Under Greg Carvel, the UMass hockey program has shown it has the ability to identify, recruit and develop defensemen.

Cale Makar, Mario Ferraro, Zac Jones, Matthew Kessel, Ryan Ufko, Scott Morrow are just some of the players who have manned the back line under Carvel, giving the Minutemen the kind of stability and talent in the back end that most teams would envy.

The defensive core that helped the Minutemen reach the Hockey East Tournament final four and make an appearance in the NCAA Tournament last year underwent a major makeover this offseason.

Ufko — an American Hockey Coaches Association First Team East All American last year after playing in all 37 games, scoring 10 goals and dishing 16 assists — and Morrow, who led UMass in points with 30, signed NHL entry contracts and won’t be in Amherst this fall.

Nor will Samuli Niinisaari (27 games played), captain Aaron Bohlinger (34 games played) or Elliott McDermott (35 games played), all graduating out of the program, leaving Linden Alger and Owen Murray as the two lone returners on the blue line for the Minutemen.

How do you replace that type of talent and production? It will take a group effort, with five incoming freshman defenseman and one transfer vying to fill the holes in the lineup.

“Those two guys were All-Americans,” UMass coach Greg Carvel said of Ufko and Morrow. “We don’t have any All-Americans on the team right now. If you want to play 25 minutes a night, you need to be an All-American kind of player. Some of the younger guys might be at some point but they’re not. I don’t know if Ryan Ufko played 25 minutes as a freshman but it should be a much more balanced six.”

One big pickup for the Minutemen this offseason came from the team that knocked the Minutemen out of the NCAA Tournament last year.

Lucas Olvestad played 22 games his freshman year at Denver and saw time in 32 games last winter, totaling 10 points over that span. Seeing an opportunity for more minutes in Amherst, Olvestad transferred to UMass and has been making the most of his opportunity according to Carvel.

“Lucas was an important pickup for us because we’re so young in the back end,” Carvel said. “We lost a lot. He’s a veteran player who will be a lot like Sammy Niinisaari. He’s a big body, he skates really well, he’s good at both ends of the ice and he’s experienced. He’s been a national champion and he’s been a real good leader for us. He’s excited to be here to get more of an opportunity. At Denver he didn’t see much of a future for himself there. We told him we had a lot of opportunity here and he’s taking advantage of it.”

With Olvestad, Murray and Alger holding down three spots on the back end when UMass opens its season against Bentley on Saturday, with the other three will likely be occupied by freshman.

Deerfield native Kaz Sobieski, Finn Loftus, Larry Keenan, Charlie Lieberman and Francesco Dell’Elce are the five freshman defensemen Carvel brought into the program this fall, and they’ll be fighting with junior Kennedy O’Connor for ice time.

To open the season, Dell’Elce and Keenan — who played together for Penticton in the British Columbia Hockey League last year — will make up one defensive pairing. One of the freshman will then pair with Alger (two goals, two assists in 35 appearances last season), with Loftus the likely candidate to do that to open the season while Olestad and Murray (two goals, eight assists in 31 games last year) will be the veteran line on the ice.

“The two that are stepping up are Francesco Dell’Elce and Larry Keenan, who played together last year,” Carvel said. “Finn Loftus is another one who is probably going to be in the starting six. We’re going to have to play three freshmen on our back end this year and right now, those are the three guys that have stepped up.

“Murray hasn’t played a lot of hockey but his game has come a long way,” Carvel added. “Expect to see a much more balanced back end, which I like. Of course I’d like to have Ryan Ufko back on the ice but we’ll have a group of six that will give us good play at both ends of the ice.”

Alger, a captain, sees the talent in the freshmen group and how they’ve adapted to playing the Minutemen’s physical style of hockey.

“They’re very skilled,” Alger said. “To play here, you have to find a way to play hard. These first few months leading up to the season, we’ve really doubled down on the hard part and taught them what it takes to play college hockey. They’ve done a great job adapting and I’m excited to see how they do against Bentley.”

UMass certainly brought in the type of players to play that bruising brand of hockey. Each of the freshmen are over six feet tall, with the Minutemen currently one of the biggest teams across the country.

With a talented group of forwards, the hope is the pressure is taken off the young back line. If Carvel’s history with defensemen is any indicator, the future is bright for this young group.

“I just heard that we’re the second biggest team in the NCAA,” Alger said. “Our d-core mentality will have to be hard. We’re so deep up front. We have four lines of high end forwards so our defense is going to have to play simple and hard all year, move pucks, make simple plays and let our forwards do their thing.”