Reinforcements have arrived for the No. 19 UMass hockey team ahead of its weekend home-and-home with New Hampshire.
Juniors Nick VanTassell and Bo Cosman, plus freshman Vaclav Nestrasil all practiced with the Minutemen this week after missing various amounts of time with injuries since the team returned from winter break.
UMass rattled off eight wins in its last 10 games despite being without several of its impact top-nine forwards, yet should get an additional boost when it gets back to full strength.
“It sucks to be up there watching your team play, but they’ve been doing great so far,” VanTassell said, who’s been out of the lineup since suffering an injury against Simon Fraser on Jan. 2. “A little bit of pressure coming back to keep that momentum going, but obviously it was great watching how good they did that second half, so it’ll be exciting coming back.”
The Minutemen’s depth was tested during their initial second half slate and depth forwards Cam O’Neil, Owen Mehlenbacher, Lukas Kleckas and defensemen Lucas Olvestad and Larry Keenan all picked up the slack offensively. Those five UMass players scored a combined 13 goals across 10 games.
“We’ve got 16 forwards, one injured for the year,” Minutemen head coach Greg Carvel said. “We basically have a first and second line and then it’s just a drop-off and it’s a huge pool of guys who are pretty interchangeable. I misconstrued that as depth [earlier in the season]. We don’t have a lot of big numbers in scoring this year, outside of Jack [Musa] and Nestrasil and [Jack] Galanek.
“We have a lot of useable players, but a lot of similar players,” Carvel continued.
Carvel didn’t make any lineup confirmations ahead of the contests against the Wildcats.
UMass went on a similar surge last season, picking up 11 regular-season wins once the calendar flipped to 2025. When asked about any similarities between the two runs, VanTassell shifted the focus to the freshmen contributors.
“They learn how to play here,” VanTassell said. “It’s not easy to come to UMass and play to the standard that [Carvel] sets for us. Always that second half is when you see a big difference in the freshmen play. Our older guys, they do it right all the time, but those freshmen have really took big steps. Justin Kerr has been unbelievable, Klecka, Galanek, [Coleson] Hanrahan, those guys all stepped up really big.”
Galanek, in particular, has begun to blossom in the O-zone, racking up seven points in his last four games.
Looking at UNH, wins have been difficult to come by so far in 2026 as the Wildcats are 2-8-1, which has dropped them to last place in the Hockey East standings.
Morgan Winters (11 goals) and Nick Ring slot in as UNH’s top two scorers with 22 and 20 points, respectively.
In net, the Wildcats will likely turn to Kyle Chauvette, who is 11-14-1 with a 2.67 goals-against average and a .898 save percentage in his first season with UNH after transferring from Union.
The power play hasn’t been much of a threat for UNH as it’s converting at just 17.1%, however it’s penalty-kill has been sharp with an 82.9% clip, the fourth best among Hockey East programs.
It’ll be a sprint to the finish for the Minutemen as no more breaks are scheduled from now until the Hockey East tournament opens up in mid-March.
Currently, UMass has a three-point cushion for the fifth and final bye in the Hockey East playoff picture, but a strong weekend against lowly UNH could cement its spot in the top five.
“Ideally at the end of the year, you’re shortening things down, but with the bye week, I think our batteries are good right now,” Carvel said. “Your only concern after a bye week is that you’re mentally and physically ready to compete again. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing in our league, you got to bring your A-game our you’re not going to win.”
Puck drop for Friday’s opener at the Mullins Center is set for 7 p.m.