AMHERST — The UMass hockey team is bound for Boston.
The Minutemen maneuvered past Northeastern, 4-1, during the Hockey East Quarterfinals at the Mullins Center on Saturday to clinch their spot at the TD Garden for the Hockey East semifinals next Friday, March 20.
UMass (22-12-1) never trailed against the Huskies (17-18-1), while receiving goals from Larry Keenan, Jack Musa, Vaclav Nestrasil and Cam O’Neill, as the second-seeded Minutemen put an end to seventh-seeded Northeastern’s season.
“I thought it was an advantage that we did not play Wednesday and [Northeastern] had to,” UMass head coach Greg Carvel said. “As the game wore on, you could see that and feel that. I thought we played a really good defensive game. We didn’t allow a lot of entries with possession, kept them on the outside and followed our game plan extremely well.”
Minutemen goalie Michael Hrabal turned in an average performance with 30 saves, but that’s all that was required of the Prague, Czechia native as his teammates did a great job limiting Northeastern’s quality looks.
The Huskies’ lone goal occurred during the final two minutes of the first period, before UMass netted three unanswered to push its season forward at least another week.
“It was the biggest game of the year,” Musa said. “We knew we needed to win or our season would be over. To get the chance to play at the Garden now is special.”
The Minutemen got on the board early with Keenan’s eighth goal of the season at three minutes, 37 seconds of the first. The sophomore defenseman threw a puck toward Northeastern goalie Lawton Zacher (23 saves) from just inside the blue line and somehow made its way in to give the hosts a 1-0 edge.
Both teams would each get one power-play opportunity in the opening frame, but neither converted, despite the visitors tossing four shots on Hrabal on their man-advantage chance.
With less than two minutes to go in the period, Griffin Erdman cleaned up an uncharacteristically juicy rebound from Hrabal, evening the score 1-1 at 18:39.
Play didn’t favor either team for the majority of the second period until Musa slotted home a go-ahead strike at 19:36. The junior winger stayed with the play after his initial shot was blocked at the bottom of the right faceoff circle and ripped home his 16th of the season, pushing it to 2-1 UMass.
The Minutemen took the wind out of Northeastern’s sails on Nestrasil’s beautiful tuck at 4:08 of the third. Huskies defenseman Dylan Compton gifted Musa a turnover right in front of Zacher and instead of shooting, Musa made a no-look pass to Nestrasil, who dragged it to his backhand and flicked it in for the 3-1 insurance marker.
Musa’s helper counted as the Orange Park, Florida native’s 100th of his career with UMass.
“It’s awesome,” Musa said on reaching the milestone. “It’s such an honor to be here. I’ve loved every day I’ve been here and hopefully we keep going on that.”
Nestrasil’s 13th of the year energized the Minutemen for the rest of regulation, before O’Neill sealed the victory with an empty-netter at 19:32.
“We got the win, so that’s all that matters,” Nestrasil said. “We just got to keep going, we got, hopefully, two games in front of us and we got to get the best out of it as possible.”
Both of UMass’ top line wingers recorded three-point games, while center Jack Galanek dished out two assists, as well, leading the Minutemen throughout the 60-minute affair.
UMass had one of its better performances in the faceoff dot against the Huskies, winning 59% of its draws.
“I don’t know how strong Northeastern usually is, but we got Galanek and [Justin] Kerr who are going to be two guys taking a lot of faceoffs for a lot of [the] time,” Carvel said.
Making its first trip to the Garden since 2024, only a handful of Minutemen were on the team when they lost 8-1 to Boston College in the 2024 semifinals.
Regardless, UMass’ success over its second half slate (13-3-1) has filled Carvel with a level of belief that has steadily grown.
“There’s nothing, to me, that I respect more than seeing growth out of someone,” Carvel said. “That they can recognize it, attack it, and then show it and these kids…the beginning of the year I did not think was a great team, but they’ve become a very good team. They’ve done that.
