AMHERST — It was a night of inopportune puck bounces in the No. 12 UMass hockey team’s 4-0 loss to No. 18 Boston College at the Mullins Center on Saturday.
The first two goals the Eagles scored were the result of shots changing direction right around Minutemen goalie Jackson Irving–making his fourth straight start in place of the injured Michael Hrabal–while UMass had to work hard to create scoring chances on the hybrid sheet at the other end and when it did, the puck rarely seemed to settle on a Minuteman stick.
Louka Cloutier’s 32-save shutout pushed BC to four straight victories, while UMass suffered its first series sweep following Saturday’s Hockey East showdown.
“I thought we played a solid game,” Minutemen head coach Greg Carvel said. “It was a game that, which team was going to get a bounce or deflection? We had some chances early in the game. It would have been nice to score early and maybe it takes the game on a different course, but it was tight checking. Both teams just dumping and trying to earn it back. They get a couple pucks to the net with some deflections and that was a difference in the game, but I was happy with our group tonight.”
UMass’ power play wasn’t a spark at all, going 0-for-3, as the Eagles took the first three penalties of the game, including two during the third period. Carvel mentioned he was “frustrated” with the top unit’s lack of success, in particular.
“I think it was a lack of our entry,” junior forward Nick VanTassell said regarding the team’s man-advantage woes. “I think it took too many attempts to get into the zone.”
When the Minutemen managed to get past the attacking blueline unscathed, during any situation in Saturday’s game, BC hardly allowed any second-chance opportunities around Cloutier, its freshman netminder.
“They’ve got a good crew in the backend,” Carvel said. “They clear out well. On the penalty kill, they get pucks, they didn’t give you a second chance. Puck was sent down the ice. They’ve got a good backend, didn’t give us much around the net.”
After a scoreless opening 20 minutes where neither team controlled the pace, the Eagles scored first on a Paul Davey redirection. Defenseman Luka Radivojevic’s shot from the right half-wall abruptly changed trajectories following Davey’s deft deflection at the net-front.
Davey’s 1-0 goal at 14 minutes, 28 seconds held until the horn sounded for the second intermission.
The Minutemen came out of the final break with jump as the first seven minutes favored the hosts heavily. However, an out-of-sync UMass power play gave way to another fortuitous bounce for BC, this time, with Jake Sondreal being the benefactor.
Sondreal’s strike seemed to have deflated the Minutemen as much as it did their rowdy crowd, which was listed at 7,211, and the Woodbury, Minnesota native added insult to injury shortly after for UMass, slamming home a wraparound bid at the host’s back post, turning it into a 3-0 game.
Down by three, the Minutemen got another power-play opportunity for their last glimmer of hope with about seven minutes to go after a Landan Resendes slashing penalty, but it just wasn’t in the cards for UMass in this one.
Ryan Conmy scored an empty-net goal for BC at 15:16 to up its lead to 4-0 to drop the Minutemen’s record to 7-6-0 and 1-4-0 in Hockey East play.
UMass lost the series opener at Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, 7-3, on Friday.
“I think it’s just coming out hard the first night,” senior captain Owen Murray said on how the team can respond moving forward. “We’ve kind of had two crappy ones, the past two weekends. We got to come out ready to respond, night one on the road and prove that we are still a good team and trusting each other that we will get back to our winning ways.”
The Minutemen will play No. 15 Providence next in another home-and-home series, starting Thursday in Rhode Island.
