was a crushing end for a UConn team that made the NCAA Tournament for the first time, that had come to believe, and to prove, it had a legitimate chance to contribute its own national championship to the campus collection. But the indications are, this was only the end of a beginning. Schandor, the forward from Vancourver, and Spetz, defenseman from New Jersey, wanted to make UConn hockey all about something, and they succeeded. "It was best year of my life, so many life lessons," said Schandor, who became the program's career scoring leader. "It takes an army to get here, it really does, and the whole staff bought into this crazy idea we had last summer." The crazy idea was to create a set of guidelines, standards, expectations, whatever you want to call it, to be a part of the team. It was bringing old ideas to the new era of name-image-likeness, pay for play and easy transferring. All in, or all out. Several players had transferred out after the sub-.500 season in 2024, including Matthew Wood, a first-round NHL draft pick and high scoring forward who went to hockey blue blood Minnesota, and goalie Arsenii Sergeev, who went to Penn State. Schandor and Spetz graduated, but chose to return for a fifth season to help Cavanaugh hold together the program he's been building for a decade. "I can't thank these two enough," Cavanaugh said. "They single-handedly changed and set the expectations for this program. When everybody was jumping ship, they didn't. And not only did they not jump ship, they mentored a big freshman class and everybody else in the program and showed them what it was like to be a UConn hockey player." In the early spring workouts, as coaches were still trying to fill out the roster, only about eight were on hand. Maureen "Moe" Butler, associate AD for sports performance, backed up the captain's message. "Moe, she was like 'these are the guys who want to be here,'" said Jake Percival, sophomore from Avon. "It just started there, the new guys came in and we told them, 'if you want to be here, you're here, and if not … we're going. That was our message, 'we're going this year, if you want to hop on and if you don't want to be on, don't be.'" As personal agendas were put away, and new work habits were established, the Huskies started 5-5-1 before getting a big win over Boston College Nov. 15. They began the calendar year with a five-goal rally to win at Harvard, then hit a new stride. After a win and a tie at Maine, and a victory over Quinnipiac in CT Ice, the Huskies were gathering enough wins to get an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, something that had eluded the program for so long. "Once we started getting results, everybody just bought in," Schandor said. UConn went 14-2-2 in January, February and March to reach the Hockey East final, losing to Maine, then got a No. 2 seed in Allentown Regional and, with Schandor taping up a high ankle sprain and getting on the ice, knocked off Quinnipiac, the 2023 national champ, in their first ever NCAA Tournament game. That brought UConn close enough to touch the Frozen Four. They were outshot 17-6 in the first period by Penn State, with its fast pace and elite transition game, but got out with a 1-1 tie as freshman goalie Callum Tung met the challenge. Then the coaches adjusted the forechecking. "We really slowed them down," Schandor said. "We tried to take the life out of them and I think we did that. With the score 2-2 after two periods, UConn outshot Penn State 28-13 over he next 38 minutes, but could not get one past their former teammate, Sergeev, who made 42 saves. And in elimination hockey, history or heartbreak can happen in the blink of an eye. This time, the Huskies' dreams perished and their season ended that blink, DiMarsico's shot off the crossbar and down into the net. But getting this far, UConn hockey's image and trajectory is changed. They are no longer newcomers or pretenders to big-time college hockey, also-rans in a power conference. Making the NCAA's 16-team tournament will become a baseline, the championship the goal, and a realistic goal. UConn hockey is a national player now, no going back. "This tournament was not too big a stage for us, " Cavanaugh said. "For a team that just got here for the first time, you would have never known it by the way we played. I think we had a team that could have won this tournament. … We'll be back here someday, and it will be because of John Spetz and Hudson Schandor."