Saturday v. Merrimack: Live Stats | Watch | Listen | Game Notes
 
LOWELL, Mass.—The No. 3 seeded UMass Lowell men's hockey team (20-9-3, 15-8-1 Hockey East) hopes to punch its ticket to TD Garden this weekend as they host No. 6 seeded Merrimack (19-14-1, 13-11-0 HEA) for a Hockey East Quarterfinal clash on Saturday, March 11, at the Tsongas Center. Puck drop for the single-elimination game is slated for 4:30 p.m.
 
TOURNAMENT TIME
This is the 34th time in 38 years that UMass Lowell has qualified for the Hockey East Tournament, it is the 32nd time the River Hawks have advanced to the quarterfinal round.  The team has appeared in the semifinals 19 times and moved from there to the Championship Game eight times including a stretch of five consecutive years, 2013-2017.  UMass Lowell has won the Lamoriello Trophy three times, most recently 2017.  The team lost the Championship game, 1-0, a year ago and is 49-51-3, all-time, in Tournament play.
 
THE QUARTERFINALS
UMass Lowell is appearing in the quarterfinals for the 32nd time and the ninth time in the last ten years.  The River Hawks have won six of the last seven quarterfinal series in which they have played.  Because of COVID-19 the 2020 quarterfinals, for which UML had qualified, and tournament were not played.  The club has made 19 semifinal appearances, 18 times after winning a quarterfinal series and once earning the spot with a quarterfinal round bye.  Ten of UMass Lowell's 31 quarterfinal appearances have gone to a decisive third game.  The River Hawks have won six of those ten deciding games.  This year's the post season games are all single elimination.
 
SCOUTING THE RIVER HAWKS
UMass Lowell finished the regular season with a 20-9-3 / 15-8-1 record after sweeping a pair of games from New Hampshire, 6-3 and 1-0, last weekend to finish in a second place tie with UMass and earn the third seed.  The River Hawks enter the post-season with a 9-6-0 record on the road and 11-3-3 on the familiar ice of the Tsongas Center.  UMass Lowell currently sits in the number 14 slot in both the DCU/USCHO and USA Hockey Magazine polls.  It is the team's 17th week in the Top 20.  Hockey East Coaches, in their pre-season poll, placed the River Hawks seventh in the conference; the team finished tied for second.  Andre Lee leads the team in goals with sixteen and points with twenty-six. Matt Crasa is second in goals with eleven.  Carl Berglund leads the team with nineteen-assists and is tied with Lee in points with twenty-six.  Defenseman Nick Austin is second in assists with fifteen.  Allowing 2.06-goals per game the River Hawks are the second stingiest team in the conference.  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 twenty-five times and has been among the nation's best.  He's got a 1.84 GAA and a .928 save percentage.  The senior has five shutouts.  Welsch has started six times with one shutout and a 2.66 GAA and a .893 save percentage.
 
SCOUTING THE WARRIORS
Merrimack enter this afternoon's game with a 19-14-1 / 13-11-0 record.  The Warriors earned a spot in the Hockey East Quarterfinals with a 6-2 win against Maine on Wednesday night at the Lawler Rink in North Andover.  The club has won five of its last seven and seven of its last ten.  They are 13-5-0 since the winter break.  This season the club is 9-8-1 on the road and 10-6-1 at home.  They have a .500 record (9-9-1) in one-goal games.  The power play has been potent finding the net 25.2 percent of the time.  The Hockey East Coaches pre-season poll pegged Merrimack for a ninth place finish; they finished the regular season in sixth place.  Twenty-two different players have scored goals, four are in double digits.  Max Newton leads the team with fourteen.  Filip Forsmark and Ben Brar have eleven, Liam Walsh has ten.  Newton is the points leader with 38.  Hugo Ollas and Zachary Borgiel have shared the goaltending responsibilities with solid results.  Ollas, who started in the playoff opener, shows 2.00 / .927 numbers.  Borgiel comes in at 3.03 / .892.
 
ALL-TIME SERIES VS. MERRIMACK
This is the 137th meeting between the two schools in a series that dates back to 1971 when both were playing at a Division II level.  There is no team that UMass Lowell has played more often and there is no team that UMass Lowell has beaten more often.  Merrimack won the first ten games between the two schools, but UMass Lowell leads the all-time series, 82-42-12 and holds a 60-23-10 advantage since Merrimack became a member of Hockey East.  UMass Lowell authored a 12-game unbeaten streak during the mid-1990s.  The River Hawks have lost just six of the last 22 meetings.  The two teams have met twice in the Hockey East post season with each advancing once.
 
THE PLAYOFF HISTORY
UMass Lowell and Merrimack College have met eleven different times in the post season for a total of thirteen-games.  Only two of those meetings and four of the games took place as Division I programs.  UMass Lowell swept the two-game quarterfinal series in 1994 winning 7-1 and 3-0.  Ian Hebert had a goal and an assist in the 7-1 win to reach the 100-point mark.  Current Coach Norm Bazin had the hat trick in the 3-0 win and Dwayne Roloson earned the shutout.  In 2018 the story was very different.  Ludvig Larsson scored the game winner at 18:01 of the first overtime in a 2-1 victory.  Jace Hennig had tied the game with less than five-minutes remaining in the third period.  Hennig proved to have overtime magic the second night as he provided the game winner at 13:59 of the first overtime.  As Division II programs ULowell defeated Merrimack in both 1981 and '82 to win the ECAC East Championship.  The Warriors won it in 1980.  ULowell also defeated Merrimack twice in the NCAA DII Tournament, once in the consolation game and in the semifinal in 1982.  Chuck Sage scored the game winner in that one with just 30-seconds left on the clock.  In 1981 and '82 the Chiefs went on to win the Division II National Championship.
 
BAZIN VERSUS MERRIMACK
UMass Lowell Coach Norm Bazin had his only career hat trick in the Hockey East playoffs against Merrimack.  The big moment came on March 11, 1994 in a playoff series clinching 3-0 win.  No UMass Lowell player has had a three-goal game in the quarterfinals, semifinals or Championship game since.  As a Coach Bazin is 14-8-4 against the Warriors.
 
SEVEN WEEKS AGO
After not facing one another during the 2020-21 season, UMass Lowell and Merrimack squared off for games January 21 and 22.  The Warriors swept that series, 3-1 and 3-2.  It is the first time Merrimack swept UMass Lowell during the Division I era.  The first night at the Lawler Rink The River Hawks grabbed a 1-0 early second period lead, but Merrimack responded with two second period goals and an insurance marker in the third period to defeat the River Hawks, 3-1.  All of the second period scoring came while the visitors had a man in the penalty box.  Lucas Condotta's goal that broke a scoreless tie came shorthanded.  Max Newton and Declan Carlisle scored power play goals to give the Warriors a 2-1 lead going into the final period.  Zach Uens added the final tally early in the final period.  Hugo Ollas made 23-saves to earn the win.  The next night at the Tsongas Center the home team built a 2-0 second period lead on goals by Reid Stefanson and Blake Wells.  Merrimack tied it before the second period had ended as Liam Walsh and Jake Durflinger scored goals.  Walsh added a third period marker for the 3-2 final.
 
SINCE LAST WE MET
Since UMass Lowell and Merrimack wrapped their two-game season series each team has played eleven games and the numbers look pretty similar.  UMass Lowell is 7-4-0 in the eleven games and so is Merrimack.  Merrimack has outscored opponents by seven-goals, 35-28 and the River Hawks also have a seven-goal edge, 33-26.
 
SCORING vs. MERRIMACK
Seven different players on the River Hawk roster have scored goals against Merrimack, six have two or more.  Connor Sodergren tops the goal scoring list with four.  Andre Lee, Lucas Condotta, Reid Stefanson, Blake Wells and Nick Austin, each, have a pair of goals against the Warriors.  Austin's two goals came as a freshman member of the Colgate hockey program.  Stefanson and Sodergren top the points chart with six. Condotta and Lee have five-points apiece.  At the other end of the ice Owen Savory has faced Merrimack twice, once with Rensselaer, and Henry Welsch has been in nets once.  Neither has a win.
 
FAMILY TIES
Merrimack forward Logan Drevitch is the son of former UMass Lowell defenseman Scott Drevitch.  The elder Drevitch played for the ULowell Chiefs 1984-88 and recorded 11-goals and 72-points.  Logan, a senior, has totaled 18-goals and 48-points.  Another son, Tyler, finished up his Merrimack hockey career two years ago.  Father Scott played professionally through the 2006-07 season scoring 116 goals and 1,002-points.
 

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