It was clear that Head Coach Kevin Sneddon was not happy with the men’s ice hockey performance against unranked Northeastern University.

Vermont lost the game 4-1.

“Northeastern’s effort was incredible and ours was terrible. They won every battle and every puck race,” Sneddon said.  “How many penalties did we take? One or two and it’s not because we were diligent. It’s simply because we didn’t hit anything.”

Northeastern got out to an early lead, beating sophomore goaltender Mike Santaguida on the far side. Senior Captain Mike Paliotta responded on the power play soon after, but that was all the Cats would get.

“I’m just incredibly disappointed from the net out. This is a collective bad effort from me all the way down,” Paliotta said.

After the loss Sneddon said that there would be some changes.

“There’s going to be a lot of lineup changes. Pretty much everybody who didn’t play tonight and is healthy will get a chance to play tomorrow,” Sneddon said.

These players include sophomore Mike Stenerson, first-year Kevin Irwin, sophomore Jarrid Privitera, first-year Mitch Ferguson and others.

Sneddon made it clear that this was an embarrassing loss by the Catamounts. The lack of effort and the lack of execution on the ice, as well as a conference loss to a non-ranked team, should spark the players into performing better Saturday night Sneddon said.

After Sneddon’s remarks about a lack of effort, the Catamounts responded, but only came away with a tie.

The Catamounts tied with Northeastern University 2-2 on power play goals by sophomore Brady Shaw and senior Colin Markison.

This weekend the Catamounts host the No. 2 Boston University Terriers in another Hockey East series at Gutterson Fieldhouse on Friday and Saturday Jan. 23 and 24. Both games start at 7:05 p.m. and will be show on CatamounTV.