AMHERST — Two points needed, three points earned.
The No. 17 UMass hockey team edged No. 13 Boston College, 2-1, at the Mullins Center on Thursday night to clinch home-ice advantage and a bye into the quarterfinal round of the Hockey East Tournament.
Two points would’ve been enough for the Minutemen to avoid an Opening Round game, yet goals from junior Cam O’Neill and senior Owen Murray, plus another sparkling performance in net from junior goalie Michael Hrabal (34 saves) locked in UMass’ first home victory against the Eagles since Feb. 15, 2019.
“It wasn’t particularly pretty tonight but we found a way again,” Minutemen head coach Greg Carvel said. “Michael Hrabal was very good, again. I didn’t like the first period, we gave up a lot of odd-man rushes, didn’t want to shoot the puck. We didn’t have many shoots through halfway through the game, but we took three penalties in the third period, which is tough to do against a high-skilled team. Give the kids a ton of credit, played a gutsy game.”
UMass didn’t register it’s first shot on goal until seven minutes, 43 seconds left in the first period as they refused to put pucks toward BC goalie Luka Cloutier for a majority of the opening frame.
“We were preaching how important our start was going to be and that’s probably the most timid I think we’ve played in months, maybe back to the first half of the season,” Murray said.
Luckily for the Minutemen, Hrabal turned aside all 10 shots he faced in the first 20 minutes. The Prague, Czechia native parlayed a strong first frame into 25 more saves throughout the contest to pick up his 17th win of the season, a new single-season high for the 6-foot-7 netminder.
“He’s been our MVP,” O’Neill said. “He’s been so good. He’s the best goalie in the country and he’s been showing that. Injury troubles for him in the beginning of the year and he came back from Christmas [break] on a new level.”
“I don’t think there’s a better player in the country than Michael Hrabal,” Murray added.
O’Neill broke the deadlock 4:02 into the second period with a long-range snapper that beat Cloutier low, blocker-side. The Odenton, Md. product tallied his fourth goal of the season on UMass’ 1-0 go-ahead strike.
The Eagles evened up the score at 7:04 of the third period on a dazzler from James Hagens. The Boston Bruins first-round draft pick blew into the Minutemen zone while on the power play, fired a shot from the slot on Hrabal that had just enough juice to trickle through the UMass goalie’s five-hole, to tie the game up at 1-1.
Less than a minute later though, Murray’s fourth goal of the season and third in six games came on a beautiful shot during a 2-on-1 that evaded Cloutier blocker side, once again.
“We get a pre-scout every week of the goalie and that was one of his weaknesses,” O’Neill said. “The thought going in was try to hammer the blocker side.”
“I kind of knew he was a little leaky to the left and he cheated on that one, so that’s why I picked that side,” Murray said.
The Minutemen certainly didn’t make it easy on themselves down the stretch as they were whistled for two penalties following Murray’s 2-1 marker, but their penalty-kill came through each instance, on the way to the massive victory, which also keeps their NCAA Tournament at-large hopes alive for another couple of days.
“The last two kills were really impressive,” Carvel said. “We won battles, we got pucks down the ice.”
Thursday’s win catapulted UMass up to third place in the Hockey East standings, with final jockeying set to take place this weekend when the regular season slate wraps up around the conference.
The Minutemen haven’t lost in six straight games at the Mullins Center (10-6-1 home record this season), however Carvel has been more impressed with his team’s performances away from Western Mass of late.
“We haven’t been as dominant in the past couple years at home” Carvel said. “We’ve actually become, to me, a better road team than a home team. But this second half, there’s been a lot of good things, home and away.”
Carvel’s claim will be tested one final time this regular season when UMass returns to the Whittemore Center on Saturday for a bout with UNH.
Puck drop is set for 7 p.m.
Hockey East bans celebratory goal lights following viral OT malfunction vs UConn
Per Brad Elliott Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald, Hockey East sent out a memo banning celebration lights after a goal, following last Saturday’s viral situation during overtime between UMass and UConn.
The Huskies were on an odd-man rush in three-on-three overtime when the lights at Mullins Center suddenly cut out, forcing the referees to stop play.
The Minutemen wound up winning in the shootout to secure the extra point.