UMass hockey: Minutemen move past UML, claim Kennedy Cup

AMHERST — A night after it saw its season-long win streak snapped, the No. 19 UMass hockey team responded with authority in a 5-2 victory against UMass Lowell at the Mullins Center on Saturday.

Five different Minutemen found the back of the Riverhawks net while junior goalie Michael Hrabal had 33 saves to push UMass to 17-11-0 overall in the Kennedy Cup clincher.

“When you play Lowell it’s always going to be a heavy, physical game but I thought we did a really good job keeping them to the outside and I thought Michael Hrabal was outstanding,” UMass head coach Greg Carvel said.

UML won the Friday night matchup, 3-1, at Tsongas Center.

Freshman Justin Kerr scored the eventual game-winner for the Minutemen in the second period, upping his goalscoring streak to four straight games.

“I hurt my shoulder earlier in the year, so rehabbing that, I was really focusing on getting [my] shot back and I think I added a little extra to it,” Kerr said.

Kerr’s decisive marker counted as the 6-foot-5 center’s fifth of the season.

“We watch him in practice every day, the kid can shoot the puck,” Carvel said. “We’ve had high hopes for Justin and I’m glad he’s getting great experience. He’s our second-line center right now in the current situation.”

Junior Jack Musa (goal, two assists) and sophomore defenseman Larry Keenan (two assists) each picked up multi-point efforts for UMass as well in the rubber match against its intrastate rival. The Minutemen took the first game, 6-4, on Sunday, Feb. 1.

“I would say it helps build confidence for sure,” Keenan said on piling up points of late. “Obviously you don’t know you’re going to get a point, but definitely making plays, you feel better.”

The Detroit Red Wings draft pick has seven points in his last seven games.

Saturday’s showdown saw the Minutemen score the first two goals of the game about five minutes after opening puck drop.

First it was senior captain Owen Murray wristing one past UML goalie Austin Elliot at five minutes, one second, to open the scoring at 1-0. Then 28 seconds later, freshman Jack Galanek shoveled in a rebound chance from the Riverhawks net-front, making it 2-0 at 5:29 of the first.

UMass appeared to have added another insurance marker a couple minutes later, but UML challenged for goalie interference and it was successful, wiping the goal off the board for the Minutemen.

The Riverhawks got a jolt from the hosts’ goal coming off the board as they beat Hrabal on a floater that changed direction at 13:33, making it a 2-1 game. Josh Mori was credited with the strike for the visitors.

In the second period, UML evened it up on a backhander from Libor Nemec, after the Slovakian sophomore found a soft spot in UMass’ defensive zone coverage and tickled the twine for the 2-2 equalizer.

But the deadlock was short-lived as Kerr fired a snap shot past Elliot blocker side from the right faceoff circle to put the Minutemen back out in front 3-2.

Musa gave UMass some breathing room with a short-handed beauty less than two minutes into the third period for a 4-2 Minutemen lead. The goal served as UMass’ first short-handed strike since the season-opener back on Oct. 4 against Northern Michigan, also from Musa.

The Minutemen killed off all three of UML’s power plays across the 60-minute affair.

The Riverhawks made a bold decision to pull their goalie with five minutes left in the third period and despite earning the bulk of the offensive zone time, Hrabal swallowed up each and every one of UML’s chances.

“I liked that Michael Hrabal looked like he could see all the pucks,” Carvel said. “There were pucks banging around in front of him, he battled hard to keep those pucks out of the net.”

Freshman Lukas Klecka capped off UMass’ scoring with an empty-net snipe from an awkward angle, bringing it to 5-2.

The Minutemen will get a much-needed week off before returning to game action on Friday, Feb. 20 against New Hampshire.

“We’re not playing for two weeks and I didn’t want to go in to the two weeks on a two-game losing streak, so there was desperation to win a game,” Carvel said. “We needed that. We didn’t show up [Friday] night.”

Puck drop at Mullins is scheduled for 7 p.m.