PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The 5-1 scoreline was misleading Saturday night.
Much of UMass’ victory at Providence was the type of physical hockey expected from two top-10 teams battling on the second night of a back-to-back. But the Friars didn’t have John Leonard on their roster.
The Amherst native stole the show at Schneider Arena with his trio of highlight reel goals and a replay-worthy assist on the power play. He was the reason No. 8 UMass beat No. 10 Providence by four goals to complete the weekend sweep.
“We were expecting a hard-fought, low-scoring game, and if you take John Leonard out the game, that’s probably what it would have been,” UMass coach Greg Carvel said. “It’s probably a 1-0, 2-1 type of game, but John was an absolute star (Saturday). All four of his points were highlight level. We challenged him a couple of weeks ago and he’s responded accordingly and single-handedly won that game.”
It was just two weeks ago that Leonard was a surprise healthy scratch in UMass’ 1-1 tie at New Hampshire, but the junior winger has returned to the lineup with a different focus. Carvel said sometimes it takes “extreme measures” to get the message through to a player as talented as Leonard, and that he thought Leonard was relying too much on his offense.
It was a wake-up call for Leonard after the tough love from the coaches, and Carvel said the message was direct and honest. But it clearly worked as the junior showed off an improved physicality and compete level in the weekend sweep of Providence.
“The message was I wasn’t good enough,” Leonard said. “I was playing it simple and they said I had to compete more, that was the bottom line.”
Leonard’s first goal was the type of play few in college hockey could make as he dangled and weaved through the Providence defense. He actually lost the puck at one point and recovered it in stride before firing the wrist shot glove side on Friars goalie Michael Lackey. His third goal was similar as Leonard deked his way past a pair of defensemen before flipping the puck of Lackey’s blocker.
His second goal, though, proved the type of awareness he was missing before he was scratched. The Minutemen (18-9-2, 11-6-2 Hockey East) were on the penalty kill and Leonard looked for a moment like he was going to surge up the ice, but he instead curled back and let both teams change out some personnel. But then he saw he had the space to attack again, so he motored over the blue line and put enough force behind his shot to beat Lackey’s glove again.
“I initially got it, we were on the penalty kill and there was no one on me so I skated it up the ice,” Leonard said. “No one came to me and I saw half their guys were going for a change so I decided to loop back and kill as much time as I could then I saw some more open ice and I was able to take advantage of it.”
Leonard’s third goal, which was UMass’ fourth of the game, proved to be a major turning point after Providence (14-9-5, 8-8-3) converted on the power play to cut the deficit to 3-1. The Friars had another man advantage three minutes later that the Minutemen killed off before Leonard sealed the game with his hat trick goal for his first career three-goal performance at UMass.
Then, with the Minutemen on the power play late in the game, Leonard peeled off, received a drop pass and danced along the blue line. He found the open seam and zipped a pass to Jack Suter for an easy tap-in. Leonard wasn’t the only UMass player with four points, however.
Sophomore defenseman Colin Felix recorded assists on the first four UMass goals, although he wasn’t on the ice when Leonard buried two of them. It was the first time any Minuteman had four assists in a game since James Marcou in October 2009, but Felix’s offensive prowess became a little joke in the locker room when no one really remembered any of his assists because they came much before the goal was actually scored.
“He’s a big horse and he just competes and he’s a great kid,” Carvel said. “I can ride him hard because I know I can ride him and he just gives you everything he has. It’s great when things that happen.”
The weekend sweep vaulted UMass back into first place in Hockey East with five games left, but most of the league has multiple games in hand. The Minutemen won’t play next weekend before a home-and-home weekend series with UMass-Lowell, which climbed into second place two points back of UMass on Saturday.
The time off could be considered ill-timed because the Minutemen just put together two of their better performances of the season in sweeping Providence. However, Carvel said it will be nice for his team to regroup after a tough post-Christmas stretch of games that featured seven against teams currently in the top 10.
“We’ll take it,” Carvel said. “We have some games in hand on everybody, so I know we’re in first but everybody will catch up to us by next weekend. I don’t mind this timing right now at all, it’s been a grind since we’ve come back from Christmas, we’ve played a lot of hard teams. This was a huge weekend for us in the standings and the Pairwise, so I’m excited to step back a little bit.”