Following a pair of penalty-laden showings before Thanksgiving break, the NYU men’s hockey team spent a weekend away, first dropping a game to Providence College Friday night and then recovering by heading to New Hampshire and beating Keene State College on Saturday.

Friday’s game began with an unassisted NYU goal from sophomore forward Steven Esposito, but the early lead didn’t last as a tripping call to senior forward Denis O’Hara midway through the first led to a Providence power play goal. The period ended knotted at one goal apiece.

After a successful Providence kill to start the second, they eked out another in a 3-on-1 opportunity that the Violets stood no chance of stopping. The game then headed down a familiar path of penalties and kills before the period’s end with Providence up by one.

Things got to a rocky start in the third with NYU briefly relegated to 5-on-3, but they kept their cool and killed it. Sophomore goaltender Alec Hardman was stellar all night, but the rest of the squad turned the puck over too easily throughout the night.

NYU’s fate was sealed when Providence got their third goal on a breakaway at 8:50. Though they pulled Hardman at 3:46, two goals was too large a deficit to overcome despite Esposito getting his second on the night to cut the lead to one. The score remained 3-2 until the final buzzer, when frustration boiled over and the two teams got into a scrum.

Saturday’s outing at Keene had a slow start, with no shots on goal until four minutes in. It was NYU who first cracked the draught when freshman forward John Kowalewski netted a power play goal at 11:51 in the first period.

The Violets had a weird series of penalties and 4-on-4s as the two teams went back and forth chipping away at each other, punctuated by an NYU goal that was later revoked and called a kick in. There were no goals in the period and Keene picked up a penalty at the end, so the Violets took a goal advantage and a man advantage into the second.

At the beginning of the second, Keene killed off a penalty. Much of the period was played at 4-on-4 as the teams continued to trade penalties. A long scoreless streak was ended when NYU netted a goal midway through the period, but Keene responded just 31 seconds later to keep the Violet lead at one.

 In the third period, on another Keene interference call, NYU scored their third goal, again on the penalty advantage. After a roughing call, it appeared their fourth was imminent, but freshman forward Hamilton Whyte’s goal was waved off when he slid into the net with it, earning him a penalty. After killing that and an Esposito penalty, NYU enjoyed a game-ending Keene penalty that resulted in a power play goal to end the game 4-1. Head Coach Chris Cosentino said he was pleased with the work rate of his team against a Keene squad that always battles to the bitter end of the game.

“Keene is one of the hardest working teams we face and they have a very good goaltender,” Cosentino said. “We knew it was going to be a battle right from the start and it was. Aside from our win at UNH a few weeks back, the win on Saturday was one of our best efforts of the season.”

The Violets will be home next weekend to take on Central Connecticut State University, who they fell to earlier in the season, at the Sky Rink at 8:30 p.m.

Email Rachel Ruecker at [email protected].