The 8-1 record that UMass has put up and the No. 4 national ranking to which it has risen may be a surprise to some in the college hockey world.
Well, as I wrote last year, it shouldn’t be. Those closely following Hockey East know what third-year head coach Greg Carvel has been building in Amherst, and we've seen flashes of brilliance this season.
It’s all come together in a big way. The Minutemen have won five consecutive league games after last week’s sweep of a pair of 3-2 games at Providence. UMass earned a top-10 ranking for the first time since 2009 prior to its last series, but this week’s No. 4 status is the highest in program history.
Those around Hockey East have seen it building over the last few years, and Carvel saw something special out of this edition of the team right off the bat.
“There's been a confidence about the team since Day One when everybody stepped on campus,” Carvel said after the first of last week’s wins over the Friars. “The way they practiced this week, they have a confidence about them and know they're a good team. I think we have a very balanced team; we have good goaltending, good defensemen, guys who can score. I like the fact that my team doesn't get rattled and they just play consistently.”
Get rattled against the Friars? They didn’t, just as was the case when they scored three goals in the third period en route to a 6-3 win over then-No. 1 Ohio State on Oct. 19.
The Minutemen lost 2-0 leads in both games before freshmen Ty Farmer and Anthony Del Gaizo scored winning goals in the final two minutes of regulation time. Sophomore Matt Murray was an immense last line of defense against a strong, veteran Providence team, especially during the third period on both nights when he made 27 of his 59 total saves.
Last year’s UMass team lost 11 of their 20 games decided by one or two goals, including six by a single goal. Now, they are finding ways to turn those scores around against high-quality competition. That’s the mark of a good team.
“Last year, I just remember all the time saying that we were great 5-on-5 and lost the game,” Carvel said. “This year, I'm saying we weren't great 5-on-5 but we won the game. So it's a nice change.”
The core that was in place last season has since grown, creating a team that is off to a program-best start — already with three wins against teams ranked in the top-five nationally for the first time since 2011-12 — and positioned itself nicely as the season’s first half draws to a close.
Amherst native John Leonard and Mitchell Chaffee were the team’s leading goal scorers a season ago, and both sophomores are on pace to top the 28 and 24 points they recorded last year, respectively. Leonard and Makar are tied atop the Hockey East scoring race with four goals and nine assists apiece through only nine games.
Of course, Cale Makar and Mario Ferraro established themselves among the nation’s best defensemen as two of the team’s 11 freshmen-turned-sophomores. Farmer and Marc Del Gaizo — who topped all USHL defensemen in scoring last year — have helped to make the back end even deeper.
“We were pretty confident they were going to help us offensively because they're some really gifted kids with the puck,” Carvel said of the newcomers on defense. “Our concern was defensively, and (against Providence) especially. That's as hard a game as there is for a defenseman because they play fast and they get in and get everything to the net.
“It was a real test for those guys, and I thought they passed and did a great job.”
There is a lot of hockey left, including non-conference tests against a pair of ECAC frontrunners in Princeton and Quinnipiac over the next few weeks and, in January and February, home-and-home series with the likes of all three of their league foes in Boston.
But having passed many tests through the early season, the hungry, gritty Minutemen have made themselves well worth paying attention to in Hockey East.
