The Massachusetts hockey team is coming off of its final bye week of the season with matchups against Merrimack on Friday night and Maine on Saturday. It is a rare occurrence in Hockey East to match up with two different teams on back-to-back nights, but that is where the Minutemen find themselves this weekend with two difficult opponents awaiting them.
First up is a rematch with Merrimack (10-14-1, 3-11-1 HEA) on Friday night. The Minutemen (13-6-3, 6-4-2 HEA) split their series with the Warriors just three weeks ago, winning at home and falling on the road in the latter game. Each team played to their strengths in their respective home arenas, UMass using the big ice sheet at the Mullins Center to open the game up and win with speed, and Merrimack using its small playing surface to win with its physicality.
Because of the uniqueness of Lawler Arena in North Andover, head coach Greg Carvel is expecting his team to come out more prepared on Friday night, now that all of the players have experienced the small ice sheet.
“I think our guys will be probably a little bit more prepared,” Carvel said. “A lot of new guys hadn’t played in that building. Watching that game over, it was a pretty close game, I think we can be better. We won a road game at Northeastern, it’s hard to win on the road in this league. I think we’d like to build a little momentum, and if we can pull one off there in Merrimack, it’ll add to our momentum we’re building up.”
UMass wasn’t outplayed for the full 60 minutes against Merrimack in its loss a few weeks ago, but a three goal second period was more than enough for the Warriors to keep the Minutemen at an arm’s length for most of the game.
After battling Merrimack on Friday, UMass will quickly hop on the bus and head back to Amherst to prepare for Maine on Saturday night. Saturday night’s affair with the Black Bears will be extra important for the Minutemen to come out with a win as they sit six points back in the standings, and picking up home wins in Hockey East is imperative in a year where the conference is so strong top to bottom.
When UMass and Maine met last season both teams were in the midst of down seasons, but both programs have righted the ship this year. The Black Bears are currently ranked sixth in the country and have won 10 of their last 12 games.
A big reason for the quick turnaround in Orono has been the arrival of Josh and Bradly Nadeau, who have combined for 63 points this season and are sixth and seventh in freshman scoring in the country. The Nadeau’s, along with linemate Lynden Breen have led the Black Bears to top 10 in the country in scoring.
Maine is coached by former UMass assistant coach Ben Barr, who has steadily improved the program in his three seasons as bench boss.
“When I talk to Ben I’m like, ‘what the hell are you doing up there?’ and he says, ‘the Nadeau’s are just really good and our goalies is solid and the rest of our guys play really hard’ and that’s what I would expect from Ben’s team, that they’re going to compete very hard,” Carvel said.
The Minutemen have had a light couple of weeks, with last weekend off and the weekend before just one game against Northeastern. With some of the off time, Carvel has tried to give his team some time to rest their bodies and mentally prepare for what will be a sprint to the finish line for the last six weeks of the season.
“Just use it as a way to manage our players, manage their energy,” Carvel said. “It’s a very light January that leads into a heavy February, so we tried to give the guys as much time off as possible without losing their edge. We should be pretty healthy and pretty energized for this weekend.”
As the intensity of the schedule picks up in February, the Minutemen will be looking to their depth to support them offensively. Freshman Nick VanTassell will be a big part of that, as he has begun to come into his own in the last month. He picked up the game winning goal against Northeastern two weeks ago and has been an imposing presence on the ice for UMass as he has adjusted to the speed of college hockey
“He’s come a long way; he had a knee issue all summer which really held him back,” Carvel said. “We didn’t know if he was going to play this year. He needed a full summer and he needed to be completely ready because he’s got a lot of talent, but he needed to learn how to play at this level with his size and his makeup.”
“He should be a really good power forward because as you saw from that goal, he’s got a really tremendous skillset with the puck. He needed to learn how to compete hard, use his size and be a bigger factor in the game. What he’s bringing to the table now is like a big trade deadline pickup for a college team.”
The weekend kicks off on Friday, Feb. 2 at 7 p.m. in North Andover for UMass’ matchup with Merrimack and will conclude on Saturday, Feb. 3 in Amherst at the Mullins Center with puck drop also at 7 p.m.
Matt Skillings can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @matt _skillings.
