BOSTON – All year, UMass attacked its goals with a methodical approach that never wavered from game to game.
There was no difference between the November contest at Holy Cross and the February matchup at Boston College. The stakes might have been different in each of those games, but it was hard to tell by the way the Minutemen prepared for those games and executed on the ice.
The conversation was the same last week in the lead-up to UMass’ first appearance in the Hockey East semifinals in 12 years. The Minutemen were the top seed and facing seventh-seeded Boston College, a program that has advanced to TD Garden the past four years. The experience gap shouldn’t have mattered Friday night, but the Eagles started much stronger as the Minutemen continued to sputter for the first 40 minutes.
Friday’s 3-0 loss to Boston College was reminiscent to the Minutemen’s 2-0 loss at UMass-Lowell on Feb. 9. In both games, UMass wasn’t ready to play from the opening faceoff in a game that looked much closer on the scoreboard than it looked on the ice. Both contests also carried with some sort of stakes and both times UMass couldn’t match its opponents compete level until it was too late.
“Very discouraging,” Carvel said Friday night. “Big opportunity for our program and, honestly, one of the poorer games we’ve played this year. … Not many nights this year that I can say we got outcompeted.”
Of course, losing the chance to win the Hockey East Tournament is not the end of the road for the Minutemen (28-9-0). UMass earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament when the brackets were unveiled Sunday night and they will stay close to home in Manchester, New Hampshire for the regionals. The Minutemen will open their second appearance in the national tournament on Friday against Harvard at 3 p.m. (ESPN2) while No. 2 Clarkson and No. 3 Notre Dame face off in the other regional semifinal Friday night.
As poorly as UMass played against Boston College, the next three weeks are truly when the Minutemen have a chance to make their statement. The loss knocked them down a few pegs on the overall seed list, but it was also a reset button heading into the part of the season when it’s win or go home. UMass hasn’t lost consecutive games all season and it has scored four goals in the game following seven of its eight previous defeats.
Carvel has repeated all year how well his team learns from its previous mistakes and moves forward, and that skill will be put to the test Friday. But the third-year coach said he believes the loss to Boston College has made his job a little easier in terms of motivating his players for the NCAA Tournament.
“I don’t think I’ll have to do anything now,” Carvel said Friday. “We all feel pretty badly that we let a great opportunity slide by, I can’t imagine we’ll let that happen twice in a row. I would hope we learn a lot from (Friday). We just spoke as a team, the kids are upset about it and some kids stepped up in the locker room and said ‘it’s unacceptable some guys weren’t ready to play.’ We’ll learn from it and maybe in the long run this year it’ll be a good thing.”