The No. 17 Massachusetts hockey team travels to American International College for a stand-alone game on Saturday, Nov. 2.
With a program history of 9-2-1 in favor of the Minutemen (3-3-1, 0-1-1 Hockey East), UMass has not lost to AIC (1-4-1, 1-1 Atlantic Hockey America) since 2017. The Minutemen come off a shootout win at home and a road loss against UConn. The Yellow Jackets split their series against Air Force, who UMass faced in a consolation game in the Ice Breaker Tournament.
AIC had a tough start to its season, facing strong competition from fellow Hockey East teams like Maine and Boston College, as well as Big Ten leader Ohio State. In their first game against the Buckeyes, the Yellow Jackets won the shootout after five rounds. Junior goaltender Chase Clark has spent the most time between the pipes for AIC, recording a 0.915 save percentage from the start of the season.
Josh Barnes leads the Yellow Jackets in goals with three, all of which were scored against Ohio State. John Lundy leads the team with 16 shots, while Brett Bamber and Barnes are tied for second with 13 shots each.
Offensively, the Minutemen average around 31 shots and 3.7 goals per game. Junior Cole O’Hara leads the team with 11 points, followed by sophomore Aydar Suniev and junior Kenny Connors, who have nine and eight respectively. Suniev is also UMass’s top goal scorer of the season so far with six goals.
“I think we should be scoring more than we are – I’m not upset with our offensive efforts but we did as a staff look into some possible things we could do to create more goals,” head coach Greg Carvel said. “There are small details that I think we were better at last week, being around the net more, we had certain players bring more to the table. I’m not here fretting over our offense at all, we’ve got a good group, always trying to get better, and we’ve got some ideas this week.”
The Minutemen’s defensive struggles continued as small mistakes allowed for scoring opportunities for their opponents. Freshman James Duerr saw the ice for the first time in his collegiate career at UConn where he recorded three shots, but a missed check allowed the Huskies to score.
“[Duerr’s] going to go out, he’s going to play hard, he’s going to hit people, he’s going to go to the net,” Carvel said. “He’s not going to try to be fancy because he doesn’t have that in his toolbox. He’s hard and that’s what we want to be. That’s why we recruited him. He showed me things that I hadn’t really seen in practice, so that was a real positive for him, but when we did video on Monday, it wasn’t about him missing a goal, it was about him missing a checking responsibility and us getting scored on.”
“It was nice getting my first game under my belt. It wasn’t the result we wanted but I think we learned some things from the game,” Duerr said. “I know I’m a freshman but just going to the game and focus on my shifts and take every opportunity I get and try to make the most of it.”
Sophomore Dans Locmelis recorded both assists for UMass at UConn and scored one of the goals in the shootout the night before. Locmelis is currently tied with O’Hara for assists, with seven apiece, and just behind Connors, who leads the Minutemen with eight assists.
“[Locmelis] deserves a lot of credit. He left here, played for us, played in the World Junior Championship, played in the Men’s Championship,” Carvel said. “He told me he needed to stay home this summer and I said okay but you better get stronger and he got stronger, so I give the kid the credit.”
“I would say I’m more like a passer than a shooter, so once I get a puck, I’m just looking for my teammates more,” Locmelis said.
AIC’s style of play is characterized by solid team efforts on both ends of the ice. Yet, for UMass, the ability to play and connect as a unit has been a struggle this season as the Minutemen will have to stay disciplined for the full 60 minutes against the Yellow Jackets.
“I expect us to go in there and have to fight tooth and nail to come away with a victory,” Carvel said.
UMass and AIC will face off at the MassMutual Center on Saturday, Nov. 2. Puck drop is set for 1 p.m.
Devin Lippman can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @devinlippman.
