PITTSBURGH — UMass didn’t practice Friday, the day between the national semifinals and national championship game.
The Minutemen punched a return ticket to the NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey championship game thanks to a come-from-behind 3-2 victory in overtime late Thursday against two-time defending champion Minnesota-Duluth at the PPG Paints Arena.
UMass coach Greg Carvel learned two years ago how important it is to recover between a late-night Thursday semifinal and Saturday’s final. In 2019, the Minutemen ran back and forth between their hotel 35 minutes away, practice and the Hobey Baker Award ceremony near the arena in Buffalo.
“We learned our lesson. We felt like we were a tired team going into the championship last time. We’re trying to get our guys re-energized and focused,” he said. “We didn’t notice Duluth running around. We realized they knew enough to rest.”
The Bulldogs were the fresher team two years ago in Buffalo, defeating UMass to claim their second straight national title. The Minutemen avenged that loss Thursday. Then they took pages out of the Bulldogs’ book in preparation to face St. Cloud State at 7 p.m. Saturday. Both teams are seeking their first national championship.
“That experience was really critical. The first time you get here, it’s fun, it’s exciting, you’ve never done it before,” Carvel said. “The second time, you’re on a mission. The first time you learn lessons, and we learned a big lesson.”
The Huskies have never advanced this far before. They made their Frozen Four debut in their 33rd year as a Division I program Thursday and defeated Minnesota State 5-4 in the other semifinal. St. Cloud State coach Brett Larson was an assistant at Minnesota Duluth from 2015 to 2018 and went to two Frozen Fours with the Bulldogs.
He’s tried to downplay the pressure and the enormity of the moment for his players.
“You don’t think about the big picture stuff very much. I’m thinking about how to break the puck out (Saturday),” Larson said. “Maybe it’s a good life lesson with COVID about appreciating the day that you’re in and being thankful for the day that you have. We’ve really tried to have a narrow focus on the day in and day out and kept that consistent through the playoffs.”
While no players on the St. Cloud State roster have reached this stage, UMass has 11 players on its team left over from the 2019 title game. Many of them were on the bench when Marc Del Gaizo’s slapshot against Denver in the semifinals delivered the Minutemen their first championship game berth. They’ve been there and done that, so their celebration was more muted Thursday.
“We’ve discussed it a bit with some of the returning players,” Carvel said. “They felt the same. All right, we scored a goal, won a game, but we didn’t win anything. We didn’t win a championship. We earned the right to play again for a championship. (Thursday night) we quickly moved past it. It think it’s important that (Friday) we’re mentally past it and focused on (Saturday),” he said.
“That’s another thing we learned the last time we were here — we enjoyed the victory too long and didn’t get reset and mentally prepared for the next game, which is even tougher. We’re doing a better job with that now.”
So rather than on the ice, UMass players spent most of Friday in bed focused on what’s next rather than reveling in what’s passed.
“Coach has a lot of trust in us right now. He knows that we’re all men on this team and we’re going to take care of our bodies individually. He knows we’re going to do our job,” Del Gaizo said. “More time in bed is going to be huge for a game (Saturday). (Thursday) night was definitely a grudge match. We’re all beat up. We’re all sore, so we’re getting those extra hours of sleep and getting those ice bags on us.”
Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @kylegrbwsk.