The UMass hockey team’s reprieve from ranked opponents begins this week with a set against Merrimack.
Twelve of the Minutemen’s 13 prior games came against teams inside the USCHO’s top-20 rankings and the team managed a 5-7-0 clip during the daunting slate.
While the Warriors aren’t ranked, games between UMass and Merrimack always tend to be tightly-contested rock fights. Seven of the last 10 matchups have been decided by one goal.
“They’re like every other team [who’s] coach has been there a long time,” Minutemen head coach Greg Carvel said. “You know what their identity is, you know what to expect. Any team that has an identity and lives to it does well and that’s where I think Merrimack finds their success. You know how you need to play against them, especially in their barn.”
Friday’s series opener will take place in North Andover at Lawler Arena, a building where UMass has lost more times than it has won (13-19-3) since 1999, before journeying back to Amherst for Saturday night’s follow up.
Since head coach Scott Borak (eighth season) took over at Merrimack in 2018-19, the Minutemen have played 10 times at Lawler and are 6-4 in that span, which includes last season’s 3-2 defeat.
“It’s going to be an introduction for a lot of our guys,” Carvel said regarding playing at Merrimack. “It’s the usual. They’ll play heavy and we got to do the same.”
Despite being an NHL-sized ice sheet (200×85 feet), Lawler’s low ceiling and tight corners is almost the exact opposite of the Mullins Center’s spacious atmosphere and wider sheet (200×95 feet).
The Warriors have an identical record as the Minutemen at 10-10-0, however, Merrimack will enter the weekend home-and-home winners of five straight.
Sophomores Nick Pierre (10 goals) and Trevor Hoskin (team-high 19 points) are the main catalysts on offense for the Warriors, who occupy ninth place in the Hockey East standings with 13 points.
As a team, Merrimack is averaging exactly three goals and game, plus boast a top-15 power play in the nation with a 24% success rate, so UMass’ defense will surely be tested.
The Minutemen though, enter the series after allowing just one goal in two games against the uber-skilled Boston University Terriers last weekend and appear to be meshing in the defensive zone at long last.
“We played pretty good defensive hockey the last two games of the first half against Northeastern, we came back after the break and I really challenged the team,” Carvel said. “I said, ‘it’s pretty obvious to me where we lack.’ Part of is compete, part of it is the mental part of it and part of it is systems. I think all three of them kind of came together. We have more kids competing, we had very good structure against BU and the biggest thing is Michael Hrabal. He looked like his old self on the weekend.”
Goaltending and defense were lauded as the expected strengths of the team heading into the season given Hrabal’s return and four of the six UMass defensemen coming back as well.
A lengthy injury absence from Hrabal and five games of at least five goals allowed told a much different story during the Minutemen’s first half schedule, yet early indications following the split with BU would indicate the D-zone kinks appear to have been ironed out.
“This group doesn’t have the offensive output that last year’s team did and we knew that coming into the year,” Carvel said. “But we expected to be a real good defensive team and it’s just taken us a while to get there, so hopefully we can keep running in that direction.”
Puck drop for both game’s is scheduled for 7 p.m.
