AMHERST – Two goals from junior Kenny Connors helped the No. 20 UMass hockey team take down Merrimack, 4-2, Friday night at the Mullins Center.

Connors scored during the second and third periods – the center’s fourth and fifth tallies of the season— to help the Minutemen win their fourth straight.

“Just a relief,” Connors said. “Just a weight lifted off the shoulders it feels like. That’s about it.”

In the sweep against Alaska last weekend, the Los Angeles Kings draft pick scored in each game, but both were empty-netters. Against the Warriors, Connors beat a goalie for the first time since his strike at Boston University on Dec. 7.

“The first [goal] I think he was surprised the puck went in for him, the second one it looked like, there’s the Kenny we know,” UMass head coach Greg Carvel said. “He scored goals like that his first two years. Especially with [Aydar] Suniev out, we need guys to score goals.”

The Glen Mills, Pennsylvania native’s first of the night evened the score 1-1 at 8:53 of the second period. Connors picked a corner from the top of the left faceoff circle, beating Merrimack goalie Nils Wallstrom (23 saves) glove side.

Connors made it 4-1 Minutemen midway through the third period on a similar strike, taking a pass in stride and firing it past the Warriors goaltender. Lucas Olvestad’s second helper of the night set up Connors’ insurance marker.

“I think obviously we want to be more consistent,” Connors said regarding his line with Michael Cameron and Ryan Lautenbach. “Three guys that should be playing with a lot of pace. When we’re working hard, recovering pucks and getting pucks back to the net, it should be helping the whole team with energy and stuff like that. We’re just trying to be as consistent as we can, week in and week out.”

UMass started slow, falling behind 1-0 to Merrimack after 20 minutes, in a sloppy period for its standards. However, the Minutemen quickly turned the page during the second and looked dangerous from the drop of the puck, before Connors rewarded the team’s effort with the equalizer.

Lucas Mercuri doubled UMass’ lead to 2-1, 1:04 later with his ninth of the year – fourth consecutive game with a goal – and all of a sudden, the Warriors were on their heels the rest of the night.

“I thought we started well, on the road that’s what you have to do,” Merrimack head coach Scott Borek said. “Second period is the worst period we played all year. I can’t explain it. You have to give some of that credit to UMass because they played really hard, so you can’t say it’s us just not playing well because they played really well.

“But it’s the worst period I’ve seen all year, maybe in a couple years,” Borek said. “It was so gross I almost puked.”

Along with goals from Connors and Mercuri, the Minutemen outshot the Warriors 15-6 in the middle stanza.

Jack Musa extended his point streak to four games with UMass’ third goal of the night during the third period. Musa bashed in a rebound that kicked right out to him on Cole O’Hara’s initial shot. The shifty winger’s 10th goal of the season counted as the game-winning goal at 6:13 of the third.

“Playing with two really good players, they’re helping me out a bunch, but also I’ve been doing some extra stuff which has helped,” Musa said. 

Michael Hrabal earned his third win in a row in net for the Minutemen. The 6-foot-7 goalie turned in a 23-save performance.

David Sacco and Michael Emerson were Merrimack’s goalscorers.

“I thought in the second period, the difference in the game was in the second period, you notice, in the first period our D would get the puck and they’d turn and skate at our goalie,” Carvel said. “That was the structural change is, I told them to just get the puck going north and then we started really playing fast...I thought we transitioned to offense really well in the second and third period.”

UMass next plays at Maine on Sunday. Puck drop is set for 4 p.m.