AMHERST — When the first national poll of the hockey season was released, UMass received 35 points.
It wasn’t enough for the Minutemen to crack the top 20 in the U.S. College Hockey Online Poll, but it was the fifth-most of the teams who didn’t make the cut. It’s a slightly surprising total for a program that hasn’t had a winning season in 12 years, coinciding with the last time it made the NCAA Tournament.
But UMass returns its top-five scorers from last season, all of whom were freshmen on a team that improved by 12 wins over Greg Carvel’s first season behind the bench. The fans and experts alike believe the Minutemen are poised to snap their postseason drought, and Carvel was sure to get ahead of the issue this year.
“The first message I gave the team was there will be expectations, but fortunately from day one since we’ve got here, everything has been about process,” Carvel said. “We’re not going to have success this year unless we practice the right way every day and we train the right way. We know what our standard of play is, and I told the guys we’re at a point now where if we play at that standard we probably win and if we don’t play at that standard, we probably lose.”
Carvel said the players have taken a larger ownership and leadership role within the team, a refreshing sight for the veteran coach, who admitted to having to set the tone himself in his first two seasons. After going much of last season without permanent captains, Carvel named junior forward Niko Hildenbrand an sophomore defensemen Mario Ferraro and Cale Makar as this year’s captains.
He said the trio are unique in their leadership styles and they collectively are charged with upholding the internal expectations Carvel has set for how UMass will practice and play this season.
“The teams that I coached, the really good teams have really good leadership,” Carvel said. “We’ve really challenged those three guys because they’re young and they don’t have a ton of experience, but they know what’s expected and we’ve asked them to be real leaders of the standard of what we want to do on the ice and off.”
The three captains also have a lot of help from the rest of the sophomore class, which Carvel complimented on their attitudes when they returned this year. He said the group has made it a point to teach and be mentors for the freshmen, leaders they didn’t necessarily have last year in their first years.
The coach said what has impressed him the most about the sophomores isn’t as much their physical talents on the ice, but the maturation and growth that has happened off the ice that makes them good college hockey players.
“As a coach, you realize that you’re going to figure out what a player is from the end of their freshman year to the beginning of their sophomore year,” Carvel said. “That’s when the most growth happens, that’s when they’ve figured it out or they’re never going to figure it out. That whole group has it figured out, and it’s really impressive. The depth of that group and the commitment of that group and the chemistry of that group, it’s all the foundation of our program.”
The Minutemen will play their first game next week, a home exhibition (free admission) against Royal Military College of Canada on Oct. 6 at 8 p.m. Carvel said he’s been pleased with the past few practices UMass has had and thinks the team is on the right trajectory heading into the season.
However, he said the players also understand there’s a process that will allow UMass to back up the preseason expectations that surround the program.
“I don’t think this group will get ahead of itself,” Carvel said. “They’re still too young and aware of how quickly things can go bad if we’re not doing what we’re expected to do.”
Josh Walfish can be reached at jwalfish@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshWalfishDHG. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.