AMHERST – So many times over the last two seasons, it’s been a question of when not if UMass is going to score.
Thursday night was not one of those nights for Greg Carvel. As the seconds ticked away in the third period against Vermont, the fourth-year coach wasn’t sure if the Minutemen would find a breakthrough against Stefanos Lekkas in his final collegiate game. No. 9 UMass threw 40 shots at Lekkas through 50 minutes of play and the Vermont goalie continued to be in the right position to keep the game scoreless.
“There have been a number of times in this rink where you know it’s coming,” Carvel said. “You just keep pounding the rock and you can feel it, tonight, I was like ‘Oh jeez, we might not break this rock.’ Lekkas seemed to be on top of everything.”
Yet with overtime a mere 2 minutes and 22 seconds away, Reed Lebster finally broke through the armor. The freshman forward was on the doorstep to slam home a rebound off a Zac Jones shot to lift UMass to a 1-0 win at the Mullins Center and secure the No. 2 seed in the Hockey East tournament next week.
“He’s played well, he’s one of the freshmen whose really stepped up and proven he’s a hockey player at this level,” Carvel said. “(His) blocked shot wasn’t quite as big as the goal, but he’s playing to our identity. I said after the game, he deserved to score, he doesn’t cheat the game; he takes hits, he blocks shots and he can score goals, so I’m happy he was the one who got rewarded.”
First there was more than 57 minutes of work UMass (21-11-2, 14-8-2 Hockey East) needed to do to put itself in position to score. The Minutemen had several extended shifts into the Vermont zone that kept the Catamounts (5-23-6, 2-18-4) on the defensive, but rarely did it lead to a high-quality scoring chance. Instead, UMass found itself bottled up near the blue line and trying to finesse shots through the layers of green uniforms in front of Lekkas.
UMass attempted 91 shots in the game and had 26 of them blocked by the defense, including 16 in the third period alone. When shots did get through Lekkas would either control the rebound or Vermont would protect the crease enough to not allow the Minutemen second whacks at the loose puck.
“Their gameplan was for them to win 1-0,” Carvel said. “They collapsed hard to the net, they make you pass the puck to the point and then they block shots, and if it gets to the net, the goalie does a good job. In the neutral zone, they had three lanes, they backed up so we couldn’t skate the puck into the zone, we had to chip it and work to get it back.”
As frustration seemed to build in the stands about UMass’ lack of scoring, the Minutemen doubled down on their efforts to get to the dirty areas. In the third period, in particular, the Minutemen were able to attempt more feeds to the front of the net hoping for an ugly goal to break open the game. Instead there were missed connections and lost battles that kept the game goalless.
The game itself also picked up in physicality, which was reciprocated by Lebster and his linemates, Anthony Del Gaizo and Jake Gaudet. The trio was more than willing to throw around their body to win pucks and then use its size to hold onto control of the rubber. It’s how Lebster was able to find himself is such good position late in the game to win the puck off the pair of Vermont sticks in front and score the game-winning goal on his 21st birthday.
“You just need to keep pushing forward,” Lebster said. “We were just trying to get the puck to the net and we were trying to keep the energy up on the bench. I thought the third period was by far our most dominant period for keeping the puck in their zone and just keep grinding them down and eventually you hope one is going to go in.”
The Minutemen’s dominance in shots – 45-17 in the game – meant a relatively boring night for Matt Murray’s third shutout of the season and eighth of his career. Although the junior only had to make 17 saves in the victory, many of them were clutch to keep UMass tied despite the possession disparity.
He was the Minutemen’s most important penalty killer with two big stops on Vermont’s only shots on its five man advantages. He also made a five-alarm save on Matt Alvaro early in the third period after a bad turnover behind the goal left the center all alone in front of the net.
Murray said he knew he had to raise his level to match Lekkas and that made every save that much more important.
“You’ve just got to treat every puck like it’s the same,” Murray said. “When it’s a lot of shots, you tend to be in the game a little more. If there’s not as many shots, you need to do what you need to stay in the game, and for me, that’s just watching the puck and staying dialed in and making sure I’m focused on the puck wherever it is on the ice.”