The No. 17 Massachusetts hockey team grinded its way through a scrappy No. 16 UMass Lowell team Thursday night to pick up two points in the Hockey East standings with a tie and shootout win.
With time winding down and intensity rising in the college hockey season, the Minutemen (17-12-4, 8-9-4 HEA) and River Hawks (15-12-4, 8-10-3 HEA) gave 3,845 fans in attendance at the Mullins Center a game that was well worth the price of admission and then some.
Trailing 2-1 in the middle of the third period, UMass was sent to its third power play of the game after Nick Anderson was sent to the box for a roughing call. Just under 15 seconds into the power play, Cole O’Hara showed why he is a front runner for the Hobey Baker award.
The Minutemen won the face off back to Kenny Connors at the point. After a little bit of give and go with Aydar Suniev, Connors fumbled a bouncing puck at the blue line. O’Hara was in the right spot at the right time, and made two plays on a Lowell defender to keep the puck in the zone. After keeping the puck in the second time, he hit the accelerator and cut through two River Hawk defenders to open up a shooting lane.
He opted to send a hard pass towards Lucas Mercuri at the back door, which Mercuri was unable to tap in. O’Hara grabbed the rebound and with some impressive edge work, wrapped the puck around the net to jam it past Lowell goaltender Beni Halasz’s right pad.
O’Hara’s lone point on the night elevated him to the top of the NCAA scoring leaderboard with 46 points. Not long after the goal, an enamored student section erupted in chants of “Hobey Baker.”
After an intense final 10 minutes of regulation and 5 gripping minutes of overtime, O’Hara and Dans Locmelis both scored in the shootout to claim the bonus HEA point.
“That’s the usual for a UMass Amherst-UMass Lowell game, tight game, two teams fighting for the same spot in the polls, the rankings, Hockey East,” head coach Greg Carvel said.
The River Hawks opened the scoring eight minutes into the first period when Dillan Bentley picked up his ninth of the year. At the tail end of a penalty kill, Lowell caught UMass flat footed and created a two-on-one off of a stretch pass, where Jak Vaarwerk crossed the puck over to Bentley for an easy tap-in goal.
The Minutemen answered less than three minutes later, when Ryan Lautenbach broke a River Hawk defender’s ankles entering the zone, before kicking the puck up to Lucas Ölvestad on the point, where he fired a one-timer through traffic to tie the game.
“[Lautenbach made] a good play with speed there, cutting back there,” Ölvestad said. “I’m just trying to find free ice in the middle.”
Stefan Owens scored his second of the season in the second period before O’Hara tied it in the third.
Lowell was strong defensively for most of the night, making life difficult for UMass to break into the offensive zone with speed.
“It’s hard at times, I think we had to dump in a lot of pucks,” O’Hara said. “We’re used to creating a lot of offense off the rush, we couldn’t really do that. I thought we did a good job in the third of getting pucks in and holding on to pucks and getting our zone rotations going.”
Two points in the HEA standings for UMass and one for the River Hawks puts both teams tied at 30 points, along with Providence. Depending on other results around the league, the winner of Saturday night’s rematch at the Tsongas Center in Lowell could stand firmly in fourth-place in the conference, the final spot to host a playoff game.
UMass now stays put at No. 12 in the pairwise rankings, but Lowell moved up one spot to No. 13 after Thursday’s tie.
Another heated rivalry match is on the docket for Saturday, March 1 in Lowell. Puck drop is slated for 6:05 p.m. and can be streamed on ESPN+.
“Coming down the stretch and Hockey East is pretty tight, every point matters, every game matters,” O’Hara said.
Matt Skillings can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @matt_skillings.
