AMHERST – UMass wasn’t supposed to be ready for Maine on Saturday night.
The Minutemen secured their first Hockey East regular season title in program history on Thursday and had nothing to play for against the Black Bears. Logic dictated UMass would ease into the game nursing an emotional hangover, or even worse, might just have a letdown entirely in its final regular-season home game.
Then again, the script said the Minutemen weren’t going to be ready to take the next step as a program this year. A scorching hot start was destined to turn into an icy cold finish – there was no way UMass could withstand the heat for a full season. The difficult February schedule was supposed to take its toll and humble the team down to its rightful place in the conference standings.
So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that UMass skated circles around Maine on Saturday at Mullins Center because that’s what it has done all season. The Minutemen have consistently deviated from what is expected of them logically and done so in the most public way possible. Therefore, it wasn’t going to be any different against the Black Bears with everyone watching to see how UMass would react to its first trophy.
“You are always concerned about how your team is going to come out,” coach Greg Carvel said after UMass throttled Maine, 6-0. “I think we pushed the right buttons because the guys came out great. I thought we controlled the whole 60 minutes as well as we have all year.”
This year has been filled with uncharted territory for UMass and yet it has never seemed like the Minutemen are unfamiliar with the scene. Perhaps it’s the benefit of ignorance or the innate confidence of the players, but this group has handled success better than expected – yet another manner in which it has defied expectations. The moment has never been too big or too small for UMass, it’s just been a consistent, monotonous level of excellence.
That credit goes to Carvel and his staff for always pushing the correct buttons at the correct times. The few times UMass fans have panicked that the season might be going sideways, the coaches have always corrected the course before paranoia actually sets in. The lessons are learned and the team moves on without repeating those fatal mistakes again.
Which is what makes Saturday’s victory over the Black Bears so telling about the script the Minutemen are writing for themselves. They could have enjoyed their celebrations on Thursdays and let that linger into Friday’s practice and Saturday’s late start. The hoopla that was created when UMass proudly paraded out the regular-season trophy on a maroon carpet before faceoff could have taken the edge off the game.
Instead, the players came ready to impose their will on Maine and play a heavy game. They frustrated the Black Bears so much that they started taking stupid penalties. They were so locked into the gameplan that the Minutemen didn’t relent the entire third period despite holding a 6-0 lead after 40 minutes. It was a dominant style that demoralized Maine and forced it to shrivel in the second period.
“Every game counts and leading into playoffs, it’s important to play playoff-style hockey,” sophomore defenseman Mario Ferraro said. “It was important that we understood that every game counts and every shift counts. Even when we took a big lead there, coach stressed on us to make hard plays and play playoff-style hockey; no matter what the score is, play it like it’s 1-0 in the third.”
There will be a game Friday at Connecticut that means almost nothing to either side – it might have small impact on the Pairwise rankings for UMass – but the Huskies will be facing off with a team on a mission. It won’t be about a pointless regular-season matchup with the ninth-place team, rather staying sharp for March 15 when either Boston College or New Hampshire shows up for the Hockey East quarterfinals.
The Minutmen proved they know what time it is and how prepared they are for the task at hand.
“I think they’re locked into playoff mode now,” Carvel said. “They’re not going to ease into any games. We’re back to scoring the first goal of the game again pretty consistently … I think we’re pretty locked in right now.”