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With a 5-1-0 record in its last six games, 12th-ranked Vermont returns to Burlington to host the UConn Huskies on Friday (Jan. 20) in Hockey East play. Game time is one hour earlier than usual at 6:05 p.m. Tickets are still available by logging on to UVMathletics.com/Tickets, over the phone at 802-656-4410, or at the Gutterson Fieldhouse Box Office.

The game will be televised live on NESN Plus as part of an American Sports Network (ASN) production with Tim Neverett (play-by-play) and Pat Micheletti (analyst) calling the action. Pre-game radio coverage begins at 5:30 p.m. on WVMT 620-AM and Catamounts All-Access with Alastair Ingram and Tom Child '04 on the call. 

RELATED LINKS
Audio | Live Stats | Tickets
Game Notes (.pdf) | CatamounTV Preview

PROMOTIONS
Xfinity is the presenting sponsor of the UConn game and thundersticks will be handed out to the first 500 students in attendance.

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COACHES SHOW START TIME
The weekly Handy Toyota Coaches Show airs early tonight at 6:10 p.m. before UVM women's basketball coverage from UMass Lowell at 6:40 p.m. on WVMT 620-AM. Show guests include both head coach Kevin Sneddon and associate head coach Kyle Wallack. 

SPLIT WITH THE FRIARS
UVM held off a third period comeback from Providence last Friday night and secured its fifth straight win with a 4-3 league victory. Three different players posted multi-point games as Matt Alvaro, Ross Colton, and Trey Phillips all posted a goal and an assist. Stefanos Lekkas made 30 saves and picked up his 13th win. Providence scored four unanswered goals on Saturday, including three in the third period, to skate past the Catamounts 4-1 and split the series. The loss ended UVM's five-game winning streak as Mario Puskarich had the lone Catamount goal on night two at Schneider Arena. Vermont's penalty kill finished the weekend perfect at 10-for-10.

SCOUTING THE HUSKIES
UConn fell 4-0 to Maine at Frozen Fenway last Saturday after beating the Black Bears 6-3 in Bridgeport the previous Thursday. The Huskies are 5-2-1 in their last eight contests since the start of November and sit seventh in Hockey East with 12 points. Sophomore Tage Thompson leads the Huskies with 14 goals, five power play goals, and 22 total points, while fellow sophomore Max Letunov has tallied a team-high 15 assists.

Rookie Adam Huska (13 starts) and senior Rob Nichols (10 starts) have split time in net this year; Huska has posted a .922 save percentage, but Nichols sports a better goals against average at 2.45. The UConn penalty kill is clicking at nearly 90% in Hockey East play. Former Boston College assistant Mike Cavanaugh is in his fourth season leading the program and is two wins shy of 50 at UConn.

SERIES HISTORY
Friday will mark the 25th all-time meeting of the series, which dates back to the first year of the program in 1963. The Catamounts won all four meetings last year by a total of just five goals, including a sweep in the best-of-three Hockey East Opening Round at the XL Center in Hartford. Since UConn joined the league in 2014, the schools have met twice at Gutterson Fieldhouse, both resulting in 2-1 Vermont wins. The last eight matchups between UVM and Connecticut dating back to 2001 have been decided by an average of only one goal.

TREY BIEN
Entering the New Year's Eve game at Gutterson against Bentley, junior defenseman Trey Phillips had never scored a collegiate goal. Phillips has scored three goals in the last five games, and all of them have been game-winning tallies for the Cats. He leads all Hockey East defensemen and is tied for fourth overall with a trio of game-winners to his credit. Four of Phillips' nine career points have come in the last five games and he sits sixth among Hockey East defensemen in plus-minus at +11.

STRIKING FAST
Vermont has scored the game's first goal in seven consecutive contests dating back to the Dec. 17 matchup vs. No. 12 Union. The Providence loss last Saturday and the second game of the Union series (Dec. 18) are UVM's only two losses when scoring first this season. The Catamounts are 11-2-0 this year when scoring first and are a perfect 9-0-0 when leading after the first period.

WHO'S NEXT
Next Friday (Jan. 27), UVM travels to the XL Center in Hartford as the Catamounts and Huskies match up again in league play at 7 p.m. Vermont then flies to South Bend for a two-game series with Notre Dame on Feb. 3-4 live on NBC Sports Network.

Handy Toyota is the presenting sponsor of the 2016-17 men's hockey season