AMHERST - The University of Massachusetts hockey team will try to bounce back from its first loss of the season last weekend with an unusual Friday-Sunday, nonconference home-and-home series with Niagara.

The 19th-ranked Minutemen (4-1) will host the Purple Eagles (0-5-1) at 7 p.m. Friday at the Mullins Center and the teams will meet again in western New York at 2 p.m. Sunday at Dwyer Arena.

Niagara has struggled early in the season. After opening the season with a 4-4 tie against Colgate, the Purple Eagles have dropped five straight games, including two losses in overtime to Clarkson and Cornell.

Senior defenseman Tyler Gotto leads Niagara in scoring with two goals and four assists. Freshman forward Marc Zanette has two goals and three assists.

Junior goaltender Adam Avramenko has seen the most time of three Niagara goalies. Avramenko is 0-2-1 with a 3.49 goals against average.

The Minutemen will try to take advantage of the purple Eagles' defensive woes. UMass ranks sixth nationally in scoring offense with 3.8 goals per game and has the third best power play in the country at 30.6 percent.

Hockey East

TOP OFFENSIVE DEFENSEMEN - UMass sophomore defenseman Matt Irwin leads the nation in goals by a defenseman with five. He's second in the nation in points by a defenseman with nine.

Blake Kessel of New Hampshire is the nation's top scoring defensemen with 10 points (three goals, seven assists). Kessel, a sophomore, is the younger brother of former Boston Bruin and current Toronto Maple Leaf Phil Kessel.

BUSY SUNDAY - This is an odd weekend throughout Hockey East with just one Saturday game - Northeastern at Boston College - and no conference home-and-home series. Including UMass, seven Hockey east teams play on Sunday.

TV COVERAGE - New Hampshire will be on TV twice this weekend: against Boston College at 7 p.m. Friday (NESN) and 5 p.m. Sunday at UMass-Lowell (ESPNU).

Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Follow UMass coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/GazetteUMass. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at http://www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.