The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
UConn’s Creel has a feel for winning
Backup goalie steps into starting role for red-hot Huskies
Tanner Creel didn’t play in a game last season, got his bachelor’s degree in psychology in the spring, and nobody would have blamed the UConn goalie if he moved on with his life.
“He was going to leave,” coach Mike Cavanaugh said Wednesday. “I really respect him an awful lot. If you ask any one of our kids, he’s probably the hardest-working guy we have off the ice. He’s very mature.
“I told him, ‘I’d like you to stay. You’re going to get some games next year.’ ”
With a year’s eligibility left, Creel returned as Adam Huska’s backup.
Cavanaugh kept his word. A start came Oct. 13 against AIC and another Nov. 10 against Ohio State. They were not pretty.
“The first game, he doesn’t play well,” Cavanaugh said. “We pulled him in the first period (after allowing three goals on seven shots). The second game, I have to pull him in the third period (after allowing five goals on 19 shots).
Cavanaugh grabbed Creel before Christmas break.
“I told him, ‘Listen, your career is not going to end this way. You are a better goaltender than how you’ve been. I want you to reset over Christmas.’ ” Cavanaugh said.
“A lot of times you have a second-semester senior as a backup goalie that kind of packs it in,” Creel said. “I told him I will keep pushing myself and give everything I have.”
Cavanaugh made Creel a promise: “I don’t know when it’s going to be, but I’m going to play you again at some point. And I’m not pulling you. Understand? You’re going to finish the game come hell or high water.”
It was in mid-January when Huska was walking outside the UConn Student Union. He jumped over one of those low-hanging chain link separators along the grass line. Huska went
down and when he got up, he had a fractured his left wrist.
Two months later, UConn hockey, with a program-tying seven-game winning streak, is on the front burner of state sports. And the backup goalie has become its most delightful story.
And, yes, Cavanaugh kept his promise.
“Tanner got thrown into the fire against Providence,” Cavanaugh said. “First five minutes, they scored two goals. I’m looking at him: ‘You’re not coming out.’
“The second goal was my fault. I should have challenged it, it would have been ruled no goal. To his credit, he played really well.”
UConn lost 3-1 that night of Jan. 18, Creel finishing with 27 saves. Heading into his ninth successive start Thursday night at the XL Center in the regular-season finale against UMass, Creel has not lost since.
“It’s a rewarding feeling,” Creel said. “It’s about the pursuit of being better all the time and to feel that growth is more satisfying than any of the external success.”
Remember, he graduated in psychology.
Creel has a .913 save percentage and a 2.61 goals-against average in the past eight games. Along the way, UConn has beaten No. 10 Providence, No. 16 BC, No. 11 Northeastern and No. 20 BU.
“Tanner has given us a chance to win every game,” Cavanaugh said.
The 5-4 overtime victory last weekend over BU in front of a wild crowd of 7,372 had to be the most memorable at the XL Center since the Hockey East debut against BC in November 2014.
“The circumstances, Senior Night, coming from behind, overtime win, it was surreal,” Creel said. “Exhilarating.”
Cavanaugh went on a litany of games in which the Huskies outshot teams by wide margins early on and didn’t win. At one point, Cavanaugh sat down with Geno Auriemma.
“Man, I could never coach your sport,” Auriemma told him. “You dominate statistically like that and don’t win, it would drive me crazy.”
What turned an 8-16-2 team into one that has risen to No. 28 of 60 teams in the PairWise Rankings — ahead of Quinnipiac and Yale — and even getting one vote in the most recent USCHO.com Top 20 poll?
“I think the attitude of nine seniors changed,” Cavanaugh said. “They said enough is enough. It’s easy to say. Hard to live.”
Cavanaugh made a decision before Christmas to stop looking at Twitter. He said he also decided to stop worrying about where the Huskies might finish. Heading to the final weekend, the Huskies, tied for fifth place, could finish as high as fourth or as low as seventh. Long story short, the possibilities are many.
“The Hockey East sends me an updated playoff scenario and I just swipe and delete,” Cavanaugh said. “I don’t want to see it. It’s been working. It helps me keep focused.”
No ifs, Cavanaugh said, he wants for sure. This much is. The Huskies will finish with their best Hockey East record since joining in 2014. They have gone from minus-1.5 to plus-.5 — a swing of two goals per conference game during that time. That’s solid growth. The fact that Neutral Zone, a hockey scouting website, has UConn’s 2018 recruiting class ranked fifth in the nation is reason for real optimism.
Cavanaugh, meanwhile, said he doesn’t know whether Huska is 100 percent healthy yet, but if he had to play he could. A Rangers draft pick, he clearly is the more celebrated player. Goalies? Playoffs? Nothing leads to second-guessing any faster.
“We are going to take it a game at a time,” Cavanaugh said. “I’m going to tell him the same thing I told Tanner. At some point, you might have to come back into the net. You need to be prepared. Tanner was.”
Creel’s father Keith served in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. Yet the military is not why Tanner counts moving 18 times. It’s the railroad and ice hockey. In January 2017, Keith became president and chief executive officer of Canadian Pacific Railway. Growing up, Tanner moved from Alabama to Alberta. Another part of this fascinating family, his sister competes in equestrian for Auburn.
When he graduated from St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights, Ill., he decided to attend West Point and play hockey for Army.
“I thought the military might be in my blood,” Creel said. “But it’s like putting a musician in an athletic school or an athlete in a musical school. The fit just wasn’t for me. My passion was hockey and the focus was on the military. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my passion.”
Creel left Army after a year to play junior hockey before settling at UConn. And now after completing a second degree in communications this summer, he wants to play in Europe for a time. And when he is done with hockey? He will pursue a career in sports psychology.
“It’s the only thing I have really ever been so passionate about other than hockey,” he said.
It makes sense.