PROVIDENCE, R.I. – No. 20 University of Massachusetts hockey used a 2-0 start to roll to a 5-1 victory over No. 10/9 Providence on Saturday night at Schneider Arena. With the win, the Minutemen improve to 5-5-2 on the year, 1-3-2 in Hockey East, while the Friars fall to 7-2-2 overall and 5-1-2 in league action. “Outstanding, outstanding effort, full 60 minutes,” said UMass head coach Greg Carvel. “I thought everything came together tonight. Goaltending from Michael, our back end was great, and our forwards, I thought they created a lot of offense. We scored five and probably could have had a few more. But to me, shorthanded, we’re down five or six bodies, I thought the guys came out with the mission. They played a great 60 minutes, and I couldn’t be prouder of this group. And I’m hoping this will be a springboard for us.” UMass opened the scoring 4:01 into the first period when junior Kenny Connors won an offensive zone faceoff straight back to graduate student Linden Alger who sent a shot into the top left corner of the Providence net to give the Minutemen an early lead. Sophomore Aydar Suniev pushed the margin to 2-0 at the 6:39 mark, firing home a feed from Connors and Cole O’Hara up top on the power play for his team-best seventh goal of the season. The Friars cut their deficit in half midway through the period with John Mustard collecting the puck from Hudson Malinoski and swinging around the UMass net to find Connor Kelley for a one-timer from the right faceoff dot at 9:11.
With the second period winding down, O’Hara won a battle along the half wall and sent a pass to Suniev who found Lucas Ölvestad in the high slot. Ölvestad rung the puck in off the inside of the right post 18:04 into the frame for his second in a UMass uniform.
