AMHERST — Greg Carvel planted the seed after last season.
The UMass hockey coach nurtured it throughout the offseason, knowing it would likely bear fruit in his third year with the Minutemen. It’s no doubt a small sample size, but Carvel’s energy has paid off through two weekends.
Carvel put an emphasis on improving No. 16 UMass’ special teams during the offseason to take the program to the next level. Through four games, the Minutemen are converting on 35 percent of their power plays and killing off 85 percent of their penalties.
“It’s like anything in life, if you invest in something and put time and energy into it, normally you get results,” Carvel said.
The Minutemen’s power play ranks second in the nation, a far cry from where they were last year. UMass converted just 15 percent of their power-play chances last season, which placed them 50th out of 60 teams.
Being a man-up has helped spark the UMass (3-1-0) offense this season with six of the team’s 16 goals coming with the advantage. The Minutemen tallied four times on the power play in the season-opening 6-1 win over RPI and then scored twice in the 6-3 upset of then-No. 1 Ohio State last Friday.
UMass’ penalty kill might not be as highly ranked, but the Minutemen’s sub-80-percent kill rate last season didn’t qualify the unit for national rankings. This year, the Minutemen have only surrendered three goals on 19 opportunities.
“Those are two factors that can steal games for you at the end of the day,” sophomore defenseman Cale Makar said. “Just going into the game, being able to mesh well on the power play and be more aggressive on the (penalty kill) is big for us.”
The success of the power play can be tied in some respect to UMass’ commitment to firing shots on net. Sophomore forward Mitchell Chaffee said the Minutemen are trying to do a better job this season at throwing pucks toward the goal and increasing the chances of a deflection or rebound leading to goals.
“We’re trying to simplify our power play and that’s what’s been working a lot,” Chaffee said. “We’re just trying to shoot the puck more. We don’t need to keep making more and more passes. … Simplifying our game helps us more.”
On the other end, the Minutemen have gotten far more aggressive on the penalty kill. They’ve held opponents to one or fewer shots on a power play 15 times, a factor of UMass disrupting passing and shooting lanes more effectively than it did last season.
“We’ve been taught to anticipate plays a little bit more,” Makar said. “We’re a three-point pressure team, and last year we struggled with that concept, but we’ve worked on it a lot.”
Carvel and his staff have continued to stress the reasons why UMass has been so successful through four games on the power play and penalty kill. The coach said they hammer it consistently during Tuesday’s special teams meetings while also making sure the younger players understand the concepts.
“We’ve gotten more specific in both of those situations of what we want our guys to do,” Carvel said. “We want creativity in our game, but there’s foundational things we’re still trying to bear down on.”
The challenge now is for UMass to be able to sustain the four-game start for four more months. The test begins Friday against Merrimack (2-3-0) at the Mullins Center in the first Hockey East contest of the season.
Carvel said he believes it’s something his team could absolutely accomplish if they continue to put in the effort throughout the season.
“Like I said after Ohio State, if we can beat them once, why can’t we beat them twice,” Carvel said. “If we can have these numbers right now, why can’t we maintain them?”
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.