When UMass needed a spark after falling behind by two goals at Boston College last Friday, Bobby Trivigno delivered — and it didn’t take him long.
A mere five seconds after BC took a 2-0 lead in the second period, Trivigno beat BC’s Spencer Knight to bring the Minutemen back within a goal of the first-place Eagles. UMass went on to grind out a 3-2 victory in overtime in the marquee game of the Hockey East season so far.
That Trivigno would step up when his team needed him is no surprise. That’s the kind of season he’s having and the type of player he is.
A junior winger from Long Island, Trivigno is tied for the Hockey East lead in points with 24 (8 goals, 16 assists) heading into the final weekend of the regular season. That might qualify as a surprise considering how much high-end offensive talent there is in the league, but Trivigno has earned it.
“I don’t want to say unexpected. I hoped that he would have a year like this, that he was capable of it,’’ said coach Greg Carvel, whose team is ranked sixth in the country this week.
“Wasn’t predicting him to be leading the league, but he had an outstanding freshman season, when we had that big team with (Cale) Makar. He had close to 30 points as a freshman, which kind of went under the radar.’’
But Trivigno took a step back as a sophomore, falling from 13 goals and 28 points in 39 games as a freshman to nine goals and 20 points in 34 games.
“Like a lot of kids, he went to Pittsburgh development camp, came back for his sophomore year and he didn’t play the same way he did as a freshman. I challenged him after last year. I said, ‘Where’s the kid that just outcompeted everybody his freshman year?’ ’’ said Carvel.
“I’ll give him credit. He went home and he came back in unbelievable shape. He’s very similar to Mario Ferraro (former Minuteman now playing in the NHL for San Jose), where he just outwills everybody. He’s 5-foot-8 or whatever he is, and he’s fast, he’s hard. He’s not the most skilled guy, he just outwills everybody.
“I don’t care how skilled you are. You’ve got to have the will to back it up. He has it in aces. He’s a captain as a junior. Doesn’t have a ton of goals — he has eight. But he just makes things happen for us all over the ice. He’s been outstanding.’’
Trivigno plays left wing with freshman center Josh Lopina and Minnesota transfer Garrett Wait, who was a teammate of Trivigno with Waterloo of the USHL.
“That line is by far our best offensive group. Lopina’s a good player and Wait is starting to come around because he’s playing with those two kids. But Bobby makes the whole thing go,’’ said Carvel.
“He scored early on in the year, kind of got us jump-started, and since we came back from the pause he’s been at another level. You play BC and they’ve got (Alex) Newhook and (Matt) Boldy. To me, Trivigno was just as impressive in those games as those two kids were.’’
Trivigno, 22, attended Shattuck St. Mary’s, the iconic Minnesota prep school that counts players such as Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews and Zach Parise among its alumni. UMass associate head coach Ben Barr went to Shattuck, too.
“Ben had a relationship with the family through Shattuck. Bobby’s a real undersized kid, but Ben said, ‘Hey, this kid is high, high character and I think he could turn out to be a good player.’ So that was all Ben. We kind of got in early. I think he was still at Shattuck when he committed to us. He only played one year in the USHL. The year he went out there he scored over 40 points as a rookie, so we had to bring him in,’’ said Carvel.
“Similar to (UMass star defenseman) Zac Jones where, again, we liked what we thought we saw in these kids when we saw him early. We were at a point in our program where we needed to do things like that. We had to use our hunches, make some educated guesses. With both of those kids, they turned out to be stars for us.’’
Quinnipiac’s stopper
With a 10-1-3 record in his last 14 starts, goalie Keith Petruzzelli of Quinnipiac is having the kind of dominant regular season-stretch drive that just might be a precurser to a long postseason run.
Quinnipiac has the horses. With a 16-5-4 record, the team is ranked 10th and 11th in the national polls this week and in first place in ECAC Hockey. QU has one of the elite forwards in the country in Odeen Tufto, a top-flight defenseman in Peter DiLiberatore and one of the nation’s best netminders in Petruzzelli, a finalist for the Mike Richter Award given to the top Division 1 goalie.
The potential always was there for Petruzzelli (Wilbraham, Mass.) to be a dominant college hockey goalie, but it took time and hard work to get there.
Selected by the Detroit Red Wings in the third round, 88th overall, of the 2017 NHL draft, Petruzzelli started slowly with a save percentage of .892 as a freshman.
He kept working and kept getting better. His save percentage improved to .904 when he was a sophomore and .920 as a junior.
This season it’s .931 as Pettuzelli has secured his place among the top goalies in college hockey.
“He’s had a great four-year progression at Quinnipiac, both on the ice and off the ice,’’ said coach Rand Pecknold. “He really took a huge jump last year as a junior. His month of October wasn’t great. I think he was around .890 that month. We weren’t playing well at all in front of him. Then, from November on, he was like a .938 and that’s when everything kind of clicked for him.
“He took another jump this year. Physically, he’s stronger. He’s able to handle battles in front. He’s in better shape and stronger and that has really helped from the standpoint of not being fatigued playing back-to-back games. In fact, we’ve had two three-game weekends already with Clarkson and one of the weekends he had a shutout on Sunday.
“He definitely couldn’t have done that his freshman/sophomore years. It was tough for him to play back to backs. Physically, he got fatigued. He’s really done a good job of improving his offseason and in-season workouts and being able to handle traffic in front and not getting tired in those chaotic situations. So that’s a big jump.’’
Petruzzelli, who is listed at 6-foot-5 and 185 pounds, acknowledges that he needed to get stronger.
“I definitely did struggle my freshmen year playing back to backs. It wasn’t really something I was able to do. If I had a great game on Friday night, I was dead for that Saturday turnaround. Now I’ve played quite a few consecutive games here between last year and this year,’’ he said.
In addition to the strides he’s made physically, his confidence and ability to read the play have never been better.
“He’s so confident against breakaways in game or shootouts, it just kind of oozes out of him, you can feel how confident he is. And you can feel the shooter looking down at him, at 6-foot-6, and thinking, ‘What am I going to shoot at?’ He’s been imposing from that standpoint,’’ said Pecknold.
As he’s gone from freshman to senior, Petruzzelli says he has found “that balance between hockey, school and life.’’
His relationship with goalie coach Justin Eddy also has been important.
“Me and Justin just really clicked last year (when Eddy joined the program). He’s a more laidback guy. We got along really well. It’s been a great relationship both on and off the ice. He’s a guy I can talk to. It’s been a really positive thing for me, having him in my corner,’’ said Petruzzelli.
According to Pecknold, Eddy “has done a really good job in helping Keith mentally reset after goals — he hasn’t given up many — and giving him some mental tools and goalie IQ work on how to read plays and how to play certain situations.
“I give him a lot of practice time to work with our goalies and Justin’s done a really good job of creating good habits in Keith in a variety of scenarios — net jam to your blocker side or your glove side. He just does a lot of things that build good skills and habits in Keith so it comes natural in games. His post play this year has been excellent and I give Justin a lot of credit.’’
Obviously, the next step for Petruzzelli is pro hockey. With Detroit in rebuild mode, an NHL opportunity might not be far off.
“He checks a lot of boxes for an NHL goalie. He has the size. He has the athleticism, he has the goalie IQ and he can handle the puck. But he’s going to have to get to the American (Hockey) League and adapt. Do I think he can do it? Yes, I do. How long that will take, it’s hard to say,’’ said Pecknold.
For his part, Pettruzzelli says there will be time after the season to think about what comes next.
“It’s in the back of my mind a little bit. My focus right now is taking things day by day, having good days in practice, performing on the weekends and winning games. Thing are going well for the boys and we’re winning. We definitely plan on making a run here. All that other stuff will take care of itself,’’ he said.
