The Massachusetts hockey team’s disappointing 2015-16 season ended in a fashion typical of the Minutemen’s play in the second half of the season Saturday night at Schneider Arena in Providence, Rhode Island.
Trevor Mingoia scored two goals and added three assists in a five-point night and Mark Jankowski added two goals of his ownm as No. 5 Providence College cruised past UMass (8-22-4, 2-16-4 Hockey East) in each team’s regular season finale.
Friday night’s contest at Mullins Center, a 4-1 win for Providence (25-5-4, 16-3-3 HEA), was for the most part, a competitive affair. But Saturday, the Friars flipped a switch and played like the defending national champions they are, jumping out to a 3-0 lead just 12 minutes, 57 seconds into the game and adding three more goals in the second period to turn the last frame into a formality.
Jankowski – a senior forward who leads Providence with 37 points on the season – opened the scoring at 5:58 of the first period with a backhanded effort off a rebound in front of the net.
Mingoia scored at 12:09 to double the Friar lead and John Gilmour struck on the power play less than a minute later to put Providence up 3-0 over UMass in the opening minutes.
Gilmour’s goal was the first of three times the Friars would score on the man advantage, and the Minutemen never recovered. They managed just six shots in each of the first two periods and were outshot 41- 23 in total on the evening.
The second period was more of the same. Josh Monk scored his second goal of the season less than a minute into the period and Mingoia and Jankowski each scored again to make it 6-0 just 7:49 into the middle frame.
Mingoia’s goal chased UMass starter Alex Wakaluk from the game. Minutemen coach John Micheletto replaced him with freshman Nic Renyard, who allowed one goal and made 23 saves in his 35-minute relief stint.
The Friars emptied their bench and played all three of their dressed goaltenders during the game. Nick Ellis started and won his 23rd game of the season in net, making only eight saves in over 27:47 of action. Backups Hayden Hawkey and Brendan Leahy each made saves in their appearances to help complete the shutout.
Minutemen coach John Micheletto was not available for comment following the game.
It was Senior Night in Providence for 10 Friars who are set to graduate after the season, all of whom were members of the national championship winning team from a year ago.
With the loss, UMass finishes the season with 22 defeats, its third year in a row with at least 22 losses.
The Friars finished tied for first place at 35 points with Boston College, however lose the tiebreaker to Eagles and will be the No. 2 overall seed in the conference tournament, where they earned a first-round bye. The Minutemen end the year in last place and will face the No. 5 seed Boston University in a best-of-three first round series after the Terriers narrowly missed out on a bye of their own.
UMass will open its best of three game series against BU Friday night at Agganis Arena in Boston. Puck drop for game one is set for 7:30 p.m.
Ross Gienieczko can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @RossGien.
