University of Connecticut Athletics
Garrett Bartus Sat Down For a Feature Article
10/28/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey
Oct. 28, 2011
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Garrett Bartus was between the pipes for the St. Louis Bandits of the North American Hockey League two years ago when he got the call.
It wasn't the NHL on the phone, but UConn.
Around Thanksgiving, one of the Huskies' goaltenders was injured, and the other was homesick and left the team. Coach Bruce Marshall realized he needed someone quick.
Fortunately, one of Marshall's assistants at the time, Joe Dumais, knew Bartus. The goalkeeper, who originally commited to UConn before playing in the NAHL, re-enrolled and was back on the Huskies' bench by the end of December.
"In that position, that's an easier jump to make," Marshall said. "There's only so many goalies. It's not a position where there's 15 kids on the team. You've got two or three goalies, so he looked at it like, 'Well, here's my opportunity to play Division I hockey.' "
Bartus' first game was a 2-1 loss to Air Force on Jan. 8, 2009. Two games later, he stopped a team-record 57 shots in a 2-2 tie.
Bartus has continued to stop a lot of pucks, and with that, UConn's overall record continues to rise.
After a 5-14-1 freshman campaign, Bartus went 14-15-4 last season. The Huskies are 2-2-1 heading into tonight's home game against Holy Cross, and Bartus, a junior allied health major, is second in the nation in saves (191) and 12th in save percentage (.936).
"We've gotten so much better since I first got here," Bartus, who was named the Atlantic Hockey Association's Goaltender of the Week recently, said Tuesday. "We've brought kids in who do a really good job. Our sophomore class this year is great, my class is doing great. Every year we've gotten better and I don't see that stopping, either."
With his floppy hair and seemingly easy-going personality, Bartus might appear to be laid-back. Not so, according to Marshall.
"He's like the first guy on the ice and the last guy on the ice," he said. "He's probably one of the hardest workers on the team. He may have that persona as a personality, but when he walks in these doors in the rink ... we almost have to tell him sometimes, 'We don't want you on the ice today. You need to get away from the rink.' "
Since his freshman year, Bartus said he's improved on being patient. He's big - 6-foot-2, 190 pounds - and he's able to use that size when coming out in front of the net to block pucks.
Everything came together for him on Oct. 14 when he earned his first shutout, a 5-0 win over Army. He stopped 47 shots in that performance, and Marshall said Bartus did a great job of going from side to side in the net.
"I've had a few games where it's gone pretty deep, like the last five minutes I've had the shutout, and they end up poppin' one. It was in the back of my mind going into the third period," Bartus said. "I was thinking about all those other times they got one on me. But we played real well that game. All the shots were to the outside, not a lot of second opportunities. The team helped a lot there.
"It feels good to get the first one under your belt, for sure, after playing 50-something games."
Fortunately for the Huskies, he has plenty of games left in his college career.
