By Andy Vogt
Collegian Staff
Banged up and with a tank running toward empty, the Massachusetts hockey team will be receiving a reprieve this weekend from the grueling Hockey East schedule. With Connecticut coming to the Mullins Center on Friday night, the Minutemen (14-15-1, 8-13-0 HE) will look to get back into the win column and break their five-game losing streak.
More importantly, the team will be looking to regain some of the energy that catapulted them toward the top of the conference standings at the beginning of January. That’s why Head Coach Don Cahoon has tried to make practice less exhausting for his young squad.
“We’ve tried to have a little bit of fun, trying to get them to recover a little bit,” Cahoon said, adding that ice times have been limited to one hour this week.
On paper, UMass would skate circles around the Huskies (6-17-3, 5-11-3 MAAC), but the Maroon and White would be wise not to take its neighbor to the south too lightly. Over the past two seasons, the Minutemen have had significant trouble with UConn, allowing two late third-period goals in 2000 and settling for a 2-2 tie, and then nearly blowing a three-goal lead last season before finally prevailing in a 6-5 decision.
UMass also has had several weaker teams give them fits in the Mullins Center earlier in the season (Rensselaer, Iona, Princeton), so at least one member of the Maroon and White knows that the team’s focus must be at a premium.
“We can’t afford to go out and dismiss Connecticut, I hope we dismiss them on the ice, but we can’t dismiss the preparation involved with playing the game,” Cahoon said.
The Huskies have struggled in the MAAC this year, currently in ninth place in arguably the weakest conference in college hockey. UConn also was blown out early in the year 10-1 by its mascot counterpart Northeastern, but managed to survive a trip to powerhouse New Hampshire, coming out only dropping a 3-1 contest. While this game might not mean much in terms of Hockey East superiority, the Minutemen are treating it no different than any other game.
“We can’t ignore the rivalry, that would be a huge mistake,” Cahoon said.
The Minutemen dropped the eighth of their last nine games this past weekend when they fell 3-2 on Saturday to UMass-Lowell. The loss followed a 2-0 setback to Boston University in which Sean Fields, last week’s Hockey East Defensive Player, made 25 stops to distance the two teams in the standings. One bright spot over the weekend for the Minutemen was the quality play of netminder Gabe Winer, The Stoughton, Mass. Native who returned from his bout with the flu to steer aside 49 of 54 shots (.907 save percentage).
To add to the recent struggles of the team, its worst fears were confirmed over the last few days when senior defenseman Kelly Sickavish revealed he would be unable to play for the remainder of the season. The co-captain is still recovering from a concussion suffered in December against Boston University. Sickavish had been one of the team’s few “stay-at-home” defensemen this season.
“I probably reacted the poorest to it, because I think I was hanging on to the idea that we would have him for the stretch run,” Cahoon lamented, saying that Sickavish will continue to provide any kind of leadership he can off the ice.
The absence of half of its senior class means the team will now be looking toward Dustin Demianuk, Sean Regan, and freshman Matt Fetzer to fill the void on the blue line. Cahoon said that although they will be able to play a little bit looser now knowing their status in the lineup is more stable now, they can’t become too complacent.
The single game, sandwiched in between two Hockey East weekends, should prove to be<
