All season long, the special teams game has been a double edge sword for the Massachusetts hockey team. The power play remains ranked in the top five nationally, as it has since October. The penalty kill, though, is a different story.
UMass (10-13-4, 4-11-2 Hockey East) coach Greg Carvel expressed multiple times over the last few months that he wanted his PK unit to be more effective consistently, and on Friday against Vermont, the Minutemen answered the call. They were called for seven penalties on the night, and they not only killed off each one, but they also added a shorthanded goal on top of it all.
“They did a good job,” Carvel said of the penalty kill. “Seven power plays and one was a five minute, you add all that up and its almost half the game playing shorthanded.”
Friday’s game got off to a physical start and both teams took a fair number of penalties by the time the 60 minutes expired. But UMass set a tone from the jump that it wasn’t just going to swallow up the Catamounts’ (9-15-4, 4-12-2 HEA) power play. The Minutemen were going to push the pace in transition.
When Lucas Mercuri was sent to the box less than 90 seconds into the game, Vermont got a quality chance on its first crack at the man advantage. And after Luke Pavicich allowed a juicy rebound off his right pad, the Catamounts had a shot at an early lead. All they needed to do was tap the puck towards the goal, but Kenny Connors didn’t let them.
The freshman forward flew down from the top of the circle to the net and stabbed the puck away into the corner before clearing it out of the zone. Less than 15 seconds later, Michael Cameron went down the other way to score a shorthanded goal, and although it will go down in the books as unassisted, Connors’ gutsy defensive play was key for creating the chance.
“We’re not going to sit back on the penalty kill, when the puck is loose, it’s our job to get that puck and get it out,” Connors said. “It just comes back to a lot of stuff in practice, working on situations like that so when we get in that situation [in game] we know what we’re doing.”
In the third period, the Minutemen faced their toughest challenge yet. A major penalty was assessed to Ryan Ufko for head contact, resulting in five straight minutes on the penalty kill for UMass without its top defenseman. The Catamounts already had a lot of momentum prior to the penalty, notching two goals to cut the Minutemen’s lead down to one goal, so those five minutes could have changed everything.
Instead, UMass took the devastating blow in stride, and easily fended off every Vermont attempt, keeping its lead intact and its penalty kill percentage perfect.
“The best we played tonight was when they got the five minute major,” Carvel said. “We actually played with some urgency and we looked like we cared about the game … really the only thing I enjoyed tonight was the five minute penalty kill.”
Every penalty kill between the shorthanded goal and the five minute major followed roughly the same pattern: UMass forced a turnover, shot the puck down the length of the ice and took a change. There were very few times when any player got stuck on the ice for a long shift, because the Minutemen weren’t letting the Catamounts have any elongated possessions in the offensive zone.
Prior to Friday night, UMass ranked No. 26 in penalty kill percentage, operating at just 81.2 percent while down a man. At the height of the Minutemen’s national dominance, their penalty kill was hovering above 90 percent, a big reason why they maintained leads in so many games. Vermont allowed UMass to taste that level of success again, and it became the highlight of what was otherwise a game to forget for the Minutemen.
Colin McCarthy can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @colinmccarth_DC.
