WEST POINT, N.Y. — The No. 18 UMass hockey team fell to unranked Army, 5-4, at Tate Rink on Saturday afternoon.
The Black Knights scored four of its five goals during the second period and chased Minutemen junior goalie Michael Hrabal from the cage, who was making his first start in nearly a month after suffering an undisclosed injury.
Hrabal allowed five goals on 14 shots, then junior Jackson Irving finished out the contest in the third period, as UMass dropped to 8-8 following the out-of-conference defeat.
“He wasn’t ready to play and I put him in and that’s on me,” Minutemen head coach Greg Carvel said regarding Hrabal’s performance.
UMass freshman Vaclav Nestrasil did all he could offensively as the Chicago Blackhawks’ first-round draft pick scored twice and added an assist. Nestrasil hadn’t found the back of the net in any of the Minutemen’s prior seven games.
Both of Nestrasil’s tucks came on the power play for UMass, which finished Saturday’s contest 2-for-3 on the man-advantage.
“I think we’re just sticking to the plan, doing what [Carvel] wants us to do,” Nestrasil said on the Minutemen’s improved power play against Army.
UMass only scored one power-play goal in its two game series against Providence last weekend, despite six opportunities.
Carvel shuffled nearly every forward line and defensemen pair heading into this one, with the Minutemen D-pairs seeing the most upheaval.
Senior captains Lucas Olvestad and Owen Murray were separated for the first time this season as Olvestad was paired with freshman Coleson Hanrahan, while Murray joined sophomore Francesco Dell’Elce on the third pair.
Sophomore Larry Keenan and freshman Landon Nycz made up UMass’ second pair.
“I thought everybody kind of contributed in their own way,” Murray said on the shuffled D-pairs. “You’re obviously starting to see a couple of young guys start to rise in their games, then the four of us that have been here and done it for awhile, we feel pretty comfortable with whatever.”
Murray started the scoring in this one, sniping home his first goal of the season right off an offensive-zone faceoff, seven minutes, 13 seconds into the game, to put the visitors ahead, 1-0.
Nestrasil slid home his eighth goal of the season about 10 minutes later, taking an impressive feed from Minutemen sophomore Daniel Jencko at the Black Knights’ back post, for a 2-0 UMass lead.
Before the first period came to a close, Army got on the board with a dirty goal from Nils Forselius at 19:14, making it a 2-1 game.
The Black Knights scored the next two goals of the tilt early in the second period, one coming on a power-play marker from Ben Ivey, and the other on a strike off the rush from Vincent Salice.
The Minutemen evened the score at 3-3 at 5:31 of the second on a grimy goal from Nick VanTassell, the junior’s second of the season.
Action leveled out through the middle portion of the frame, until the onslaught picked right back up with less than three minutes to go, starting with an Army shorthanded goal.
UMass turned the puck over in the neutral zone on a zone-entry attempt, sending Barron Woodring the other way, who scored on a shot Hrabal normally would make.
Trailing 4-3, Nestrasil pulled the Minutemen back with his second goal of the night, capping off a give-and-go play with freshman Jack Galanek at 18:05.
But once again, Army scored in the final minute, this time on a beauty from Brent Keefer, who picked the top left corner of the twine off the rush, with just four seconds remaining in the second period.
“We’ve got some young defensemen that I thought needed to stay above the puck, [but didn’t] and gave them odd-man rushes, which didn’t help [Hrabal],” Carvel said. “Unfortunately, the chances that they got, they didn’t have a ton in the game, but they were high-end chances.”
UMass nearly tied the game numerous times during the third period, including a sequence toward the tail end of the frame in which Black Knights goalie Jacob Biron (34 saves) made a couple of acrobatic stops, but Army defended well to earn its first win in 10 games.
“The Army goalie did a good job,” Carvel said. “He shut the door late in the game.”
The Minutemen will travel to Matthews Arena in Boston for their final two games before the winter break next week, with a series against No. 11 Northeastern.