AMHERST — Greg Carvel took some ownership for the position UMass is in right now.
The fourth-year coach acknowledged he probably let the Minutemen stray a bit too far from the standard in recent weeks, but the results weren’t terrible. UMass was still a top-10 team in the national polls, had climbed atop Hockey East in January and had been competitive in every game it played.
Then came last Friday’s loss to Boston College, and it became obvious to Carvel and his staff that the Minutemen had veered away from their identity. So while they are still in the top 10 and still tied for the lead in the conference, none of that matters to Carvel as No. 8 UMass prepares for a home-and-home series this weekend with No. 10 Providence.
“I don’t care about standings, polls, records, anything, I’m just concerned about getting us playing at a standard that we’re happy with,” Carvel said. “If it’s where we think it should be, usually we’ll find ways to win. It’s on me that I let this slip for whatever reason and after the BC game, watching the video, it became really clear what the issues were.”
One of the easiest issues to identify with UMass is its lack of scoring punch lately. The Minutemen have scored just one goal in its last three games, which came late in a game at New Hampshire that helped them salvage a tie. The drought has dropped the Minutemen from ninth nationally to 18th in goals per game and knocked more than a third of a goal per game off their average.
The absence of goals has put more pressure on the defense to be perfect in that end of the rink. When the Minutemen weren’t as tight, Boston College made them pay last week, a microcosm of the larger issue Carvel has identified in all three zones.
“The low scoring is because we’re not working hard enough to score,” Carvel said. “You have to work just as hard defensively, but the not scoring is more indicative of our issues right now. You’re seeing issues defensively for the same reason, the compete level and the attention to detail isn’t quite good enough.”
Toward the tail end of Friday’s loss to the Eagles, the mood on the UMass bench started to shift. It culminated in John Leonard taking a roughing penalty with 2 minutes, 50 seconds left born fully out of frustration.
But Carvel said he didn’t think that adjective fit his team right now, and cautioned the Minutemen needed to use their emotion in the right manner moving forward.
“I don’t know if frustration is the word I would use that we’re feeling,” Carvel said. “It’s more angry than frustrated, and anger isn’t a good emotion, but we’re trying to use that energy is a positive manner.”
After Friday’s game, Carvel said he wanted his players to take the weekend to refocus on the final five weeks of the season. He added a little more competitive fire to Tuesday’s practice and said he hoped the Minutemen (16-9-2, 9-6-2 Hockey East) would come out Friday night at home against Providence (14-7-5, 8-6-2) with the right mindset.
The Minutemen have just seven regular season games remaining to improve their standing in both Hockey East and the all important Pairwise. And ultimately, Carvel won’t know if he’s pushing the right buttons until the games commence.
“We’d like to think we did, but we won’t know until Friday night if the message has been received,” Carvel said. “We’re trying real hard to make them realize that the standard has not been good enough. We’re not going to use the excuse that we’ve played better teams this half, we should be winning more than we are.”
Josh Walfish can be reached at jwalfish@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshWalfishDHG. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.