Success with special teams brought the Kent State men’s hockey club its first win of the season with 3-1 victory against the Eastern Michigan Eagles.

“I think it’s a great start,” said head coach Jim Underwood. “Any time you can get a victory on the road it’s 3 points in the standings that will help that much more down the road.”

The Golden Flashes went 2-for-6 on the power play and left the Eagles unable to score on any of their eight chances to score on the power play.

“The power play was super sick tonight,” Underwood said. “I think the reason we won the game was our special teams. I have to give credit to both our power play and penalty kill. The penalty kill had had to battle off a lot of tough power plays.”

The first two of the Golden Flashes goals came from sophomore forward Jake Haneline. His first goal came seven minutes into the game; the second came on the power play during the second period. Both scores came unassisted.

“I think he (Haneline) was very huge for us,” Underwood said. “He set the tone and carried that momentum in the second. He easily could’ve had 2 or 3 more goals and it was all because of his hard work.”

Kent State buried one more power play goal in the third period. Sophomore forward Jon Buttitta scored on the power play, with the assists going to sophomore defenseman Mike Sullivan and senior defenseman Andrew Radosevic.

A shutout was in sight for the Golden Flashes until 2:40 seconds left in the game when the Eagles got one past Kent State sophomore goaltender Sky Buller.  The Golden Flashes finished the game with 35 shots compared to just 22 for the Eagles.   

The Golden Flashes take on the Eagles again tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m.

Contact Chris Yamnitsky at [email protected]