AMHERST — It felt like it was happening again Saturday night.
For the second straight night, No. 14 UMass-Lowell erased a third-period deficit against No. 8 UMass. Once again, the River Hawks captured all the momentum after the Minutemen dominated the second period.
But the story had a different ending on the Minutemen’s home ice.
Amherst native John Leonard dominated the final four minutes of the game to complete his second hat trick in two weeks with a pair of highlight-reel goals. The extra burst from the junior winger lifted UMass to a 5-3 win over UMass-Lowell and into sole possession of second place in Hockey East.
“I hope he starts getting some buzz about Hobey Baker,” coach Greg Carvel said. “I obviously don’t know the whole country, but I don’t know how many kids can affect the game like that. Obviously Cale (Makar) did last year. … Scoring a hat trick is pretty rare at this level and he’s got two in two weekends of play.”
As only Leonard seemingly can do, he turned an ordinary play into magic late in the third period. Jack Suter made a simple pass to Leonard as he was exiting UMass’ defensive zone and let the junior do the rest. Leonard dangled his way through and around UMass-Lowell defenseman Marek Korencik before roofing a shot over Tyler Wall’s glove hand.
The fact Leonard drew a holding call on Korencik through the exchange added to the mystique of his goal, which was enough to make him the national leader in goals.
Then Leonard found himself in a foot race in the waning seconds and dove to flick the puck away from Seth Barton and into the empty net for his 24th goal of the season.
Leonard will likely not catch Pat Keenan’s single-season record of 43 goals, but he’s now just two behind Rob Bonneau’s record in UMass’ Division I era.
“It was kind of a full-ice one-on-one,” Leonard said of his tiebreaking goal. “Sutesy made a nice play off the half-wall there and dragged his defenseman toward him. I saw a full ice one-on-one and just tried to take my ice and shift one way then go the other. Fortunately, I got a little lucky and we’ll take it.”
UMass (19-10-2, 12-7-2 Hockey East) would have preferred to not need Leonard’s heroics to secure just its third win in the last nine seasons against its cross-state rival. The Minutemen had a 3-1 lead entering the third period, but Reed Lebster took a penalty just seven seconds into the final stanza. UMass-Lowell (16-10-5, 10-7-4) scored 19 seconds into the man advantage and the nerves began to tighten around the Mullins Center.
The River Hawks completed their comeback midway through the period when Colin O’Neill’s routine shot somehow evaded Matt Murray. It was just another example of the rough weekend for the Minutemen’s goalies, who allowed six goals on just 40 shots. Carvel was critical of his goalies’ performances, saying UMass’ skaters played hard enough to just allow no more than two goals across the two games.
But with the score tied at 3 at home, the Minutemen buckled down with the motivation of not squandering another third-period lead.
“We had been playing a pretty solid game,” junior center Jake Gaudet said. “It’s unfortunate that goal goes in and they tie it up, but we have a really strong team here. We didn’t hit the panic button too hard, we just had to keep playing the way we are and we’ll figure it out.”
The Minutemen took control of the game in arguably its most dominant period of the season in the second. They entered the locker room after 20 minutes down 1-0, but came out a more energized team in the second period and put Wall under siege. UMass held a 20-3 advantage in shots on goal, which doesn’t include the two goals it had disallowed.
During the dominance, the Minutemen scored three times in 3 minutes, 13 seconds, including a blitz of two goals in 13 seconds that tied the game then gave UMass the lead. The dominance in the shot total translated into the third period and UMass finished with a 50-18 edge in shots on goal.
“We just talked about managing the puck and having a little more poise and use our speed,” Carvel said. “The first period, the puck was bouncing around, nobody could make a play and nobody wanted to handle the puck. We just got the guys to settle down and we started getting pucks to the net and that just built the energy on the bench. Then we get the power plays and the goals and the energy just built pretty quickly there.”
UMass was playing short on bodies again Saturday with junior Philip Lagunov (undisclosed) and freshman Cal Kiefiuk (broken jaw) out for the season, and junior Mitchell Chaffee still day-to-day. That meant the Minutemen had a younger lineup on the ice, and that immaturity showed in letting the River Hawks rally on consecutive nights in the third period.
With home ice in the Hockey East quarterfinals still up in the air, Leonard said it’s vital the Minutemen learn from those mistakes and finish out games to secure valuable points in the conference standings.
“It’s been said in the locker room many times that that can’t happen,” Leonard said. “Moving forward, going down the stretch here, teams are going to be able to close out on games, so we can’t afford to be giving up those leads going into the third.”