HARTFORD, Conn. — UMass didn’t deserve to win Friday night.
Connecticut outplayed the Minutemen for most of the 60 minutes at the XL Center and were the hungrier, more energized team. Yet with two minutes left in regulation, it was UMass that held a one-goal lead, an insurmountable deficit for opponents for most of the last 18 months.
Except for the third straight game, eighth-ranked UMass surrendered a third-period lead and for the second consecutive Friday, the Minutemen failed to close out a road win in Hockey East by allowing the game-winning goal in the dying seconds. This time it was the Huskies who tied the game with 91 seconds left then won it on Kale Howarth’s goal with 8.7 seconds remaining, stealing back two points with a 3-2 victory over UMass in Hartford.
“They were the better team and we found a way to be ahead late in the game and then completely fell apart with our structure defensively,” coach Greg Carvel said. “Kind of inexcusable. It would have been stealing a game, but it’s a tough way to lose late in the game.”
The similarities to last week’s collapse at UMass-Lowell were similar in terms of the defensive breakdowns. In both cases, the Minutemen lost their structure in the neutral zone and were left scrambling in the defensive zone to try and mark players. And even if players were in the right position, the Minutemen (19-11-2, 12-8-2 Hockey East) got lazy and didn’t fully do their jobs on the back end.
That was what seemed to irk Carvel the most about the loss to UConn (15-13-4, 12-8-2). He said he was disappointed that his players couldn’t salt away the game with just two minutes of excellent effort on the road.
“It’s really simple, there’s five guys for them on the ice and there’s five guys for us,” Carvel said. “If I stay above my guy, we’re good. It’s that mindset, ‘you’re not getting around me to the net. I don’t care that there’s 10 guys out here, but you’re not getting around me.’ If all five guys had that mindset, we’d be alright.”
“If you can’t for the last two minutes of a game just decide you’re going to play really hard and stay on the inside of your guy and don’t take chances and just be smart,” Carvel added before tailing off. “That’s frustrating.”
Once again it was Amherst native John Leonard who almost willed the Minutemen to a win by himself. He scored both of UMass’ goals in similar fashion, chasing down the puck before it left the offensive zone then working his magic to put it past Tomas Vomacka.
On the first goal, Leonard didn’t seem to be even aiming at the net and just shot the puck toward the goal in an attempt to keep the possession alive. Instead, it floated through the air and dove over Vomacka’s glove into the goal to tie the game and give him 100 career points. Midway through the third period, the junior hustled back on the power play to save the puck from exiting the zone, took two powerful strides and snapped the puck past Vomacka for his nation-best 26th goal of the season.
For all the positive Leonard did Friday, Carvel was quick to point out that the winger was also on the ice for the final goal and was part of the breakdown that cost UMass the game.
“It’s just a sign that he can single-handedly create the offense by himself,” Carvel said. “Almost all of his goals, there’s really not an assist to them that matter. He’s a highly effective player who’s playing well right now, but he was one of the guys that was on the ice at the end. He was one of the five guys who lost his structure and lost his man.”
Without Leonard’s four shots, UMass didn’t have much else working for it without second-leading scorer Mitchell Chaffee against a stingy Huskies defense. The Minutemen put 23 shots on Vomacka, compared to the 38 Filip Lindberg faced at the other end, and barely could sustain any possession in the offensive zone. They only had two other viable scoring chances in the game – Oliver Chau’s wraparound bid that was snuffed out and Eric Faith’s loose puck in the crease that he couldn’t muscle past the UConn defender.
Faith and fellow freshman Peyton Reeves contributed valuable minutes for UMass in the loss, especially after freshman Jeremy Davidson exited the game with an injury in the second period. Losing Davidson shifted Gianfranco Cassaro, a defenseman who has been playing on the wing the last two months, to the third line and inserted Kolby Vegara, who dressed as the seventh defenseman, on the fourth line.
Carvel said Vegara did well in his limited action and he was pleased with the improvements of his fourth-line forwards against the Huskies.
“He played three or four shifts and did a nice job when he was out there,” Carvel said. “If Faith could have found a way to score that goal right after Leonard scored his first goal, that would have been huge. Those younger guys who haven’t really given us a lot this year, gave us a little bit tonight.”