AMHERST – Coming off a win over Merrimack College Friday night, the No. 11 UMass hockey team looked to end the weekend as well as it started when it hosted No. 6/5 Maine on Saturday for Pink in the Rink Night.
The Minutemen, however, could not overcome an early goal from the Black Bears, falling 1-0 at the Mullins Center.
“We made a mistake early and gave them the odd-man rush that they finished. I didn’t think that would be the only goal of the game, it shouldn’t have been,” UMass head coach Greg Carvel said. “I thought we created a lot of offense, just couldn’t finish (it) off.”
Maine got on the board 1:16 into the game when Brandon Chabrier found a loose puck, took it up the boards, and beat UMass goaltender Michael Hrabal on a wrist shot from the left point. It was the first shot on goal of the game.
The Minutemen had two power-play chances in the opening frame and had three total throughout the game. Each time, though, they did not convert or pick up a shot on goal.
“The power play needed to be more effective tonight,” Carvel said. “They did an outstanding job on the penalty kill. To me it was a good hockey game, we just played a good hockey team. (We) created enough chances to score one or two goals, unfortunately, we couldn’t put the puck in the net.”
UMass appeared to tie it just over three and a half minutes into the second period, but the play went to video review, and was overturned after it was ruled the Minutemen were offsides.
Not two minutes later Aydar Suniev picked up a loose puck at center ice and entered the zone unopposed — much like Chabrier in the first period. This time, however, the only twine his shot found was in the glove of Maine goaltender Albin Boija.
The rest of the period was a bit better for UMass as they were only outshot by Maine by a total of 9-8.
At the end of the second period, Ryan Ufko was whistled for cross-checking when Donavan Villeneuve-Houle of the Black Bears went down on a near-breakaway chance.
The penalty, however, proved to be inconsequential, as the Minutemen killed it off despite allowing three shots on goal.
“Ufko is one of our more important (penalty) killers,” Carvel said. “I said we focused on our defense in the second half, we focused on our penalty kill which is a huge part of it. Our penalty kill has been great, I don’t think we’ve given up a power-play goal in a while.
“(Maine) has a pretty good power play. So the penalty kill did their job, goaltender did their job, we just didn’t score goals.”
Their netminder did, indeed, play well as, after Hrabal allowed a goal on the first shot he stopped the next 21 shots that followed.
Carvel said that the biggest problem Saturday night was not necessarily that Maine was getting its own scoring chances, but more than that, UMass could not capitalize on its own and that he “heard the glass too much.”
In fact, the Minutemen took a total of 53 shots in the game. Ten of those shots were blocked, and 21 were completely off target. Twelve of those shots off target were in the second period alone, a period where the hosts racked up their highest number of shots on goal with a tally of seven.
UMass is back in action on Feb 10, when they take on local rival UConn for Chill The Bill Night/Whiteout Night and the Minutemen will look to pick up their first win against the Huskies this season. Puck drop is at 7 p.m.
