On Saturday afternoon, St. Lawrence beat top-seeded Quinnipiac with a sub-.500 record to become ECAC champions and punch its automatic ticket to the NCAA tournament.
UMass Lowell was looking to complete a Cinderella college hockey day a few hours later and only about 90 minutes north in Amherst, Mass., where it looked to win its second Hockey East championship in the past four tournaments.
However, the River Hawks’ run — following victories over the tournament’s top seeds in the first two rounds — was stopped short against their continually budding sister program from the other side of the state. Third-seeded Massachusetts edged past Lowell with a 1-0 win on its home ice at Mullins Center to claim its first-ever Lamoriello Trophy in only the program’s second-ever title game appearance.
“I’ve been here for five years and it’s been a steady climb to get to this point,” UMass head coach Greg Carvel said. “I can’t say that I ever thought we’d be Hockey East champions, but every kid in this program has sacrificed and we’ve done things the right way. We haven’t taken any shortcuts. Every year we’ve gone a little further in the playoffs.”
Sacrifice has been the name of the game in this COVID-impacted season, but the Minutemen sure used this unique tournament format to their advantage in earning home-ice advantage for all three of their tournament games, including the first title game played away from TD Garden since 1990.
Though starts and stops were aplenty for teams all across Hockey East as a result of the pandemic, UMass trekked through the season with some of the least impacts and played its 25th game on Saturday night, matching Providence for the most played by any team in the conference.
For senior center and team captain Jake Gaudet, the sacrifices that were necessary to complete this season since it began in mid-November made the championship ending that much more special.
“The guys have done a great job being safe and we were able to play all year,” said Gaudet, an Ottawa native whose goal at the 15:32 mark of the first period stood up thanks to junior Filip Lindberg’s 16-save shutout. “It’s special to be able to take it at home. Obviously, some things had to happen, but I’m really proud of our team. It’s a great way to wrap up four years, and we’re not done yet.
“Going through the whole year without fans, you kind of reflect on why you play hockey. Having that moment to celebrate with all the boys, it was pretty pure and kind of brought you back to minor hockey.”
Sacrifice wasn’t just a COVID-related word for the Minutemen, as it has meant something to the program’s overall growth as well.
Carvel has rapidly built his program around players that fit the team-first mold and sacrificed for each other. Among them were the likes of defensemen Cale Makar, Mario Ferraro and Amherst native forward John Leonard, all of whom have already seen success in the National Hockey League since leaving campus, and the captain of last year’s club in Mitchell Chaffee.
Those current professional Minutemen would still have been on the ice for the conference title-clinching win had their careers extended for a full four years, but their former teammates remaining in the Class of 2021 continued to carry the ball as another box on Carvel’s long list of program goals was checked.
“I think it’s the cherry on top of a career for those seniors,” said Carvel, who has masterfully steered the program since a five-win season (5-29-2) immediately before the current seniors were freshmen. “Every year (the seniors) were here the program got better, and (it’s special) for them to walk off the ice carrying the Hockey East trophy. …
“I talked about sacrifice with these kids. Especially these seniors that are still here, they completely committed to doing everything at the highest standard. My vision for the program was to bring in high-quality, character kids and hold them to high standards.”
While Gaudet wears the ‘C’ on his chest, the on-ice leader from a statistical perspective for the 16-5-4 club has been junior Bobby Trivigno, who enters NCAA tournament play with a team-high 30 points and finished a two-goal, six-point postseason run (1-2-3 lines against both Northeastern in the quarterfinals and Providence in the semifinals) as Most Valuable Player.
Carvel referred to the Setauket, N.Y., native as the “driving force” behind the team’s offense, molding his game into a true first-line player whose totals have improved to a career-high level despite the shortened season.
However, this year’s Minutemen were a team in every sense of the word and have, in Carvel’s eyes, put together a résumé worthy of a No. 1 seed in the NCAA brackets and got “what it deserved” in winning the league title.
The aforementioned pros provided the last NCAA-bound UMass squad of two years ago with a never-before-seen level of star power, whereas this rendition put things together the right way.
While Trivigno and St. Lawrence transfer Carson Gicewicz — a team-leading scorer himself with 13 goals — were the keys up front, sophomore-year NHL prospects Matthew Kessel and Zac Jones led a deep defensive unit that was Hockey East’s best, averaging fewer than two goals per game. In net, Lindberg took the starting job from senior Matt Murray over the past two months of the year and ran with it, going 7-0-3 with three shutouts in a 10-start span.
“I think we had the right combination of really good goaltending, a really good back end that adds a lot, Bobby leading the way on offense,” Carvel said. “I think we just had enough at the right spots. We weren’t just scoring up front. We have a lot of character, a heavy team, so that’s why we lean heavily on being a good defensive team and work on our special teams.
“Two years ago … you had a lot of really good players. This year, I think we had the right pieces at the right points and the right mindset of what we needed to do to be a good team.”
