So far, this team is special.

The Massachusetts hockey team had its fate decided by the special teams on Saturday night as the Minutemen went two-for-seven on the man advantage and killed off all five Niagara power plays en route to their 4-2 victory.

“[Special teams is] a big part of our team – that’s a big part of any team,” said junior forward Tim Turner, whose game-winning goal came on the power play. “When you can get the special teams going, it makes five-on-five play that much easier. If you’re scoring on your power play, that gives you momentum and it gives you confidence – it’s huge.”

“I thought in the power play situation, at least when we started off, we played with a lot of confidence and a lot of poise,” Head Coach Don Cahoon said. “We got into some trappings as the game went on with the power play, but I saw some puck movement and I saw some people do the things that they should do in those situations. The special teams played a major role in the outcome of the game.”

This was quite a change for the Maroon and White, as over the past few years, the team’s major struggle has been special teams play. Last season, the power play connected at a dismal 13.2 percent rate and the penalty kill was a horrific 76.3 percent. Down the stretch, the Minutemen improved their shorthanded numbers over the final nine games, but the power play was barely a blip on the radar screen at one-for-32.

Saturday’s play was an improvement over the team’s only exhibition game as well, as in the contest against St. Francis Xavier, the Maroon and White allowed three goals on the man advantage in six tries, while netting only one power play goal on five attempts. Partially because of that performance, Cahoon and his staff set to working on the special teams last week in practice.

“What we’ve done is tried to delegate certain areas of the game throughout the coaching staff and that allows each coach to focus on specific drills – we work as a cooperative unit,” Cahoon said following Saturday’s victory. “That gives some attention to detail – whether it be looking at tape, or talking to the individuals in that grouping or the protocol of setting the practice schedule up. All that stuff that we hadn’t gotten to was dealt with this past week and I think we got their attention as a result of it.”

According to Cahoon, the Minutemen worked on every facet of the special teams, including “power play breakout, to setup in the zone, to puck movement, to personnel, to making sure we get puck possession off faceoffs.” Additionally, the Maroon and White drew up several plays to be worked on the power play off the faceoff.

“Coach Cahoon had a new system with us which we worked on last week and it worked pretty well,” said sophomore forward Thomas P