The first time UConn hockey trainer Mike Cavanaugh noticed Nick Capone play a United States Hockey League sport, Capone had a “Gordie Howe Hat Trick.”
This was once again within the fall of 2019, out in Nebraska, with Capone a member of the Tri-City Storm. In a preseason sport towards the Lincoln Stars, Capone scored a objective, recorded an help and were given right into a combat, throwing rapid-fire haymakers on the head of Ross Mitton after leveling one in every of Mitton’s teammates with a frame take a look at alongside the forums.
“He’s always been a big, strong, tough kid,” Cavanaugh mentioned this week. “He also has the ability to make a play, and he can really shoot the puck. So there’s a lot to like about Nick. I think he’s your prototypical power forward, like a Milan Lucic or Cam Neely. He can score. He can play physical. I think this year it’s starting to come together for him.”
Capone, a junior proper wing from East Haven, has contributed each muscle and contact to the No. 17 Huskies’ 4-0 get started. He has 3 objectives, already only one shy of his overall in 31 video games closing season, and one help.
As UConn skates into house video games Friday and Saturday towards Ohio State on the XL Center, there was not more stabilizing drive than the flexibility of Capone and the road he bureaucracy with Chase Bradley (3 objectives, two assists) and Tristen Fraser (one objective, two assists). The linemates have blended for 12 issues and skated at a plus-11 objective differential.
Capone, who turns 21 in December, has been on the middle of a sophisticated and thrilling time at UConn, arriving on the peak of the pandemic and scuffling with accidents his first two seasons. Still, he helped the Huskies to the Hockey East championship sport closing season and now could be central to UConn’s hopes for team momentum to fit program momentum.
UConn has its absolute best USCHO nationwide score, and the $70 million Toscano Family Ice Forum opens in January.
“It’s indubitably superior, however we’re hungry for extra,” Capone said. “We want to keep improving upon what this program has done. Getting a new rink is exciting, but we’ve been saying hockey rinks don’t win games. Teams do. We’ve been harping on that one.”
Capone dedicated to Maine as a 15-year-old highschool freshman, leaping at his first scholarship be offering. Two years later, Cavanaugh figured it was once value having a look into.
“I asked him, ‘Is that commitment solid?’” Cavanaugh mentioned. “I said, ‘If you tell me it is, then great, I won’t talk to you again.’ But he was having second thoughts and we actively recruited him.”
This dialog was once both simply earlier than or after the Gordie Howe Hat Trick sport, which was once Sept. 7, 2019. Capone introduced his decommitment from Maine days later and dedicated to UConn on Sept. 18.
“The way our sport is now, you can go on a recruiting website and see that some schools have 30 kids committed,” Cavanaugh mentioned. “So they’re all not going to go there. So until a kid signs a national letter, I think they’re fair game. And I’ve told pretty much everybody in our league, that’s how I’m handling it.”
Oral commitments are non-binding agreements that both birthday celebration – the college or the participant – can renege on at any time.
“When a kid signs a national letter of intent, then he’s committed to that school,” Cavanaugh mentioned. “But up until that point, I think everybody’s wide open.”
Capone has been on moderately a adventure. He had 88 issues (40 objectives and 48 assists) as a freshman at East Haven High in 2017, then spent two years on the Salisbury School, the place he scored 76 issues in 57 video games.
In one season with Tri-City minimize quick by means of the pandemic in 2019-20, Capone had seven objectives and 12 assists in 34 video games. He graduated from a highschool in Kearny, Neb., and got here, in some way, again house.
“Being here now for an extended period, it’s the longest I’ve ever been on a team,” Capone mentioned. “It feels really, really good to be with the same guys, the same coach, for such an extended amount of time. I’ve bounced around everywhere.”
Capone mentioned he didn’t absolutely understand how a lot he sought after to play in Connecticut till he spent that yr in Nebraska. The considered enjoying in Orono, Maine, a few six-hour pressure from East Haven, changed into much less interesting.
When Capone decommitted, he did so with the UConn alternative in thoughts. Numerous Division I techniques attempted to recruit him however he briefly approved Cavanaugh’s scholarship be offering. UConn had handiest begun to recruit Capone in 2017, when he dedicated to Maine.
“It was hard,” Cavanaugh mentioned. “He was trying to make a decision as a freshman. I couldn’t necessarily say at that time where he would fit in our program and how much of a scholarship we could give him. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what his development was going to look like. That’s why we didn’t offer him at the time.”
Capone had 5 issues in 20 video games as a UConn freshman, 11 issues in 31 video games closing season as a sophomore. Between the ones seasons, he was once decided on by means of the Tampa Bay Lightning within the 6th spherical of the 2020 NHL draft.
“I expected him to score more this year than he has in the past, no question,” Cavanaugh mentioned. “I don’t want anybody on our team ever to feel pressure to have to carry the load alone, offensively. I don’t think Nick feels that. I think he just feels that he’s in pretty good shape and is relatively healthy and he understands what my expectations are of him as a player. I think he feels a lot more comfortable in the program. He’s got a little edge to him, that New Haven edge, which I like.”
Capone’s father, Peter, is a Metro North Railroad conductor. His mom, Lori, works in nursing at Yale New Haven Hospital. This child is all Connecticut, which he discovered as soon as he began touring.
“You at all times dream of enjoying in your house state for a faculty team. When I used to be little, it was once handiest Quinnipiac that was once the star-studded program. UConn got here out of nowhere and I sought after to be a part of that. … I wasn’t going open up my [recruitment] to any individual.”
Fighting isn’t tolerated in NCAA hockey.
Smart, bodily play nonetheless wins the day, even though.
Capone, 6 ft 2 and 205 kilos, loves blending it up.
“The tougher the game gets, I think his play will rise,” Cavanaugh mentioned. “He and I talk about it all the time, if he wants to take physical penalties like boarding or hitting too hard, we can kill those. I think he’s done a good job of eliminating the unnecessary penalties. He does [affect a game] physically, throughout. But he’s not just a fighter. Nick has a high-end skill set that I want to see him utilize on a game to game basis.”
Capone has a team-high six penalty mins this season.
“I’m not going to take anything from anyone,” Capone mentioned. “I can definitely throw people off their game and hurt them – cleanly. It’s a game-changer. Me and Bradley together, I don’t know a pair of two guys in the league who are as scary as us.”
Capone, a communications main, is midway via his school enjoy. The pattern measurement is small, however he seems to have taken a large step ahead as a junior.
“A bunch of things, on and off the ice, just being a better person and a better worker,” Capone mentioned. “Being around older guys, you learn so much. They are not here anymore but they definitely left an impact on this program and the players that are still here. It’s just accepting a role and completing tasks and, when you do that, more opportunities are going to be given to you.”
mike.anthony@hearstmediact.com; @ManthonyHearst