MANCHESTER, N.H. — Greg Carvel doesn’t usually talk a lot about his goalies.
He’ll acknowledge when they play well and he’ll be frank if they didn’t play up to standard, but the UMass coach’s favorite line about his goaltending is the rule about not allowing more than two goals in a game. But the Minutemen’s two games at the Northeast Regional might leave Carvel questioning if he even needs a goalie at all.
UMass allowed just 30 shots to reach Filip Lindberg over the course of 120 minutes of action, including a record-low of 13 Saturday in the 4-0 win over Notre Dame that pushed UMass into the Frozen Four.
In almost any other situation, the goalie who pitched two shutouts in the regional is named the Most Outstanding Player. Yet Lindberg didn’t have to do much for his third shutout in his last four starts and the honor instead went to sophomore defenseman Cale Makar.
“The thing I love about our team is that we don’t need our goalies to steal games,” Carvel said. “No disrespect to Lindberg, but it wasn’t a tough night for him. That’s a heck of a comment about a team when you can get a shutout because usually when you get a shutout the goalie is the first star of the game and has done quite a bit to keep that shutout. But you know I may have been able to put the pads on tonight and get my own shutout.”
Indeed, the Minutemen possessed the puck for long stretches and kept Notre Dame either defending or chipping the puck into the UMass zone for line changes. The pressure paid off in the second period with the Minutemen scoring three goals to take control of the game while allowing just two shots on Lindberg.
Lindberg has rarely had to do much when he’s blanked the opposition this season. He made 16 saves against Maine for his first career shutout on March 2 and then made 18 against New Hampshire in the second game of the Hockey East quarterfinals series. He faced just 17 shots Friday in the 4-0 win over Harvard before turning aside the 13 Saturday.
“The team played to our own standard and the team culture wins for us,” Lindberg said. “The guys played really well in front of me, they did everything they could. We played with our heart and soul with everything which made my job a whole lot easier, too.”
That standard and culture starts with being a physical team that is always on the attack. That normally translates into the Minutemen parking themselves in the offensive zone, but it begins with being pesky on the forecheck and forcing other teams into mistakes. That was an area where UMass excelled this weekend, something Carvel said started with a simplification of the scheme after the loss to Boston College in the Hockey East semifinals.
“After the BC loss, we really narrowed down our game plan to five distinct points, all of it was about us really playing aggressive hockey,” Carvel said. “When I threw that at them on Monday, I said were going to war with this, we’re going to live or die with this, and it unified everybody. Again, the reason was to get them playing aggressive hockey. Last weekend we went into that game at BC so passive, that we haven’t been like that. So, I just wanted them to get back to playing aggressive hockey.”
ROLLING FOUR — Late in a game that would send his team to the Frozen Four for the first time in program history, Carvel didn’t ever consider shortening his rotation.
For all 60 minutes of both games at the Northeast Regional, Carvel rolled all four line combos, a rarity for the coach. But the trio of Anthony Del Gaizo, Kurt Keats and Jack Suter performed admirably this weekend, scoring the Minutemen’s first goal against Harvard on Friday and then sustaining offensive zone time against Notre Dame on Saturday. The win over the Fighting Irish was by far the line’s best game and delivered more proof of the fact UMass found a groove in Manchester.
“I’m sitting on the bench, were playing to win to go to the Frozen Four, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more confident in my fourth line,” Carvel said. “Some nights, you’re like alright; let’s just get out of this neutral or even, and (Saturday) I had no problem throwing it over the boards. We’re pretty balanced our lines, our third line with Brett Boeing, those guys had a ton of scoring chances. Boeing scores twice (Friday), (John) Leonard scores (in both games), Niko (Hildenbrand) hits the crossbar. We’ve got four lines going, the defense and goalies going, we’ve got it clicking right now.”
MAKAR THE STAR — Makar was named the Northeast Regional’s most outstanding player after scoring once and adding an assist across UMass’ two wins. The Minutemen had four members on the six-player all-regional team: Boeing, Leonard, Lindberg and Makar. Notre Dame’s Cam Morrison and Bobby Nardella rounded out the list.