A bad night defensively sunk UConn men’s hockey in a 3-1 defeat to the Merrimack Warriors on Friday night at Lawler Rink. While the Huskies had a 35-21 edge in shots on goal, they had too many defensive breakouts and gave up grade-A chances throughout the game as a result.

Tyler Muszelik kept UConn in the game with some big saves earlier but ultimately finished with a 17/21 night between the pipes. The Huskies won the special teams battle 1-0 with a power play goal from Trey Scott, but it wasn’t enough.

After an uneventful first period, the Warriors scored 1:01 into the second period. UConn lost track of Antonio Venuto on a zone entry and he ended up wide-open on the back post for the opening goal. The Huskies had a chance to answer back on the power play but Merrimack goalie Max Lundgren made a save with the end of his stick to keep it out.

The power play unit eventually came through, though. Towards the end of the second, UConn got another chance and capitalized. Hudson Schandor and Joey Muldowney got the defense moving around with a few nice passes and eventually found Scott, who sniped it home to even the score at 1-1.

For the third straight game, the Huskies found themselves tied entering the third period.

The Warriors didn’t wait long to go back ahead, though. Viking Gustafsson Nyberg couldn’t hold the puck along the boards and then got beat by David Sacco, who skated in on a breakaway and scored to put the hosts up 2-1. Merrimack soon doubled the lead when Ethan Bono got behind UConn’s defense on the blue line and beat Muszelik five-hole to push the score to 3-1.

The Huskies pulled the goalie with 2:20 left but the Warriors slammed the door on any comeback hopes with an empty-net goal from their own zone to make it 4-1, which proved to be the final.

With the loss, UConn drops to 5-4-1 on the season and 2-3-1 in Hockey East play. It’ll try to split the series when it returns home on Saturday.

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