UMass hockey aiming to overtake Boston College in upcoming weekend series

AMHERST – Only six games remain in the UMass hockey regular season.

The Minutemen sit tied for ninth in the Hockey East standings, two points behind No. 8 Boston College, which UMass will face Friday in Chestnut Hill and Saturday in Amherst (both 7 p.m., ESPN-Plus).

“It’s the team that gets hot at the end of the season. That's who wins Hockey East. These last six games are huge. We've done it the past two years, we've hit our stride at the right time,”  UMass senior Jerry Harding said. “We've been treating these games as playoff games to try and get in that mindset, but if we get hot at the right time, I'd be pretty scared to play UMass.”

UMass (10-13-5, 4-11-3 Hockey East) hasn’t lost since Jan. 27 at UMass Lowell but also didn’t win either game last weekend against Vermont in regulation. The Minutemen coughed up three-goal leads in both third periods.

“It's not something you really want to see. Especially back to back night. It's unacceptable,” Harding said. “We talked as a team, and the coaches kind of harped on it. It's more of a mental thing than physical. We can't play 50 minutes of the game. It has to be 60 minutes every night.”

The Minutemen have scored at least three goals in their last three games after hitting that mark just once in their prior six contests, all losses. They did also allow three goals per game in each of the prior three.

“The second night, I watched the game over and looked at the stats. We had 10 scoring chances, they had four. Anybody who says we sat back, we didn’t sit back. We played hard and played really well. We had 10 scoring chances and scored two goals. They had four scoring chances and scored four goals. Can you figure out what the problem was?” Carvel said. “All year long one night we get good goaltending, we can’t score a goal. We score four goals, we can’t get goaltending. This team, if they can put it all together, they can win any game.”

Unfortunately, the Eagles (10-12-6, 5-8-5) have UMass’ number of late. Boston College is 8-2 against the Minutemen over the past 10 games and hasn’t lost to the Minutemen since Feb. 26, 2021, in overtime.

The Eagles bested No. 3 Boston University in the Beanpot consolation game Monday but hadn’t won a regulation game prior to that since taking down UMass 4-2 at Fenway Park on Jan. 7, a nine-game stretch.

“When it comes to this time every year, everyone’s good. Everyone’s kind of figured out Hockey East. There’s not a bad weekend,” Harding said. “They have a lot of skill, but we just have to outwork them. That's how we're gonna win the rest of the way.”

Freshman Cutter Gauthier leads the Eagles with 27 points and 14 goals. Nikita Nesterenko has 16 assists among four BC skaters with at least 20 points.

“I’ve shortened the pre scouts. I want our guys to work about what they’re supposed to do in our systems,” Carvel said. “It doesn’t matter what system you run, the game comes down to 50-50 battles or puck battles.”