After four straight losses, including three trouncings, the Massachusetts hockey team needed a little pick-me-up Saturday night.
The Minutemen got one, in the form of freshman Mark Matheson’s blistering slap shot with less than two minutes to go, giving them a 2-2 tie with Boston University.
UMass is now 16-9-6 overall, and 12-7-3 in Hockey East. That gives them 27 points, good for third place and a four-point lead on New Hampshire. The Wildcats have two games in hand on the Minutemen, who clinched home-ice advantage in the Hockey East quarterfinals this weekend.
Entering Saturday’s game at the Mullins Center, the Minutemen were mired in their first losing streak of the season, and their second winless streak of at least three games. They went 0-2-4 during a six-game stretch beginning at the end of November, and hadn’t lost two games in a row all year.
Even worse, the power play entered the game with a meager .173 success rate, with no goals in the last 20 chances.
Matheson’s goal did well to reverse that trend, though, as it came with BU’s Mark Mullen in the penalty box for a hooking call.
“Coach [Cahoon] wanted us to pressure on the power play, and we got the puck,” Matheson said. “It gives us a lot of confidence, because we’ve been getting chances, but it’s a big boost to get [the tying goal] on the power play.”
“We’re happy that we played as hard as we did tonight,” said Cahoon, whose Minutemen could end up squaring off with the Terriers in the opening round of the Hockey East playoffs at the Mullins Center in three weeks. “We stayed with the battle at hand.”
“I really liked how hard UMass played,” said BU coach Jack Parker, whose team (9-14-7, 5-12-3 HEA) came just 1:49 short of notching its first two-game winning streak of the season.
After being mostly shut down in the first period, the Terriers made their mark at 6:41 of the second, when Kenny Roche one-timed a Sean Sullivan feed in the high slot to tie the game 1-1. BU then took the lead when Ryan Whitney, mimicking his goal from Friday night’s 6-1 Terrier win, fired a slapshot from the point that zipped past Winer at 13:42 of the middle frame.
Greg Mauldin opened up the scoring for the Minutemen, with a big help from Tim Vitek. With Chris Capraro charging down the right wing, Vitek and Mauldin trailed through center ice. Capraro slid the puck to Vitek in the right wing slot, and he nimbly kicked it over to Mauldin, who one-timed it through BU goaltender Sean Fields (27 saves), making it 1-0.
Friday night, the Minutemen clinched home-ice advantage in the Hockey East quarterfinals, but it wasn’t their fault. The Terriers blew them out of the building, 6-1.
Meanwhile, roughly 250 miles away, the Maine Black Bears downed fifth-place Providence 3-2, ensuring the Minutemen no lower than fourth place in the conference, and setting up a playoff series at the Mullins Center March 11-13.
The Minutemen came into the weekend on a three-game losing streak, and things didn’t get much better on Friday night. Although they scored the game’s first goal and played well during the early part of the first period, they soon fell apart as the Terriers put six pucks past goaltender Gabe Winer (22 saves), who was pulled in favor of junior Tim Warner with 14 minutes remaining.
UMass coach Don Cahoon said that his reason for replacing Winer wasn’t to punish the sophomore, who performed admirably but was the recipient of a few unlucky bounces.
For the second straight game, the Minutemen gave an opposing player his first career hat trick. Brian McConnell scored three goals by the end of the second period, including two on the power play. The cap-flinger came with UMass’ Marvin Degon in the box for interference with just 17 seconds to go in the middle frame. McConnell put back a loose rebound to Winer’s left to make it 4-1 in favor of the Terriers.
Prior to Friday night’s game, the Terriers hadn’t scored more than one goal in their last four games, including one shutout.
They took care of that plague quickly, because after Garrett Summerfield scored at 8:02 of the first for the Minutemen, BU returned fire quickly, scoring a pair of goals in the next three minutes. Brian McConnell set up shop just outside Winer’s crease, and when Bryan Miller worked free in the opposite corner to slide a pass over, McConnell redirected it into a gaping net, tying the game at one.
Ryan Whitney then took a feed at the point from Mark Mullen, and ripped it over Winer’s right shoulder to make it 2-1 heading into the first intermission.
