Cinderella’s going dancing.
About 24 hours after head coach Scott Borek said the eighth-seeded Merrimack College men’s hockey team didn’t show up to TD Garden this weekend “just to play” in the Hockey East Championship’s final two stages Friday night, the Warriors capped their underdog warpath Saturday with a 2-1 win over third-seeded UConn for the program’s first Hockey East title, and an automatic bid in the NCAA Division I Tournament.
Merrimack needed only 26 seconds into the third period for Caelan Fitzpatrick to score the game-winning goal, giving the Warriors just enough to best a Huskies group also aiming for their first Hockey East title.
UConn swarmed Merrimack’s zone over the last 19 minutes in response, but junior goalie Max Lundgren followed up signature wins over top-seeded Providence and second-seeded UMass in the previous two rounds with a 49-save outing in the championship game.
“I’m just so proud of our guys,” Borek said. “We were tired, that was obvious. Fortunately (Lundgren) wasn’t.”
That’s the most saves in regulation during a Hockey East title game.
He won tournament MVP honors with a heroic 22 saves in the third, and Merrimack stamped a historic Cinderella run as the lowest seed to win the Hockey East in its 42nd tournament.
“Hats off to Lundgren, I thought he was terrific all night long,” said UConn head coach Mike Cavanaugh. “And I thought we were pretty good. It’s not often you can put up 50 shots and lose a game. … It’s just disappointing for our club.”
After a scoreless first period, teams traded goals in the second – Merrimack in the first three minutes, UConn in the last three minutes – to head into the third tied at 1-1.
Despite a substantial deficit in shots on goal, the Warriors found the early edge in the third, regaining the lead on a rebound. Leading scorer Parker Lalonde cut toward the net from the base of the left circle, fired a shot off Tyler Muszelik (23 saves) that he couldn’t control. Fitzpatrick crashed to the rebound at the left post and lifted it in for the 2-1 lead.
The rally bid UConn gave was ferocious, looking to avoid a loss in the Hockey East Championship’s title game for a second straight year. Lundgren was nails behind a stellar effort from the Warriors’ skaters to help deny several dangerous rebounds.
That included a sequence with 8:35 left. UConn — which finished with double the shot total Merrimack produced — forced Lundgren off his feet with a pair of shots from different angles he scrambled to save. The puck got to the top of the right circle with Lundgren on the ground, but Nick Pierre blocked the shot total keep it 2-1.
Merrimack nearly suffered a critical mistake by missing an empty net goal in UConn’s zone with under a minute left, but Lundgren tracked every shot from there, enabling the Warriors to make history.
“That was an unbelievable moment for me, an unbelievable moment for the whole team,” said Merrimack captain Mark Hillier.
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