Whereas on Saturday the team played well in nearly all aspects of the their game on their way to a 3-2 win, that was definitely not the case last night.  While they got enough from their defense and goaltending to have a chance for victory, poor special teams and a complete inability to generate any offense against Quinnipiac resulted in a 3-1 loss that was not really as close as the score indicates.  The result drops to UMass to 4-9-0 on the season.  Probably more concerning is the Minutemen are now just 1-4-0 at home, with the lone win coming over AIC.

The story of this one is that UMass simply did not get enough shots on net.  They compiled just 18 shots on goal on the night, with a high of just 7 in the second period.  Even when adding back in the 8 blocked shots by Quinnipiac, the attacking, creative offense we saw the night before in Hamden just wasn’t there.  The lack of shots was despite 7 power play chances on the night.  They did convert on one of those opportunities, but even that was a bit of a flukey goal when the puck bounced strangely off the back boards to Frank Vatrano who was rushing in to put it in the back of the net.  Overall, Quinnipiac’s defense, one of the best in the country, completely stifled any and every UMass scoring chance.

Special teams was the other area that hurt the Minutemen greatly last night.  Already mentioned was the converting on just one of 7 power play chances.  The Bobcats got the go ahead and eventual game winning goal on a short-handed goal early in the third.  After keeping Quinnipiac’s power play off the board entirely the night before the Bobcats went 2 for 6 with the extra man on the night, accounting for their two other goals.

Defensively, outside of the penalty kill, the Minutemen looked OK.  Henry Dill put in another solid performance, making 27 saves a night after making 37 in the first game of the home and home.  He had a couple highlight saves, the most memorable for me being a stop where he quickly flashed his blocker to rob a Bobcat forward who had nearly the whole net open to him.  The defensemen and forwards in front of Dill did another solid job, blocking a season high 25 shots on the night.  The 30 shots registered plus the 25 additional that were blocked shows the dominance in terms of puck possession in favor of the Bobcats.

Overall, a split with a ranked team is a positive at this point in the season.  It’s too bad that they couldn’t put in a better performance at home yesterday to try to build off Friday’s big win.  With their poor record at the Mullins Center so far this season it makes you wonder if the big ice is actually working against the skill and strategy of the team.  It probably also doesn’t help that crowds are dwindling and there’s very little energy to spur the players when they play in Amherst.  Crowds will obviously be less when the students are home for break, but the 1900 fans at the games yesterday is less than the 2200 that this Saturday after Thanksgiving game has typically drawn in recent years.  And frankly, I thought that 1900 figure was pretty generous.  Since the athletic department seems reluctant to market or discount single game tickets, something that was very evident when many other Hockey East teams had Black Friday ticket promotions, it’ll fall on the players to create their own energy at home if the crowds stay away.

Fear The Triangle Player of the Game – Henry Dill
Dill did what he could to keep the Minutemen in this game, at least until the miscue in front of him led to the shorthanded goal that ended up being the difference.

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Recap and Box Score from UMass Athletics.

Game recap from the Collegian.

Conor Sheary is mentioned in this piece on Penguins prospects.

The Massachusetts Minutemen got their biggest win of the season last night, erasing an early deficit to beat the #14 Quinnipiac Bobcats in Hamden, CT.  It’d be easy to just look at the box score and chalk this one up to Henry Dill “stealing” a game as the freshman goaltender racked up 37 saves on the night.  But that would overlook the contributions that came from all over the roster.  Last night’s big win was a total team effort.

Dill did his part of course, being in good position all night and minimizing rebounds, something that has hurt him recently.  The win now brings him to .500 on the season at 4-4-0.  I think the key to the game was the job that Dill and the guys in front of him did on the penalty kill.  The Bobcats came into the game with the 6th best power play in the country at 25.5%.  Sam Anas led the nation in power play goals and power play points.  Dill and UMass ended up shutting down the vaunted Anas and his team’s power play, with the Bobcats going 0 for 6 with the extra man.  QU got 11 shots on goal during the power play, including 5 down the stretch in the third period, and all were turned away.  As for Anas, he was held without a point all night and only managed two shots on goal.  Oleg Yevenko was a force on defense, accumulating a season high 7 blocked shots on the night.

Offensively we also saw contributions from all over the scoresheet.  After the Bobcats grabbed a 1-0 lead late in the 1st period UMass answered immediately with a power play goal from Steven Iacobellis, as Patrick Lee fed him streaking down the slot with a nice heads up pass from behind the goal line.  Not only was it important for UMass to respond to the Bobcat goal, but it was good to see the matching goal come from the power play which had struggled recently.  Ray Pigozzi got the second assist on the goal and would pick up another assist on UMass’ second goal which was a great cross ice feed to Frank Vatrano as the duo rushed in on Bobcat goaltender Michael Garteig.  UMass’ last goal came at a key spot, just seconds into the third period.  It all started with Lee taking away the puck from a Bobcat looking to exit his own zone and finished with Dennis Kravchenko making a great pass from the boards onto the stick of Troy Power in the slot to help seal the win for UMass.

This was probably UMass’ most complete game this season, executing well in nearly all facets of play.  The only negative would probably be faceoffs where they went 24 for 68.  But they went 1 for 4 on the power play, kept the highly rated Quinnipiac power play off the board entirely, played solid team defense, got stellar play in net, and successfully challenged the opposing netminder, with all three goals coming from nice heads up passing.  If UMass is going to get back on track, last night’s game is a good example of how to do it, by executing well in all aspects of their game.  Tonight they’ll get the chance to see if they can play that well consistently when the Bobcats come north for the back half of the home and home.

Fear The Triangle Player of the Game – Henry Dill
It really was a team effort on defense and the penalty kill last night, but Dill deserves credit for his 37 saves against a quality offensive team.  He did a good job controlling his rebounds and squaring up to the shooter, minimizing the good looks available.

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Quinnipiac didn’t post highlights of the game, but you can watch the entire replay here.

Recap and Box Score from UMass Athletics.

Here’s the game story from the Quinnipiac Chronicle.

The collective groan from Massachusetts hockey fans across the Commonwealth was nearly audible when Catamount Colin Markinson put home a Henry Dill rebound just 47 seconds into tonight’s game.  At the time it seemed more like UVM had just gone up 15 to 1 coming out of some never ending intermission from last Saturday instead of having taken a quick lead in the annual Thanksgiving Tuesday game between these two traditional foes.  Surely, most thought, that immediate goal would lead to an avalanche of others and the Minutemen would be embarrassed like they were on Saturday, but this time in front of an international TV audience.

But, a funny thing happened to that expected narrative.  It didn’t happen.  UMass would end up putting in a pretty solid first period in the final 19 minutes and at the end of 1 the score was still 1-0 and the Minutemen were still in it.  For the majority of the frame in fact they were the better team.  The Catamounts would gain the better team title in the second and extend their lead to 3-0 by the end of two.  But UMass hung in there, played fairly well in the third, got a token goal in the final seconds of the game, and left Gutterson with a 3-1 loss over the #13 team in the country.  Is that good?  Is it bad?  I think we can agree it was eons better than Saturday.  Should we have expected them to win?  Doubtful.  Should we be happy?  I don’t think so.  But, we didn’t see a repeat of the lack of effort and pride that punctuated Saturday, so I guess we can call it progress.

In terms of the positives to take away from tonight it’s probably more just in terms of the effort.  There were times where the team looked a little disinterested, but for the most time their focus stayed on the game and they did their best to stay in it.  They didn’t let the game get out of hand.  It was good to see Dennis Kravchenko get the late, though meaningless, goal after being held without a shot on goal last weekend.  He played much better and got some praise from Tom Caron and Billy Jaffe during the broadcast.

There were more negatives on the night, as you’d expect during a loss.  While the team matched Vermont’s shot total with 28, they really needed to get more creative and challenging if they were going to win this game.  The Vermont defense and Brody Hoffman are just too good to take lazy shots from the top of the slot or the point.  UMass desperately needed to recapture some of that creative passing that made the NCAA highlights against Michigan State, getting the goaltender moving side to side across his crease.  That didn’t happen too much tonight.  The power play was pretty disappointing, going 0 for 4.  The team is 1 for 13 on the power play in the last three games.  The real killer on the power play was at the end of the second and beginning of the third when they had a two man advantage which would have instantly put them back in the game.  But they failed to score during that key opportunity.  Their penalty kill is struggling in the last three games as well, giving up six power play goals in 12 opportunities.  The defense has to improve.  There are still too many turnovers occurring in the defensive or neutral zone.  In fact Vermont’s first goal came directly off a missed clear by Patrick Lee.  Vermont’s second goal was due to the defensemen pinching too far in and Dill not being able to stop the quasi-breakaway.

UMass has another quick turnaround to deal with coming up.  After bussing home tonight they’ll enjoy a Thanksgiving in Amherst before playing a home and home with #14 Quinnipiac, starting in Connecticut on Friday.  UMass desperately needs some momentum from these games going into their two game series at home with Notre Dame.  The games against the Irish will represent the last chance to gain some much needed conference points before the end of the calendar year.  They didn’t get any points tonight, but at least the team tried to show that they were not going to repeat what transpired Saturday.  Tonight wasn’t that satisfying, but maybe the world isn’t ending either.  They got beat by a much better team.

Fear The Triangle Player of the Game – Dennis Kravchenko
Kravchenko’s lack of offensive presence was sorely missed on Friday and Saturday so it was good to see him get back in the groove tonight, even if his goal didn’t come until the game had already been decided.  UMass is going to need consistent output from him if they want to reverse their fortunes going forward.

Game Highlights (sorry, won’t embed)

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Recap and Box Score from UMass Athletics.

Collegian recap.

Recap from the Burlington Free Press.

UMass is at the bottom of the SBN College Hockey Hockey East Power Rankings.

Mike McMahon has updated his Hockey East Stat Pack (which got a shout out during tonight’s broadcast).  Not necessarily for the faint of heart.

This blog is called Fear The Triangle.  The triangle is in reference to the odd looking jerseys that the Massachusetts hockey program wore in the 1990s when the program was restored.  The blog name is also supposed to be a way to call out how far the program has come since those triangle years when the team was regularly the doormat of Hockey East and rarely won.  It’s also a way to remember the unheralded players during that era that helped build the program to the point that it was competing for a Hockey East championship and NCAA tournament bids in the mid-2000s.  Ironically some of those triangle-era players were in town yesterday for UMass hockey alumni weekend and were on hand to witness the 11-1 shellacking the Minutemen took last night.

Those triangle teams suffered similar losses, though none quite as bad as last night.  Yes, those triangle teams were bad, but that was really due to talent disparity created when coach Joe Mallen was handed the task of taking a program from zero to Hockey East in less than a year and a half.  Despite the challenge of going up against the best programs in the country those teams tried and worked hard every night.  I experienced more lopsided losses from that time than I care to remember, but I don’t remember a lot of times, if at all, when those teams just flat out quit.

That’s what I saw last night though.  I team that gave up somewhere during the second period.  They quit and decided the game wasn’t worth their effort anymore.  I always try to avoid saying a team quit, because that’s something that’s not easily determined.  Lopsided losses happen for a variety of reasons.  I avoided saying it to describe the third period meltdown against BU to start the season because though they played horrible it still looked like they were trying.  Last night they stopped trying.  I’ve never seen players just stand in their own zone and let opponents skate by them without getting a body or stick on them and allow them to freely shoot upon their goalie.  That’s what happened for the final 30 minutes of last night’s game.  No effort.  No fight.  No pride.

The good news is the team won’t have long to sit and stew about last night’s embarrassment.  Not only do they play two days from now, but they have a chance of redemption against this same Catamount team.  If there is a lack of effort and fight in that game, then we have a serious problem with his hockey program.  If they fight hard and execute their game plan against the Catamounts then last night could be see as a turning point.  Everyone involved with this program (coaches, players, and administrators) should’ve woken up this morning and asked themselves “What can I do to assure that what happened last night never, ever happens again?”  What transpired last night was simply unacceptable.

Fear The Triangle Player of the Game
Player of the game goes to any fan who attended last night’s debacle and still decides to attend another hockey game this season.

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Recap & Box Score from UMass Athletics.

Game recap from the Collegian and this piece in which Micheletto apologized to the fans who attended.

USCHO game recap.

Burlington Free Press notes that this tied a 1979 Catamount record for most goals scored.

Last night’s game started very differently than when these two teams met last month and combined for zero goals and just nine shots in the first period.  Instead the Minutemen grabbed the lead right away, just 46 seconds into the game, and the UMass fans who got to the Mullins Center on time thought they just may get to witness an upset.  Instead the Eagles would clamp down defensively for most of the game, severely limit UMass’ chances, and roll to a 5-3 win.  The loss dropped UMass to 3-6-0 on the season and just 1-5-0 in Hockey East.

Ray Pigozzi got UMass on the board in the first minute of the game when Steven Iacobellis was able to feed the puck ahead to PIgozzi who split the defensemen and went in for the goal.  BC would control most of the rest of the period though and would get their first power play in 27 attempts with just under five minutes left on a Chris Calnan shot from the point.  BC would take the lead exactly one minute later when Marc Hetnik turned the puck over in the UMass zone and Cam Spiro skated in on goaltender Henry Dill and scored

The second was the lone period where UMass held a shot advantage during the game, outshooting the Eagles 7-4 due in part to a couple power plays during the frame.  But it would be BC who would score the only goal in the second.  A streaking Quinn Smith would skate into the UMass zone and have his shot deflect behind Dill after hitting a UMass skate.  The Minutemen would attempt to climb back into the game in the third, scoring two goals during the period.  But each UMass goal was quickly answered by an Eagle goal and some very poor defense ultimately led to the two goal final margin.  Four goals would be scored in a five minute span, starting with a power play deflection by Troy Power, his first goal of the season.  Calnan would score his fourth goal of the season against UMass just a few minutes later as the Eagles blew by the UMass defense on the rush.  Marc Hetnik would score 32 seconds after that to pull the Minutemen back within one goal again.  But Noah Hanfin extended the margin to two goals a couple minutes later.  BC would control possession for the remaindier of the game and the loss was in the books.

It was discouraging to see the improved UMass offense be so dominated last night.  The Minutemen were held to just 21 shots during the night, including only 5 during the third period when they were trying to make their comeback.  Dennis Kravchenko who had been very hot heading into the off week, did not register a single shot on goal in the game.  On defense UMass played very poorly as well.  The BC goals that negated UMass’ comeback in the third could’ve been prevented with better defensive coverage.  Too often Eagle forwards were able to easily skate right in on net without so much as being touched.  Dill did not have a great game, but he didn’t get a lot of help either given the quality chances that BC regularly got throughout the game.

I’m not a big fan of singling out “must win games” in November.  But tonight’s contest against Vermont is extremely important.  UMass does not want to fall to 1-6-0 in Hockey East.  That is not an easy hole to try to climb out of.  But to have success tonight they’ll have to play much differently than they did yesterday.  Vermont has one of the best defenses in the country and strong goaltending.  A 21 shot effort against them probably isn’t going to get the job done.  I would suspect the Catamount team would be fired up after a narrow loss last night to UConn.  Hopefully the Minutemen are equally fired up after not making the most of the early momentum from last night.

Fear The Triangle Player of the Game – Ray Pigozzi
Pigozzi’s early goal gave UMass an early chance to win the game and later in the game he assisted on the Hetnik score.

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Recap and Box Score from UMass Athletics.

Daily Collegian game recap plus this piece that looks at the little things that added up to a UMass loss.

Gazette recap.

USCHO recap.

BC Interruption breaks down the game goal by goal.