Northeastern University Athletics

WALTHAM, Mass. – The Northeastern men's ice hockey team (1-0-0) received goals from four different scorers along with 19 saves from Lawton Zacher en route to a 5-1 victory over Bentley (1-1-0) on Opening Night at Bentley Arena.
 
The Huskies scored twice in the first and twice in the second to establish control of the game early and never looked back before adding more insurance late. Jacob Mathieu scored twice along with an assist, while Jordan Tourigny made his collegiate debut in style, scoring once and adding a pair of assists as one of six freshmen skating in their first games as Huskies. They were joined by Amine Hajibi, Joe Connor and Miguel Marques (two assists each), bringing the total to five Huskies with multi-point efforts.
 
Northeastern is now 6-0-0 in season openers under Fernie Flaman Men's Hockey Coach Jerry Keefe, has won 10 straight overall and is unbeaten in their last 12 (11-0-1) dating back to 2015-16.
 
Northeastern wasted no time in taking control of the game, striking on the power play less than five minutes into the contest on Tourigny's first collegiate goal. After a quick zone entry, Mathieu slid the puck across to Tyler Fukakusa just inside the blueline. Fukakusa then patiently waited for an opening before firing it across to Tourigny at the left faceoff dot for the one-timer past Bentley goaltender Nicholas Bevilacqua.
 
Mathieu made it 2-0 Huskies less than four minutes later with his first of the season, capitalizing on the speed of Joe Connor who poked the puck loose behind the net before Hajibi found Mathieu alone on the doorstep for the score.
 
The Huskies extended the lead to 3-0 seven minutes into the second period when Noah Laberge took a feed along the blueline from Tourigny before ripping a shot through traffic that got through Bevilacqua for his first collegiate goal.
 
Matthew Maltais got into the action in the final minute of the frame from nearly the same spot as Laberge, receiving a pass from Marques and firing a shot from the top of the left faceoff dot for the score.
 
Bentley got one back midway through the third period on the power play on a goal from Jack Dalton.
 
NU went back up by four with six minutes to play on a great individual effort form Hajibi, navigating his way through the defense before turning and finding Mathieu alone in front, who made no mistake for his second of the night.
 
The Huskies will be back in action next weekend when Northeastern travels to No. 18/17 Massachusetts for a two-game series, beginning on Friday night at the Mullins Center (7 p.m. on ESPN+).