BOSTON – The UMass hockey team made another statement in Beantown.

A month after blanking then-No. 11 Boston University 4-0 at Agganis Arena on Dec. 7, the Minutemen shut out Northeastern, 5-0, Friday night at Matthews Arena.

Aydar Suniev, Lucas Mercuri, Jack Musa and Dans Locmelis recorded multi-point nights for UMass (10-8-2), while goalie Michael Hrabal turned aside all 41 shots he faced.

"We needed him to settle some things down at times," Minutemen head coach Greg Carvel said of Hrabal. "But even then, I didn't think a lot of the chances were super high in the slot area, I thought they were more for the outside. He was definitely the backbone.

"For me, having coached a lot of goalies, I can just tell he's in a good place and that's going to be really important for us in the second half," Carvel added.

Hrabal obtained 32 saves against the Terriers on the road, making it 73 total saves the reigning World Junior Championship bronze-medalist tender has made in the city of Boston so far this season.

"Might be the hotel, I don't know," Hrabal said on his success in the big city. "I'm just trying my best. It's a team sport so the guys, they help me out a lot so I need to give them the biggest credit there."

Daniel Jencko got the scoring started 5:16 into the first period for UMass following a misplay from Huskies goalie Cameron Whitehead. Northeastern's goalie failed to secure the puck in his glove, giving Jencko a chance to poke in the loose change and put the Minutemen out in front, 1-0. Mercuri and Kennedy O'Connor were awarded assists on the strike.

UMass went to the power play less than two minutes later and worked the puck around well, but couldn't extend its lead. The Minutemen held on to the momentum the rest of the opening 20 minutes as they finished ahead in shots, 13-7.

UMass' top line went right to work in the second period, scoring 46 seconds into the stanza off Cole O'Hara's ninth of the year. Locmelis gained the offensive zone, made a nice pass to Jack Musa, who quickly hit O'Hara in stride and UMass' top-point getter made no mistake for the 2-0 lead.

Northeastern ushered a pushback in the remaining 19 minutes, outshooting the Minutemen 17-10, but UMass' staunchly D-zone play prevented the Huskies from getting second-chance opportunities.

"You want to be good at boxing out in front of your net and being good for Big Mike," Mercuri said. "He was awesome today. He always made that first save, it seemed like he was seeing pucks a lot."

Mercuri made it 3-0 Minutemen with a redirection off the rush at 2:32 of the third period. Suniev slithered into the offensive end and slide the puck over to a net-rushing Mercuri, who got just enough on the puck to fool Whitehead.

"We kind of had the same play last weekend and we didn't execute it and kind of just taking the middle of the ice, kicking it out, and drawing their D and [Suniev] made an amazing play," Mercuri said. "He sees the ice really well. He's one of our best players, that was a great play by him, it was a big goal."

A couple power plays for Northeastern swung momentum back to the hosts later in the third, but UMass kept the Huskies from getting anything to show for it.

"They've got a really dangerous power play with those two guys on the flanks, really dangerous," Carvel said. "We spent a lot of time focusing on it and working on it and the guys did a really good job executing. I thought our pressure was really good, but the best part was probably our forecheck. They had a hard time entering the zone and turned a lot of pucks over at the blueline, made them go back 200 feet."

UMass finished the game 4-for-4 on the penalty kill.

Suniev and Jack Musa added insurance markers for the Minutemen 11 seconds apart late in regulation for the 5-0 final.

"To me the Cornell game was supposed to be that game, last weekend," Carvel said when asked if Friday's win can start to build some momentum in Hockey East play. "But this one helps for sure. Unless we can come back [Saturday] night and find a way to sweep, which is really hard in our league to do, but we're on home ice and it'll be inexcusable for us not to come out and play like we did tonight."

Puck drop on Saturday is set for 6 p.m.