The winter break came at an inopportune time for UMass this season.
The ninth-ranked Minutemen were finally able to get healthy again and that led to some of their most complete performances on the ice. After an inconsistent beginning to the season that featured a reliance on freshmen to fill roles, UMass was finding a rhythm with the returns of veterans Marc Del Gaizo, Jake Gaudet and Niko Hildenbrand from injury.
And just as the momentum was building for UMass again, the schedule hit the pause button on it. After beating Brown last Tuesday, the Minutemen (12-4-1) don’t play again until Dec. 29 at RPI.
“Now that we’re healthy and now that our younger guys are learning how to play the right way, I feel like going into the break here, the team is taking some steps forward,” coach Greg Carvel said after the 4-0 blanking of Brown. “I was excited that we were playing tonight because we’re starting to move forward. It isn’t the best time to take a break, but at the same time, it’ll be good to charge the batteries.”
The 19 days between games might seem like a lot, but it’s on the shorter end for many programs nationwide. For comparison, UMass’ breaks the previous four seasons were 22, 13, 26 and 24 days respectively.
In addition to the shorter break, Carvel said he’s pleased the Minutemen will be on the road for much of January. UMass doesn’t start class again until Jan. 21, which leaves plenty of downtime for the student-athletes when they’re not at the rink. The Minutemen will play just one home game before classes resume — Jan. 11 against Boston College — and will play six road games, a stretch that includes extended trips to Denver and Vermont for weekend series’.
“We tried to shorten it as much as we can, that’s why we played (Dec. 10) and it’s why we’re playing on the 29th,” Carvel said. “Some teams have a full month off, but we’re trying to keep it as short as possible. And we’re on the road a bit in January, which we think is good; it’s tough to be sitting around your home.”
The biggest concern for any team during the winter break used to be making sure the players stay in good enough physical condition when there aren’t practices and team-mandated lifts to keep them strong. Yet in this era of fitness, every player finds a way to skate on their own and keep their conditioning up to par.
Now the biggest challenge is maintaining that mental edge and staying sharp in the mind. With how well UMass was playing leading into the hiatus, the Minutemen won’t have much time to recapture that momentum when the games resume.
“Obviously making sure we have a good time with our family back at home,” junior forward Oliver Chau said. “But when we get back, we need to make sure we are in the same mindset we were before and keep growing and growing.”
The second half of the schedule will be significantly more difficult than the first portion of it. UMass played just three of its first 17 games against teams ranked in the latest USCHO poll — the three early season contests with Northeastern. It will play four of its first five games against ranked foes — two at No. 6 Denver and the home and home with No. 5 Boston College.
Also looming for the Minutemen is a third game with Boston College on Jan. 31 that will kick off a stretch of five ranked opponents with home-and-homes against No. 13 Providence and No. 14 UMass-Lowell. Nine of the 14 league contests awaiting UMass will be against teams currently slated to make Hockey East’s eight-team playoffs.
Carvel said the challenge for this year’s squad is that the margin for error is smaller than last season, but the expectations for the Minutemen are based on that historic campaign from a season ago. In that respect, maintaining a top-10 ranking and entering the break second in the Hockey East standings is a mission accomplished for UMass, but there is still a long way to go for the Minutemen.
“Everybody had high expectations because of last year’s team,” Carvel said. “We felt we knew what we had, and although we lost a couple of road games, every game we lost I thought we could have won. But we’re not going to win by big margins, we’re going to have to play really strong defense and we have enough offense to win most nights.”
Josh Walfish can be reached at jwalfish@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshWalfishDHG. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.