MANCHESTER, N.H. -- What a difference a week makes.
UMass picked an inopportune time for one of its most incomplete efforts of the season as Boston College shut out the Minutemen in last week’s Hockey East semifinal at TD Garden, but things were quite different as the ultimate scenario shifted to “do or die” Friday night in the NCAA Northeast Regional opener.
The top-seeded Minutemen skated to a scoreless draw with Harvard for more than half of the game at SNHU Arena, but freshman Anthony Del Gaizo’s goal 14:15 into the second period opened the floodgates in a complete team effort. Senior Brett Boeing scored two of the following three goals, and freshman Fille Lindberg needed to make only 17 saves en route to a 4-0 shutout during his third consecutive start.
“That was a solid game tonight for us. We had a game plan that I thought our guys executed extremely well,” UMass head coach Greg Carvel said. “It looked like another one of those games where we were getting a lot of chances but just couldn’t get the puck in, but once we got one in, the pucks just started flowing in the net. I’m really proud of my group; they played extremely hard and played playoff hockey.”
The win lifted UMass to 29-9 and, backing up Carvel’s point, ensured that it finish the season without suffering consecutive losses. The Minutemen also opened their last NCAA appearance in shutout fashion as Los Angeles King and Milford, Conn., native Jonathan Quick backstopped a 1-0 win over Clarkson back in 2007.
The Minutemen are now one win away from continuing their season of historic proportions at the Frozen Four, a chapter that is not yet included in the program’s all-time story. Following Quick’s shutout 12 years ago, UMass lost the Rochester, N.Y., regional title game to Hockey East rival Maine.
There were plenty of question marks for the Minutemen entering the night. How would they respond to last week’s loss? To the new stage? How would Lindberg handle carrying the load over sophomore Matt Murray again?
It took a little while to get going, but those questions were answered in resounding fashion. The Minutemen held a commanding 36-17 advantage on the shot counter, took a 1-0 lead, and then coasted to the victory with three goals in the third period, largely relying on giving Harvard a taste of the medicine it had been dosing out to ECAC opponents all season.
“I think they did to us what we like to do to other teams, and that’s get to the puck first, outnumber the puck early, end teams quickly in their own zone, and try to establish a lot of offensive zone time,” Harvard coach Ted Donato said. “I felt like they were able to pin us in the zone too often and then we were tired playing defense and weren’t able to go on offense.”
Last week’s loss stung for the Minutemen, but it wasn’t the end. The body of work, including the program’s first-ever Hockey East regular-season title, made them a lock for a No. 1 seed as one of the top four teams in the PairWise for much of the season.
So far, they’ve made the most of the second chance.
“I think for us it’s just a different time of year now,” said sophomore defenseman Cale Makar, the unanimous Hockey East Player of the Year and a Hobey Baker Award finalist. “I think we may have had a little bit of a different mindset going into the game this past Friday against BC. Right now it’s live or die, and all of us know that we don’t want this year to end.”
One of the special characteristics of this team has been its depth. Makar is the obvious star of the show, but players like St. Lawrence transfer Jacob Pritchard and sophomore Mitchell Chaffee have stepped up their offensive games as the team’s second- and third-leading scorers.
On this night though, none of them were factors in the goal scoring.
Del Gaizo, a fourth-line winger, opened the scoring just after the midway mark of the game before sophomore John Leonard (Amherst, Mass.) doubled the lead 7:24 into the third and Boeing, the third-line center, scored the final two goals. Two other bottom-six forwards and two defensemen added assists.
“It’s always huge when you’re depth line scores goals,” Carvel said. “Anthony (Del Gaizo) is such a hard-nosed kid, so our bench erupted when he scored that goal. When certain kids score on your team, who don’t usually, but are great kids and play hard and come to the rink every day with a positive attitude, it just accelerates your team.”
Leading a program in the midst of a rapid total acceleration, Carvel’s group is eager to add to that history on Saturday. UMass shattered its single-season wins record more than a month ago and now looks to add at least one more to that total at 6:30 p.m. Saturday in the regional final.
“Our program doesn’t have a lot of history, but that team in 2007 is one we’ve always looked up to and wanted to make those guys proud,” Carvel said.
