Summing up the feelings of Massachusetts hockey coach Don Cahoon after his team defeated Northeastern, 3-1, in the back end of a home-and-home series Saturday night is best done with one word – relief. “I’m just happy to get through the evening and come out with two points, and give us the chance to move forward and hopefully right the ship,” he said. “It wasn’t a perfect performance by any means. But it was a good start. We came out the gates pretty good. We executed [well] in a couple of situations. Then in the third period, things got a little tough for us. At least we weathered the storm.” The Huskies defeated UMass, 2-1, Friday at Mathews Arena, continuing the descent down the Hockey East Standings that began with a two-game sweep at the hands of New Hampshire on Jan. 11 and 12. The Minutemen are currently eighth in the conference – good enough for the final playoff spot in the Hockey East Tournament – and four points clear of ninth-place Maine heading into a pair of games with the Black Bears this weekend in Orono. Wins have been a rare commodity for the 2007-08 Minutemen since the new year began. Cahoon believes that there is more to UMass’s failures than the stalling of an offense that ended 2007 scoring at least four goals in four consecutive wins, three over Top 10 teams. The statistics tell one story. But Cahoon believes there is more to that tale, that which a calculator cannot tell. Goals haven’t come easy for the Minutemen. But rather than focus solely on offense in his team workouts, Cahoon chose to remind his players of the small things they must do create scoring chances. The Minutemen owned the neutral zone early in the season and during the success of 2006-07. They moved the puck crisply from zone to zone and avoided the turnovers and mental lapses that breed easy scoring chances for opponents and fits of rage from coaches. Junior Alex Berry scored UMass’s first goal at 7 minutes, 19 seconds of the first period with a blistering slap shot from the blue line just beyond the left face-off circle. The shot surprised NU goaltender Brad Thiessen and sailed over his left shoulder. But Berry’s goal came as part of a series that began with brilliant cross-ice outlet pass from defenseman Martin Nolet. The play displayed Nolet’s instincts. When players feel pressured to score, they start to worry and try to make plays beyond themselves.
And the same goes for Berry’s shot. Nolet’s pass led to a 2-on-1 as a teammate headed for the right face-off circle as Berry gained the zone. The best asset of Berry’s offensive game is his shooting ability. Rather than try to make a nice pass, Berry let the shot fly.
“I’ve tried to take the pressure of goal production off him, because sometimes that can really make it difficult when you start thinking that’s totally the way you’re going to be evaluated,” Cahoon said of Berry. “I’ve tried to get him to deal with the nuance of the game. And that’s what I’ve tried to do with the team. Make the pressure of scoring goals not the central theme even though we need to score more goals. We think it’s a by-product of doing a lot of little things well.”
Staying out of the penalty box is one of those things. Down, 2-1, with 52 seconds remaining on Friday night, a slashing call on sophomore winger Will Ortiz shorthanded the Minutemen, essentially sealing the win for Northeastern.
Ortiz did not play on Saturday night.
“All of the players are cognizant of how much we value the discipline piece,” Cahoon said. “I don’t need to cite specific examples, but you can look around and see what’s happened; why certain people are sitting out certain games.”
Discipline bit UMass again on Saturday as referees whistled the Minutemen for six penalties – four in the third period alone. NU converted one of its power plays into a goal to get themselves back into the game midway through the third. But the UMass penalty killers bailed their teammates out – namely freshman Paul Dainton who made 12 saves in the each of the final two periods. NU created several chances late in the game including a puck that slipped through Dainton and onto the goal line before senior Mike Kostka slapped it away.
In Saturday’s first two periods, the Minutemen resembled the team that occupied the top half of the Hockey East standings during the first half of the season. The third period wasn’t perfect, but they got through it. They know they’re better than they’ve played in the last two months.
It’s only a matter of time before they start playing as well as they did in the season’s first two months.
Joe Meloni is a Collegian editor. He can be reached at [email protected].
