AMHERST — When Greg Carvel watched UMass’ win over Notre Dame, the same comments from the announcers caught his ears.
“The announcers said over and over, ‘Wow, the coaches have the fourth line out against the first or second line against Notre Dame,’” Carvel said. “They deserved it. It’s great when you have that depth going and all four of your lines can go out and you’re not worried who they’re out there against.”
Such is the luxury the Minutemen had last weekend in Manchester, New Hampshire, when all four lines were steamrolling past Harvard and Notre Dame on consecutive nights. Carvel called the fourth line’s effort “outstanding” in the regional, and that isn’t just because the trio scored UMass’ first goal late in the second period against the Crimson. They controlled the play with their grit and tenacity and spent more time playing offense than it did defense, a major coup for a line not known for its scoring.
Yet the trio of Anthony Del Gaizo, Kurt Keats and Jack Suter dominated their shifts and took the Minutemen’s simplified game plan and skated away with it to tremendous success.
“We kind of got rolling, we got a regular shift there and made the most of it,” Keats said. “We know what we are, we’re high-energy guys who are going to work their asses off kind of thing. When we started rolling there, it was pretty fun.”
The fourth line is typically the line that sees the most turnover during the season as coaches mix and match to find the right combination of players. UMass cycled through several iterations of the bottom line before settling in late February on its current trio with eight different players seeing some time on that line during the season. The current formation has skated together for seven of the last eight games – Keats started with fellow seniors Brett Boeing and Jacob Pritchard for senior night on March 2 against Maine – a streak that is the longest for a fourth line this season.
The current lineup also better suits the smaller surfaces the Minutemen have been playing on recently and will play on in Buffalo next week. Keats and Suter are more known as grinders and being better defensively than offensively while Del Gaizo arrived in Amherst as a scorer but has become an energy player with a scoring touch.
“We just decided to keep those guys together and I think they’re just starting to get comfortable and realize what they’re capable of doing,” Carvel said. “Two of the three of those guys are just grinders and they know what their role is, and now that we’re playing on these smaller rinks, they’re better on a smaller rink than they are on a bigger sheet.”
Keats agreed that the unit has grown closer together the more the trio practice and play together, but said the entire group has been close-knit even when they weren’t playing together as consistently. Meanwhile, Suter said the chemistry has made it easier for the players to execute the game plan and stay on the same page with one another.
“We’re definitely starting to gain some chemistry with each other, which is definitely helping our game,” Suter said. “It’s been great to play with those guys and we’re just doing everything we can to give our team a little boost.”
The fourth line could have provided no larger boost than Del Gaizo’s goal against Harvard that opened the scoring after nearly a six-period shutout streak that dated back to the second period of the second game against New Hampshire in the Hockey East quarterfinals. Keats took a pass from Ty Farmer and barreled into the zone before swinging behind the net for a wraparound attempt. Michael Lackey was there to stuff the original shot, but the puck stayed loose in the crease long enough for Del Gaizo to whack away at it and slide it into the goal.
Immediately, Del Gaizo’s face lit up behind his facemask and the UMass bench jumped in elation – both for finally scoring a goal after “pounding the rock” against the Crimson for 35 minutes and for the fact it was a hard worker like Del Gaizo who broke through for the Minutemen. UMass would use the momentum generated from the fourth line to score three times in the third period to seal the game.
“Obviously we want to be good defensively and log high-energy minutes, but if we can chip in offensively, that’s huge for the team,” Keats said. “I think the boys appreciate that when we’re buzzing and put one home. We could have had more on the weekend, so hopefully in Buffalo we can put another one or two home.”