By Charles Hamaker
Northgate, WA – The Washington Huskies men’s hockey team returned home to the Kraken Community Iceplex, welcoming Washington State for the “Apple Puck” rivalry. In their fourth matchup of this season, the Huskies epitomized domination and enforced their will on the Cougars, making them look more like kitties. Michael Shippee tallied a hat trick, Max Arzumanov found the back of the night, and the Huskies terrorized the Cougar defense all night long. The victory pushes the Huskies to a record of 11-2 on the season, with one more contest against these Cougars tomorrow.
UW stands on the blue line ahead of puck drop (Photo by Bryan Saldana)
Huskies start the game blazing hot and hardly cool off
Washington’s high-flying offense has shown that it can explode at any given moment, having scored more than five goals in all but one of their contests so far. In their third meeting of the season with the Cougars, this trend would continue as the Huskies came out in the first period with three goals on 38 shots. That isn’t a typo, Washington flung 38 shots towards the Cougar net in the first period alone. Washington State did end up recording five shots in the opening frame, but none of them made Husky goaltender Tyler Roberts break a sweat.
Aaron Morris watches as he finds the net for the first time, teammate Eric Prigodich joins the celebration (Photo by Liv Lyons)
Keeping their foot on the gas, or maybe a cinder block on the gas
After the early onslaught of shots in the first period, some may have wondered if the Huskies could continue this pace, and Cougar fans certainly hoped that they couldn’t. Washington was able to maintain it to an extent, pounding eight more goals into the back of the Cougar net and totaling 87 shots on the night. The going was rough for Washington State, who was somehow the home team in this contest, as the Cougars never really got their legs under them after the initial punch that the Huskies threw. As mentioned before, alternate captain Michael Shippee tallied a hat trick, Max Arzumanov found the back of the net twice. The other goal scorers included captain Aaron Morris, #53 Smith, #5 Stevens, #2 Maloney all found the back of the net as well to bring the goal total to eleven.
Michael Shippee recorded a hat trick on the night (Photo by Bryan Saldana)
Reflection
Nearly halfway through their 2022-2023 campaign, the Huskies are seemingly in great shape. Washington has only lost two games so far this season, having lost by a goal to Eastern Washington and by a few to Boise State. The Huskies will get another shot at Eastern Washington later in the season, but regardless, this hockey team looks prepared to make a splash in the Pac-8 playoffs. Washington has a high-flying offense that seems to find the net at ease and a solid netminder tandem in Pat Costa and Tyler Roberts.
Towards the end of the game, the Huskies and Cougars got into a few scraps (Photo by Bryan Saldana)
What’s next?
The Huskies will take a break from competition until December 2nd and 3rd, when they will head to Utah to take on the Utes. The Huskies, right in the thick of their season, are on a solid track to make big noise deep into the playoffs. That being said, there is still a lot of season yet to be played.
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