AMHERST - In last weekend's sweep of Maine, the University of Massachusetts hockey team looked more like the squad that rose into the top 10 earlier in the season than the one that was winless in February.

The No. 7-seeded Minutemen will try to carry that momentum into this weekend's Hockey East Tournament when they travel to Chestnut Hill for a best-of-three series against second-seeded Boston College at Conte Forum.

The games are tonight, Saturday and Sunday (if necessary), all at 7 p.m.

UMass coach Don "Toot" Cahoon said he hopes his team is still moving in a positive direction.

"Going into the tournament we've obviously been on a bit of a roller coaster, and it was a long slide down before we have started moving up," he said. "We've played pretty hard for a couple of weeks now, and we have played better defensively and gotten better goaltending.

"We have some players that can make some plays, and I don't think we got as good goaltending and made as many plays during February, and thus got the results that we got," Cahoon added. "We're feeling a bit better that we're more in sync and more organized than we have been in a while. But it obviously takes on a whole new picture going into the weekend against a Boston College team that is so good defensively and so good in the net."

The Eagles (21-10-3, 16-8-3 Hockey East) won all three regular-season games against the Minutemen. They dominated the first two at the Mullins Center, 3-1 on Dec. 4 and 7-1 on Feb. 5.

The third went to overtime before Boston College pulled out a 2-1 win on Feb. 26 at Conte Forum.

Cahoon said he believes that game was the beginning of his team's turnaround even though UMass (18-16, 13-14 Hockey East) did not earn a point.

"In that game we competed our fannies off," he said. "We could have executed a little better and that might have produced a couple more goals, but the effort was there.

"BC has played three great games against us," Cahoon added. "We've played one pretty good game against them. We can count on them being pretty good (Friday) night. The question is how good are we going to be?"

The Eagles, who are ranked fourth in the country, have momentum going into this weekend with a 4-0-1 record in its last five regular- season games.

The 3.71 goals per game scored by Boston College is third highest in the nation, and its 2.41 goals allowed per game is second best in Hockey East.

The Eagles boast the conference's top penalty killing unit (88.1 percent) and it's third best power play (20.8 percent).

Junior forward Brian Gibbons leads Boston College with 42 points (15 goals, 27 assists), while sophomore Cam Atkinson is right behind him at 41 (21 goals, 20 assists).

Eagles coach Jerry York will have a decision to make in goal where freshman Parker Milner (9-2-1, 2.10 goals against average) and junior John Muse (12-8-2, 2.40) have both played very well.

"It's really something that we have not had over the last few years. We've been a one-goaltender team," York said during the Hockey East conference call on Tuesday. "We'll monitor them during this week of practice, but it's going to be a tough call. Whoever we pick # either John or Parker # we feel very good about in goal."

Minuteman senior captain Brett Watson said last weekend's sweep at Maine was good preparation for the series with Boston College.

"It helped because we had our backs against the wall and needed to win," Watson said.

RADIO BROADCAST - Because the UMass men's basketball team is playing in the Atlantic 10 Tournament at 9 tonight, the hockey game's radio broadcast tonight has been moved to WPKX-FM (97.9). Saturday and Sunday (if necessary) will be back on WRNX-FM (100.9).

HISTORY - The Minutemen and Eagles have played twice previously in the postseason. Top-seeded Boston College swept No. 8 UMass in a best-of-three series in 2005.

The ninth-seeded Minutemen defeated the No. 8 Eagles 5-4 in a play-in game in 1995, the only year that Hockey East used that format.

Boston College has won the Hockey East Tournament a league-best eight times and reached the final 13 times.

This is the 13th appearance for UMass in the conference tournament, and the Minutemen are 9-20 overall.

UMass has reached the championship game once, losing 2-1 in three overtimes to Maine in 2004.

OTHER QUARTERFINALS - The other best-of-three series, all tonight through Sunday, are No. 8 Vermont at No. 1 New Hampshire, No. 6 Merrimack at No. 3 Boston University and No. 5 UMass-Lowell at No. 4 Maine.

All games are at 7 p.m. except tonight's Merrimack at BU contest, which will be televised on NESN at 7:30.

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.