BURLINGTON, Vt. – The No. 16 UMass Lowell Hockey team skated to a 2-2 tie at Vermont on Friday night in Hockey East play at Gutterson Fieldhouse in the regular-season finale.
The River Hawks now own to 18-11-5 overall (12-7-5 HEA), while the Catamounts move to 12-19-3 overall (5-16-3 HEA) with the tie. UMass Lowell will await tomorrow's BU/Maine score to see if they will get home ice in the playoffs for the eighth straight season, a BU tie or loss would give the River Hawks the No. 4 seed and home ice in the quarterfinal round.
"It was a good hockey game, I didn't quite like the start," said UMass Lowell Head Coach
Norm Bazin. "I thought after the first 10 minutes we settled in and played some good hockey. We got a lot more chances than the scoresheet shows and couldn't quite get the winner at the end there."
Vermont's Derek Lodermeier scored to give the Catamounts a 2-1 lead just 42 seconds into the middle frame, but senior forward
Nick Master (Broomall, Pa.) responded just 28 seconds later for his fifth tally of the season for the River Hawks. Master finished the night with a game-high six shots on goal.
UVM's Matt O'Donnell opened the scoring in the game just 6:21 into the opening frame. Senior forward
Ryan Dmowski (East Lyme, Conn.) scored his 12
th of the year for the River Hawks on a backhander to tie the game at 1-1 with 5:29 to go in the first stanza. UMass Lowell owned a 12-8 shot advantage in the first period.
Junior goaltender
Tyler Wall (Leamington, Ont.) stopped 25 shots in his 20
th start of the season for the River Hawks. UVM's Stefanos Lekkas recorded 28 saves on the night, which included 11 saves in the first stanza and nine stops in the third period and overtime.
Sophomore forward
Charlie Levesque (Russell, Ont.) finished the night with 11-of-15 on face-offs (73%) to lead the River Hawks.
The River Hawks went 2-for-2 on the penalty kill in the tie.
UMass Lowell returns to action for the Hockey East quarterfinal round with Game 1 on Friday, March 15th against longtime rival Boston University with the series site to still be determined.