After scoring a season-high five goals against No. 12 Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Friday night, the Massachusetts hockey team was blanked 3-0 on Saturday in the series finale at Mullins Center.
Junior center Jake Evans tallied two goals and an assist while junior goaltender Cal Petersen earned the shutout (22 saves) to pace the Irish (8-6-2, 4-3-1 Hockey East Association) to a convincing victory.
“I thought it was a pretty even game,” UMass coach Greg Carvel said after the game. “They dominated us on faceoffs all weekend long and last night our power play was strong, tonight it was weak. Other than that I don’t think there was much difference between the two teams.”
UMass (4-8-2, 2-6-1 HEA) started the game stride-for-stride with ND but after a late first period goal by sophomore winger Andrew Oglevie gave the Irish a 1-0 lead, the momentum seemed to have shifted against the Minutemen’s favor.
“That (goal) is a case where we got to find a way to block that shot, to me it’s inexcusable,” Carvel said. “I thought it was an even first period. Not as many scoring chances tonight as there were last night, which was more of the type of game that I was hoping for. That just shows if you get pucks to the net a lot of good things can happen.”
The second period started much like the first ended as ND had UMass hemmed in its own zone for an extended amount of time. With the Minutemen scrambling, the Irish capitalized after Evans potted his first of the evening to extend the lead to 2-0 for the Irish 4:01 into the period.
Evans’ goal put a damper on UMass’ confidence as the Minutemen struggled to break through the stout goaltending performance by Petersen.
“Not necessarily did I think they were doing anything different,” captain Steven Iacobellis said regarding if he thought Notre Dame did anything different to limit their scoring chances. “I think we just found it difficult to get to their net and they were doing a good job keeping us away from there. We probably didn’t get enough pucks towards Petersen.”
UMass entered the final frame desperate for any sort of break that could lead to a goal, but that ultimately never occurred as Evans scored an empty-netter at 19:43 of the third period to give the Irish a split in the series with the Minutemen.
ND concluded the contest with a 36-22 advantage in shots on goal.
“I thought we had some chances,” Carvel said on the lack of offense. “Their goaltender played well, I don’t think they had a ton of chances either. I thought last night’s game was a lot more wide-open, tonight was just tighter checking. We didn’t work enough pucks to the net.”
“Obviously not the result we wanted,” Iacobellis said. “I thought we played good and we gave up a couple chances that kind of hurt us but overall it was a pretty good weekend.”
The power play was a non-factor for UMass as it went 0-for-5 with six shot attempts. It was a stark contrast compared to Friday night’s game where the Minutemen mustered three goals on the man-advantage.
“We had five power plays, were five on three for a little bit and I don’t know if we had a scoring chance, I can’t recall,” Carvel said.
The Irish finished the night 0-for-2 on the power play.
UMass goaltended Ryan Wischow finished with 33 saves in the losing effort.
“Every game is a learning opportunity,”Iacobellis said. “We’re going to take the positives from tonight and watch some film and see what we can do a lot better.”
Ryan Ames can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @_RyanAmes.
