Friday v. Maine: Live Stats | Watch | LIsten | Game Notes
Saturday v. Maine: Live Stats | Watch (NESN) | Listen
LOWELL, Mass.—For the first time in 2022, the No. 12 UMass Lowell men's hockey team (11-3-3, 8-2-1 Hockey East) readies to take the ice for a pair of home games at the Tsongas Center this weekend, Jan. 14-15, against Maine (3-12-4, 1-8-2 HEA). Puck drop for Friday night's game is set for 7:15 p.m., while Saturday's tilt on NESN is slated for a 7:05 p.m start.
SCOUTING THE RIVER HAWKS
UMass Lowell enters tonight's contest, the first post winter break home game, with an 11-3-3 / 8-2-1 record after a 3-2 win at St. Lawrence, December 29th, to open the second half of the season. The club is 3-1-1 in its last five games and 7-2-1 in their last ten. The River Hawks are 6-3-0 on the road and 5-0-3 on the familiar ice of the Tsongas Center. UMass Lowell currently sits in the number 12 slot in both the USCHO and USA Hockey Magazine Polls. It is the team's ninth week in the Top 20 and the number 12 spot in their highest ranking of the season. Hockey East Coaches, in their pre-season poll, placed the River Hawks seventh in the conference. UMass Lowell currently holds first place in the Hockey East Conference standings gaining that spot with a sweep of Vermont in the final weekend of action before the break.
Andre Lee leads the team in goals with ten.
Carl Berglund tops the points chart with fourteen. Berglund's eleven-assists lead the club. Goaltenders
Henry Welsch and
Owen Savory split time in goal evenly a year ago, but this year Savory has shouldered the heavier workload. Savory has gotten the call 13 times and has been among the nation's best. He's got a 1.29 GAA and a .948 save percentage. The senior has four shutouts. Welsch has started four times with one shutout and a 2.71 GAA and a .872 save percentage.
SCOUTING THE BLACK BEARS
Maine enters tonight's game with a record of 3-12-4 / 1-8-2 after splitting a pair of games with Alaska last weekend. Maine has earned a single tie in six road games; they are 3-7-3 at home. Their only Hockey East win was a 6-5 overtime victory against Merrimack. The Hockey East Coaches pre-season poll pegged Maine for a tenth-place finish; they currently sit 11th. Fourteen different players have scored goals, four have four or more. Donavan Villeneuve-Houle tops the chart with six. Lyden Breen leads the team in points with twelve. Three goalies have started games for Maine. Victor Ostman has appeared in ten games showing a 3.01 GAA and a .897 save percentage. Matthew Thiessen has played in one less game and has a 3.17 GAA and a .882 save percentage. Connor Androlewics has played in both games last weekend, his only games of the year, 2.01 / .927.
IT'S BEEN A WHILE
It's been sixteen-days since the River Hawks last played hockey. The layoff has been a result of COVID-19 Protocols and scheduling. UMass Lowell has only played once in the last 34-days. That was a 3-2 win at St. Lawrence.
ABOUT LAST WEEKEND: The two UMass Lowell / Bentley games scheduled for January 5th and 8th were postponed due to COVID-19 protocols. The games will be rescheduled, but new dates have not yet been announced.
ALL-TIME SERIES vs. MAINE
This is the 132nd meeting between the two schools in a series that dates back to 1978. Maine holds a significant edge in the all-time record, 81-43-7, but UMass Lowell has been the more dominant team in recent years. The River Hawks are 13-4-2 in the last 19 meetings and 16-7-2 in the twenty-five games with
Norm Bazin behind the bench. The River Hawks are 5-0-1 in the last six including a 2-0 win earlier this season. The River Hawks have won the season series in four of the last seven years with the teams splitting the series in the other three-years. Maine holds a 14-3-0 edge in Hockey East Tournament play, but UMass Lowell swept Maine out of the playoffs in their last post-season meeting in 2013.
A FAMILIAR FACE
UMass Lowell and Maine have played one another 131 times. The River Hawks have faced just one opponent more often. The Lowell/Maine series dates back to 1978 when both were Division II programs. That most frequent opponent is Merrimack. The River Hawks and Warriors have faced off 134 times. UMass Lowell leads that series 82-40-12. UMass Lowell and Merrimack will meet in a home-and-home series next weekend.
ABOUT LAST YEAR
UMass Lowell swept the two-game season series at the Tsongas Center in early January. UMass Lowell broke open a 2-2 tie, the first night, with three goals in a span of 3:59 early in the third period and went on to a 5-3 win.
Carl Berglund broke the tie and
Andre Lee added the eventual game winner. Lee finished the night with two-goals and four-points.
Ben Meehan had three assists. The second night was a slugfest. Seven different River Hawks scored goals as UMass Lowell grabbed the win 9-5. Defenseman
Chase Blackmun led the way with a hat trick. The nine-goals were the most UMass Lowell had ever scored in a Hockey East game and the most they'd scored in a game in more than 20-years. The 58 shots on goal was one off the school's Division I record.
EARLIER THIS YEAR
UMass Lowell and Maine faced one-another earlier this season with the River Hawks emerging victorious, 2-0, in a game played at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland, Maine.
Blake Wells gave the River Hawks the only goal they would need at the 14:22 mark of the first period.
Ryan Brushett provided the insurance marker with just 2:43 remaining on the clock.
Owen Savory earned the shutout with 29-saves. It was his third shutout of the season; he now has four. Victor Ostman made 24 saves but took the loss.
STREAKING...?
With that November 27th 2-0 win in Portland, UMass Lowell is now unbeaten in its last six games (5-0-1) against the Black Bears. That is the River Hawks best-ever stretch against the Maine. They had a five-game unbeaten streak (4-0-1) against Maine January 17, 2014, to November 15, 2015. The current run began November 3, 2018 with a 1-0 win at the Alfond Arena. The four of the other five games in the stretch were played at the Tsongas Center.
SCORING vs. MAINE
The UMass Lowell offense has been spread around pretty evenly against Maine. Ten different players have scored goals, half have more than one.
Carl Berglund leads the way with four-goals and seven-points in just five-games.
Lucas Condotta,
Andre Lee,
Sam Knoblauch and
Ryan Brushett each have a pair of goals against Maine. Goalies
Owen Savory and
Henry Welsch have both earned victories against Maine.
BRUSHETT AND THE BLACK BEARS
UMass Lowell junior forward
Ryan Brushett has found success against Maine. He scored the all-important insurance goal against Maine last Saturday. It was his first game against the Black Bears as a member of the UMass Lowell hockey team, but not his first game against Maine. He had a goal and an assist in two games against Maine as a freshman at Omaha in January 2020.
PUTTING HIS MARK ON THE GAME
When
Blake Wells scored the first goal of the game on November 27th against Maine, it was his first goal of the season and first in 19 games. It was the third of his career. It was also the game winner.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
When UMass Lowell and Maine met November 27th at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland, Maine it was the tenth different ice surface on which the two teams have battled. That is the greatest variety of locations that UMass Lowell has played any one opponent matching Clarkson who has also been a River Hawk opponent on ten different ice sheets. UMass Lowell and Maine have battled at the Tsongas Center, Alfond Arena, Tully Forum (Billerica, Mass.), Germain Arena (Estero, Fla.), Boston Garden, TD Garden, Gutterson Fieldhouse (Burlington, Vt.), the Central Maine Civic Center (Lewiston, Maine), Skate 3 in Tyngsborough, Mass. and now the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland, Maine has been added to that list. UMass Lowell and Boston College have faced one another on nine different ice surfaces.
94 AND COUNTING
UMass Lowell's November 27th visit to the Cross Insurance Arena has pushed the number of buildings in which UMass Lowell has played hockey to at least 94. The River Hawks typically play Maine at the Tsongas Center or at the Alfond Arena on the Maine Campus in Orono, this year the "River Hawk road game" was played in Portland. The teams have once played in the Maine Civic Center in Lewiston. The last "New Building" game UMass Lowell played was at the "Class of 1965 Arena" on the Colgate Campus in January of 2019. That was ice sheet/building 93 and earlier that year the program played at the Bentley Arena for the first time. The long list includes stops stretching from Alaska to Belfast, Northern Ireland and from Arizona to Maine.
NOT GOING TO THE ALFOND
UMass Lowell is not going to the Alfond Arena in Orono, Maine this year, but it is worth noting that the River Hawks have played more games in the Alfond Arena than on any other opposing team's ice. UMass Lowell has played 70 games in the Alfond Arena and has a record of 24-45-1. Most but not all of those games were against Maine. The River Hawks are 4-2-0 in six games against teams other than the Black Bears. Those non-Maine games came in various tournaments including the Governor's Cup and the Dexter Show Classic. UMass Lowell did not visit the Alfond Arena last season because of the COVID-19 Pandemic; the games were moved to the Tsongas Center.
BACK-TO-BACK
UMass Lowell is scheduled to play fifteen "back-to-back" weekend series this season. It has played seven. The team is 4-1-2 on the first night and 5-2-0 the second. The club swept two from Boston University, Vermont and swept a weekend with back-to-back single games against Northeastern and Boston College. A year ago, the River Hawks had six such back-to-back weekends. They were 3-3-0 on the first night and 2-4-0 the second.
A WIN TODAY…
Would extend the River Hawks winning streak to four-in-a-row. It would push the UMass Lowell record to 12-3-3 (.750), matching 2014-15 for the best record after 18 games during the
Norm Bazin Era. It would also keep the River Hawks in first place in the Hockey East standings.
WEEKEND PUCK DROPS
There will be ceremonial puck drops both Friday and Saturday nights. Friday the job will fall to Steve Kornacki. Kornacki, a Groton native, is an American political journalist, writer, and television host. He is a national political correspondent for NBC News. Saturday Former UMass Lowell Head Athletic Trainer Artie Poitras takes his bow. Poitras was on the River Hawk bench for 40 years after starting his UMass Lowell career in 1981. He was witness to a National Championship, three Hockey East Tournament Titles and ten NCAA Tournament visits. Poitras worked 1,453 games including 1,386 Division I games. He has missed only one game. Poitras' consecutive games streak came to an end after reaching 977. Poitras is also being honored by the UMass Lowell Cross Country and Track and Field program.
A PRETTY GOOD MONTH
UMass Lowell freshman forward
Matt Crasa was named the Hockey East Rookie of the month for December. He finished the month with four goals and two assists for six points in five games played. His 1.20 points per game was tops among all league rookies in December. He also ended the month with a plus-6 rating. He leads all River Hawk freshmen in scoring with 12 point, which is tied for third among all Hockey East first-years. He ranks second on the team in goals with seven and tallied one power play goal and one game-winner in December for the River Hawks.
LAST TIME ON THE ICE
UMass Lowell returned from the winter break with a 3-2 win against St. Lawrence at the Appleton Arena. The River Hawks got goals from
Marek Korencik,
Carl Berglund and
Nick Austin after falling behind 1-0 in the first period. Berglund and Austin's goals came on the power play.
Owen Savory earned the win making 23-saves.
THE DEFENSE HAS SPOKEN
UMass Lowell got goals from two different defensemen in the River Hawks 3-2 victory at St. Lawrence. It is the first time this season that two different defensemen have scored goals in the same game.
Marek Korencik scored UMass Lowell's first goal of the night to tie the game at one and
Nick Austin produced the team's third goal, the eventual game winner, on a second period power play. The last time UMass Lowell got two goals from the defense was March 17, 2021, when
Anthony Baxter scored twice in UML's 6-5 double overtime win against Boston College. The River Hawks had gotten goals from two different defensemen a week earlier in a 5-3 playoff win against Vermont. Baxter and
Nolan Sawchuk supplied the goals in that one.
