AMHERST - Senior captain Danny Hobbs had a hat trick for the University of Massachusetts, but it was sophomore Conor Allen who played the hero as the Minutemen escaped with a 4-3 win over Vermont Friday in an up-and-down game at the Mullins Center.

With goalie Rob Madore down after stopping an Adam Phillips shot, Allen crashed in from the left point and batted the bouncing rebound into the vacant goal with 3 minutes, 44 seconds left to break a 3-3 tie.

"I didn't think the puck was going to make it to my stick," Allen said. "It just kept bouncing. I took out my golf club and chipped it in. I kind of just hacked at it and got it up high enough."

The Minutemen, who are 7-0-3 at the Mullins Center this season, felt fortunate to come out with a victory despite not playing as well as they have in recent games.

"It was a gutsy win on our part," Hobbs said. "We did a pretty good job staying composed. All that matters at the end of the day is getting the win and that's what we did. We'll move forward from here."

UMass coach Toot Cahoon thought winning a game like that was a sign of progress.

"There were some good things thrown into the mix with some things that drive coaches crazy," Cahoon said. "It was a remarkable turnaround in the third period. It was a mixed bag of wheat in terms of performance. I don't know if we win that game in November and I certainly don't think we'd have won a game like that last year."

The win was UMass' third straight and the second consecutive victory for goalie Steve Mastalerz, who stopped 35 shots for the Minutemen (9-8-5, 5-6-4 Hockey East), including a game saver on Matt White with 20 seconds left.

"I thought he made some good saves. He wasn't as sharp as he was a week ago, but he won a game," Cahoon said. "It's something he can build off of."

UMass took a 1-0 lead with 11:21 left in the first period when Michael Pereira threaded a pass from just off the left post to Hobbs in front of the net, where the senior forward tapped it in.

Vermont (5-17-1, 2-13-1) tied the game just under two minutes into the second period, ending Mastalerz's shutout streak at 84:23. Anthony DeCenzo fed Brett Leonard in the right wing faceoff circle and the senior snapped it into the top-right corner of the net.

After Mastalerz dove across the crease to deny Drew MacKenzie a power-play goal with 7:35 left, Michael Paliotta's shot through traffic eluded him to put the Catamounts ahead 2-1 with 6:59 left in the second.

Goal No. 2 for Hobbs tied the game 59 seconds in the third period when he stuffed a rebound under Madore to make it 2-2.

"A lot of guys wouldn't be able to stay in that traffic and get the shots off without his physical strength," Cahoon said. "Danny had a nice night."

Vermont coach Kevin Sneddon said his team's play directly in front of Madore was its downfall.

"I thought we played really well everywhere except in front of our own net," he said. "We didn't really help Robbie out tonight."

Hobbs' third goal put UMass up 3-2 with 9:37 left on another close rebound.

Hat tricks "are hard to come by," Hobbs said. "I've been waiting four years for it."

But just under two minutes later, White unloaded a low hard shot from just inside the blue line as he broke into the zone and beat Mastalerz to make it 3-3 with 7:39 left setting up Allen's heroics.

UMass, which won the season series with Vermont 2-1, will host No. 14 Lowell Friday at 7 p.m. in a home-and-home series between the two state schools. They'll play again Saturday at 7 p.m. at Tsongas Arena in Lowell.

The Minutemen won three straight games earlier in the season but followed the streak with a tie and three straight defeats. Allen hoped the Minutemen would handle it better this time.

"The last time we had momentum we kind of took a few games off," Allen said. "We got kind of outplayed tonight for parts of the game. Knowing we can find a way to win, we'll take it in this league, but we have a work week ahead of us."

NOTES - UMass held a moment of silence between the first and second periods to honor photographer Dennis Pause of Easthampton, who died suddenly at the Minutemen's Frozen Fenway game on Jan. 7. His family was among the 3,321 at the Mullins Center.

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.