February 26 at Vermont (7 p.m.)
Live Stats | Watch Live | Listen Live | Game Notes

February 27 at Vermont (7 p.m.)
Live Stats | Watch Live | Listen Live | Game Notes

LOWELL, Mass. - The UMass Lowell hockey team will play its first back-to-back road games all season, as the squad heads north for a pair of games at Vermont on Friday-Saturday, February 26-27.

SCOUTING THE RIVER HAWKS
UMass Lowell enters tonight's contest with a 5-8-0 record after splitting a weekend series with Northeastern a week ago.  The team is 2-3-0 on the road and 3-5-0 at the Tsongas Center.  UMass Lowell is not ranked in either the USCHO Poll or the USA Hockey Magazine Poll.  The Hockey East Coaches' Pre Season polls placed the River Hawks fourth.  The club is currently seventh in the Hockey East Power Index.  UMass Lowell is sixth in offense averaging just over two and a half-goals per game.  Sophomore Carl Berglund, thirteen games into the season leads the team in scoring with 11-points, including a team leading eight-assists.  Twelve players have scored goals, six have at least three each.  Sophomore forward Andre Lee is atop the goal scoring list with six, he is second in points with ten.  At the back end, the defense is virtually unchanged from a year ago, but goaltending will see a new face taking over the netminding responsibilities.  Sophomore Logan Neaton, freshman Henry Welsch and transfer Owen Savory have all seen action in the early going this season.  Welsch has earned two wins and has a GAA of 2.77 and a .895 save percentage.
 
SCOUTING THE CATAMOUNTS
Vermont is 1-7-2 after dropping a pair of games against Boston University last weekend.  The Cats have lost three in a row.  The club is 1-4-1 at home and 0-3-1 on the road.  Vermont is eleventh in the Hockey East Power Index.  The Hockey East coaches' Pre-Season Poll slotted the team in the number eleven spot.  Vermont is averaging just 1.40 goals per game while allowing 3.10.  Ten different players have scored goals, but only two have more than a single marker.  Senior defenseman Christian Evers leads the team with four-goals and five-points.  Senior Tyler Harmon has started nine of the team's ten games.  He has a 3.52 GAA and an .900 save percentage.
 
ALL-TIME SERIES vs. VERMONT
This is the 58th meeting between the two schools in a series that dates back to 1972.  UMass Lowell leads the all-time series, 32-17-8.  UMass Lowell swept the series a year ago and is 13-1-2 in the last sixteen contests.  Since Vermont joined Hockey East for the 2005-06 season, UMass Lowell has held a 27-11-8 edge in play.  Twenty-six of the 46 games have been decided by one goal or less.  The River Hawks have won five of six Hockey East tournament meetings between the two and have eliminated Vermont from the post season on three occasions.
 
LAST YEAR vs. VERMONT
UMass Lowell swept the two-game series at the Gutterson Field House a year ago, 2-1 and 5-3.  The first night The River Hawks got second period goals from freshmen Zach Kaiser and Carl Berglund to grab a 2-0 lead and goalie Tyler Wall did the rest.  Wall stopped 40 of 41 shots to earn a 2-1 victory.  Matt Brown assisted on both River Hawk goals and Dallas Comeau had the Catamounts' lone marker.  The second night UMass Lowell got two goals from Chris Schutz and went on to a 5-3 win.  Sam Knoblauch, Chase Blackmun and Brian Chambers also scored goals.  Christian Evers, Andrew Lucas and Alex Esposito scored for the Catamounts.
 
SCORING vs. VERMONT
Seven different UMass Lowell players have scored goals against Vermont, three have scored twice.  Connor Sodergren, Charlie Levesque and Sam Knoblauch each have two goals apiece.  Sodergren has averaged better than a point-a-game against the Catamounts with seven-points (2g-5a-7pts) in six games.  Sodergren is also a plus-7.  No UMass Lowell goalie has faced Vermont in a River Hawk uniform.  Owen Savory tended net against the Catamounts twice as a member of the Rensselaer hockey team.  He picked up a win and a loss in two games while posting a 1.53 GAA and a .966 save percentage.
 
WORKING OVERTIME AGAINST VERMONT
When these two teams meet, overtime is a distinct possibility.  Twelve of the last 36 games (33.3%) between UMass Lowell and Vermont have required extra time.  Fourteen of the 57 games (24.6%), all-time, between the two have gone into overtime.  Vermont has won three in OT, UMass Lowell has won three and eight have gone into the books as a tie.
 
ONE-GOAL GAMES
Twenty-seven of the 57 games (47.4%) played between the two teams have been decided by one-goal or less.  Lowell has won eleven, Vermont has won eight, eight have ended as a tie.  UMass Lowell has played six one-goal games (2-3-0) this year, Vermont five (1-4-0).
 
1-0
UMass Lowell and Vermont have played four 1-0 games since 2008.  Vermont won the first of those 1-0 games, UML won the remaining three including one in overtime on a Joe Houk goal with 15-seconds remaining on the clock.
 
ELEVEN! GOALS
When UMass Lowell and Vermont combined for eleven goals in UMass Lowell's 6-5 win on January 18, 2019, it was the highest scoring game between the two teams in more than three-decades and it was the highest scoring one-goal game ever played by the two-teams.  The last time the two teams combined for more than 11 goals was on February 21, 1984 when UMass Lowell defeated Vermont 9-4.
 
AT THE GUT
UMass Lowell has been no stranger to the Gutterson Fieldhouse or to success in the building.  The River Hawks are 17-11-5 all-time at The Gut including an 14-9-5 record against Vermont.  They are 3-2-0 when the facility is a neutral site.   Norm Bazin led teams are 11-4-1 in the building.
 
ON THE ROAD
UMass Lowell has won just two of five road game this season, winning at UConn and Northeastern and losing at UMass, UNH and BC.  The River Hawks were 10-5-1, .656, playing away from the Tsongas Center during the 2019-20 season.  That .656 winning percentage was the seventh best in the country and second best among Hockey East schools.
 
ON THE ROAD, AGAIN
UMass Lowell is 108-65-12, a .616 winning percentage when playing away from the Tsongas Center in the nine-plus years that Norm Bazin has led the program.  That .616 winning percentage is the second best in the nation during that period.  Quinnipiac, at 107-60-23, .624, is first.  The National Average is .447. The River Hawks are 85-53-11, .607, as the road team and 24-11-1, .681, in games played at a neutral site.
 
BACK-TO-BACK
UMass Lowell has played five "back-to-back" weekend series so far this season, this is the sixth.  The River Hawks are 2-3-0 on the first night and 1-4-0 the second.  They swept Maine, split with Northeastern, but coming up empty handed against Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Boston College.  A year ago they played sixteen.  The team was 8-4-4 on the first night and 8-6-2 on the second.  They swept both Alabama Huntsville and Vermont and had a sweep weekend by beating both Rensselaer and Penn State and Boston College and Merrimack on consecutive nights.  The River Hawks were swept just once, by Northeastern.
 
THREE IS THE MAGIC NUMBER
When UMass Lowell scores three or more goals in a game it is 178-28-10, .847 during the last nine-plus years.  The River Hawks are 55-12-3, .807 over the last three-plus seasons.  When scoring two goals or less in a game the River Hawks are 33-87-22, .310, since 2011-12.
 

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