Brian Tedder, Collegian

The Massachusetts hockey team has a chance to secure its postseason future this weekend with two games at Maine, who sit behind the Minutemen for the final spot in the Hockey East Tournament.

UMass (11-11-6, 6-10-5 Hockey East) has struggled since the New Year, but is 2-2 in its last four and needs to turn around its season in one of the toughest places to play in Hockey East.

Maine (8-17-3, 4-14-3 Hockey East) has lost its last seven games and has not had the season most expected. Senior goaltender Ben Bishop has still played well for the Black Bears, but the team has plummeted through the standings after making the Frozen Four last year and holding the No. 1 ranking during several points in the season.

For the Minutemen, this will be their longest road trip outside of the team’s trip to Tampa, Fla., for the Lightning College Hockey Classic. That trip, however, netted UMass its first tournament championship and two victories over Top 10 teams, the thread by which its NCAA at-large bid hopes dangle.

“It’s usually a good thing because the team gets to be together,” UMass coach Don Cahoon said of the road trip. “Having a couple of meals and an overnight, or a couple of overnights in this case, it’s usually good to get the team on the same page.”

Maine is six points behind the Minutemen for the eighth and final playoff seed and would need a sweep to have any chance of catching the Maroon and White in the final two weeks of the regular season.

A win-hungry team playing a two-game home stand leaves little to be desired for the visiting squad, but Cahoon said he’s seen a turnaround in his players in recent weeks, even though the wins are coming only slightly easier.

“I think we’ve actually played pretty well for a few weeks now,” Cahoon said. “Obviously we’ve had a variety of results, which is bottom-line. But at the same time, that Northeastern game Friday night [a 2-1 loss] was a real good effort, and it stung not to come out of there with something.”

Doing the little things better was Cahoon’s solution to the team’s scoring woes, and Saturday night in a 3-1 win over the Huskies, that theory appeared to hold true.

All three goals were the result of crisp passing, taking care of the puck and an acute awareness of where the other four skaters were on the ice.

However, the Minutemen still struggled to maintain possession of the puck, particularly in the third period and found clean entry into the offensive zone especially difficult.

“We focus on certain drills that we do and identifying certain things that they can do to extend the offense and sustain the forecheck to create more opportunities,” Cahoon said. “I look at the team right now, and I say that we’re practicing pretty well. We’re getting good efforts in practice, and I like to think that good hockey is going to be the end result.”

Ortiz back on ice

One noticeable absence on the ice Saturday was sophomore forward Will Ortiz. The left winger played in the loss Friday night and was called for a slashing penalty with 52 seconds remaining in regulation.

“He’s ready to play this weekend, and I fully expect he’ll be part of the weekend story, for sure,” Cahoon said.

With freshmen Chase Langeraap and Michael Lecomte already not in the game, Ortiz’ absence was made all the more noticeable. UMass had four freshman forwards in the game, three of which do not see regular ice time (leading scorer James Marcou was the other).

Jeremy Rice can be reached at [email protected].