BOSTON — Northeastern taught UMass a lesson on Tuesday night.
The Minutemen aren’t going to be able to slumber through 40 minutes on the road in Hockey East play and expect to get the job done. Whatever firepower UMass has on the roster was suffocated through the first two periods as the Huskies trapped the Minutemen in the zone for extended periods of time. And Matt Murray could only do so much to keep Northeastern off the board.
Poor decisions came back to bite the Minutemen in the second period as Northeastern tallied twice, and a spirited third-period pushback was not enough as Northeastern defeated UMass, 3-1, at Matthews Arena.
“We were definitely on our heels,” UMass coach Greg Carvel said. “We didn’t manage the puck very well and it led to them getting some really extended offensive zone time. We shot ourself in the foot we feel on both of those goals, we were definitely on our heels. We have a lot of freshmen playing and we need to be a harder team (to play against), we’re not a hard team right now.”
The Minutemen (1-1-0, 0-1-0 Hockey East) started the second period already short-handed after a Jake Gaudet elbowing penalty late in the first period. UMass killed off the rest of the penalty with ease, but then quickly returned to the hole of being down a man. Jack Suter was whistled for interference and eight seconds later, Zac Jones was sent to the penalty box for slashing. It was a game-changing sequence that gave Northeastern (3-0-0, 1-0-0 HEA) the momentum it needed to tighten its grip on the Minutemen.
The Huskies didn’t score on that extended five-on-three power play or any of their seven total power plays in the game. However, those penalties allowed Northeastern to set up shop in the offensive zone and force UMass to play defense, even long after the power play was over. The Minutemen’s top-six forwards were hampered on offense and forced to spend their long shifts playing defense and moving with great ferocity trying to break up passes and block shots.
Eventually, the Huskies caught the Minutemen’s top line of Gaudet, Mitchell Chafee and Oliver Chau on the ice and hemmed them into the defensive zone. After a minute of frantic defending and Murray making two saves while sprawled on the ice, Matt Demelis flipped the loose puck into the roof of the net for the game’s first goal.
“Five-on-five, they have to help us out more,” Carvel said of his top line. “Through two games, we haven’t gotten enough out of that line (five-on-five). Our top two lines are all returning guys – five juniors and a sophomore – so they should be experienced guys who are controlling the game at times five-on-five, and we just haven’t had that yet.”
Murray was the difference in UMass’ second period when he was being peppered with a majority of Northeastern’s 13 shots in the stanza. In his first start of the year, Murray was sharp against the Huskies’ power play, quickly moving laterally to close up any net Northeastern thought it saw with the puck on its stick. He made a trio of incredible saves on the five-on-three penalty to keep the game scoreless then made two more key stops late to keep the deficit at 2-0.
“He made some huge saves on that five-on-three and they were athletic saves,” Carvel said. “Matt played really well. He kept the score in check in the second period to allow us come into the third with a chance to play.”
UMass committed yet another penalty less than 30 seconds into the third period, but then dominated the final 17 minutes as it pushed for an equalizer. Freshman defenseman Matthew Kessel injected some life into the Minutemen with his first career goal less than seven minutes into the period, and from there, the frenetic rush was on. UMass sent 26 shots toward the Northeastern net in the third period with 17 reaching Craig Pantano in goal.
What was perhaps most disappointing was how ineffective the power play was for the Minutemen in the critical moments. UMass was 0-for-5 with the man advantage, including squandering all three of its prime chances in the third period. UMass sent just three shots on goal during its two-minute two-man advantage early in the third period then couldn’t score on any of its nine shots on a power play shortly after Kessel’s goal. Yet the dagger was the one shot the Minutemen managed over the final 3:03 when UMass was up a man after Brendan van Riemsdyk was issued a five-minute major and game misconduct for spearing Chaffee.
On every power play, UMass showed it could move the puck well but couldn’t connect those passes into quality scoring chances most of the time. Carvel said he thinks some of that has to do with the limited time players have to make decisions with the puck on smaller ice surfaces compared to the larger sheet UMass plays and practices on at the Mullins Center.
“We practiced for five weeks on our big sheet of ice and this is our first game on a smaller sheet,” Carvel said. “It was a grinding game with the special teams and on our ice, it’s a freer flowing game, you can hold onto the puck and make plays. On the smaller ice, you can’t, and we didn’t handle that well.”