Thursday v. Denver: Live Stats | Watch | Listen | Game Notes
 
LOVELAND, Colo.—Bringing the Mill City grit to the Centennial State, the No. 13 UMass Lowell men's hockey team (21-10-3, 15-8-1 Hockey East) sets its sights on No. 3/4 Denver (27-9-1, 18-6-0 NCHC) in the opening round of the 2022 NCAA Division I Ice Hockey Regionals at the Budweiser Events Center in Loveland, Colo on Thursday, March 24. Puck drop for the tilt is set for 7 p.m. MT (9 p.m. EST).
 
NCAA TIME
This is the 14th time that UMass Lowell has appeared in the NCAA Hockey Tournament in either Division I or II.  It is the ninth time as a Division I program and the sixth time in the last eleven years, but it is the team's first trip to the Tournament in five years.  That last NCAA visit was in 2017 when the River Hawks defeated Cornell, 5-0, but lost to Notre Dame, 3-2, in overtime.  The River Hawks have made one appearance in the Frozen Four.  That was in 2013 when they were eliminated by eventual National Champion Yale.  Since the Regional Format was established, UMass Lowell has won all seven regional semifinal games that it has played, but the club is 1-6-0 in the regional final.
 
SCOUTING THE RIVER HAWKS
UMass Lowell is 21-10-3 after being knocked from the Hockey East Tournament in the semifinal by eventual champion Massachusetts.  It is the team's fifteenth 20-win season, seventh in Norm Bazin's eleven years behind the bench.  The club finished conference play with a 15-8-1 record and finished in a second place tie with Massachusetts.  UMass Lowell received the third seed after UMass won two of the three in-season contests.  The River Hawks are 9-6-0 record on the road and 12-3-3 at home.  The club lost its only neutral site game of the season.  UMass Lowell currently sits in the number 13 slot in both the DCU/USCHO and USA Hockey Magazine polls.  It is the team's 19th week in the Top 20.  Andre Lee leads the team in goals with sixteen and points with twenty-eight. Matt Crasa is second in goals with twelve.  Carl Berglund leads the team with nineteen-assists and is tied with Lee in points with twenty-eight.  Defenseman Nick Austin is second in assists with sixteen.  Allowing 2.09-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-six times and has been among the nation's best.  He's got a 1.89 GAA and a .927 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 PIONEERS
Denver is 27-9-1 / 18-6-0, but saw their NCHC Tournament run come to an end with a 2-0 loss to Minnesota Duluth in the semifinals.  The Pioneers finished the regular season in a first place tie with North Dakota.  The Pioneers had the tiebreaker and earned the conference tournament's number one seed.  The club was 17-1-1 at home, 10-7-0 on the road and 0-1-0 when playing at a neutral site.  The team is ranked 3rd in the DCU/USCHO Poll and 4th in the USA Hockey Poll.  The Pioneers are fourth in the Pairwise.  Denver features the nation's most potent offense averaging 4.38 goals per game.  Nineteen players have scored goals, eight have hit double digits.  Carter Savoie and Cameron Wright lead the team with 20 apiece.  Bobby Brink is the nation's top point producer with 55-points.  He leads the team with 41 assists. Goaltender Magnus Chrona had started 33 of the team's 37 games.  He enters tonight's action with a 2.20 Goals Against Average and a .908 save percentage.
 
ALL-TIME SERIES vs. DENVER
This is only the 12th meeting between the two schools in a series that dates back to 1984 when Hockey East and the WCHA had an interlocking schedule.  Denver leads the series 9-2-0 and has won the last six in a row.  They have not played one another since December of 2018, DU won that meeting 4-1.  The last game between the two played in the state of Colorado was October 19, 2012.  That game was also the collegiate debut for former UMass Lowell goalie, now Winnipeg Jet, Connor Hellebuyck.  The Pioneers won that game 5-1.  UMass Lowell has twice faced Denver in the Championship Game of the Denver Cup.  The Pioneers won both of those meetings by a 2-1 score.  UMass Lowell's last win in the series came in the only overtime game played between the two.  That was on December 5, 1986.  Randy LeBrasseur had the OT game winner in a 5-4 victory.
 
WHEN LAST WE MET
The last time these two teams met Denver scored three third period goals and came away from the Tsongas Center with a 4-1 victory.  Jarid Lukosevicius scored twice for the Pioneers and Cole Guttman added a goal and two assists.  Guttman's goal at 17:09 of the second period was the game's first goal.  Defenseman Seth Barton had the River Hawks only goal.
 
VERSUS THE NCHC
UMass Lowell has had success against the National Collegiate Hockey Conference.  The River Hawks are 9-6-2, .588, against teams representing the NCHC.  The league began playing games in the 2013-14 season.  On the other side of the coin, UMass Lowell is 24-38-4, all-time, against the current members of the NCHC.
 
NON-CONFERENCE, NO PROBLEM
UMass Lowell has more than held its own in non-conference play over the last ten-plus years.  UMass Lowell is 97-42-9 (.686) in such games since the 2011-12 season.  Removing the non-conference games against Hockey East schools the River Hawks show a 68-27-8 (.699) record.    The club, after the win against Dartmouth and LIU, is 5-1-2 in non-conference games this season.
 
THE DIVISION I TOURNAMENT
UMass Lowell is making its ninth appearance in the NCAA Tournament as a Division I program.  ULowell made its first DI NCAA appearance in 1988, just five-years after the program moved to Division I.  The River Hawks are 8-8-1 all-time in Division I NCAA Tournament play.  The team is 7-0-0 in the Regional Semifinal round of play.  UMass Lowell has reached the Frozen Four just once, 2013.
 
LAST TIME IN THE TOURNAMENT
UMass Lowell's last appearance in the NCAA Tournament was in 2017.  The River Hawks were the number two seed in the Northeast Region in Manchester, New Hampshire.  They defeated Cornell, 5-0, as Tyler Wall earned the shutout with 19 saves.  Ryan Lohin had two goals to sparks the offense.  UMass Lowell was knocked out of the tournament the following day in a 3-2 overtime loss to Notre Dame.
 
THE DIVISION II TOURNAMENT
As a Division II program UMass Lowell was a national powerhouse.  The ULowell Chiefs were 11-3-0 in tournament play and won the National Championships three times in a four-year period.  The Chiefs grabbed the trophy in 1979, '81 and 1982.
 
REGIONAL SEMIFINALS
UMass Lowell has been strong in the regional semifinals.  The River Hawks have won seven in a row.  The streak began in 1994 with a 4-3 win against host school Michigan State.  UMass Lowell added regional semifinal wins in 1996, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017.
 
FROZEN FOUR
UMass Lowell has made just one trip to the Frozen Four.  That was in 2013 when the River Hawks defeated Wisconsin, 6-1, and New Hampshire, 2-0, to punch their ticket to Pittsburgh.  The UMass Lowell visit was short-lived was eliminated in the national semifinal by eventual champion Yale, 3-2, in overtime.
 
ALL ON THE LINE
The NCAA Tournament is a single elimination affair.  UMass Lowell is 33-34-0 in games, in various situations, in which a loss ends the season.  The River Hawks are 8-7-0 in NCAA elimination games.  In the Hockey East Tournament, the team is 1-0 in single elimination games in the Opening Round and 0-1 when down one game in the Opening Round.  They are 3-2 in one-game Quarterfinals, 5-4 when down one game in the Quarterfinals and 6-4 in Quarterfinal game threes.  In the one-game semifinals they are 8-10 and 3-5 in the one-game Championship Games.
 
GETTING HERE / THE PAIRWISE
UMass Lowell earned a spot in the NCAA tournament with a 21-10-3 record.  That record positioned the team in the 13th spot in the Pairwise ranking.  The Pairwise mimics the formula used by the NCAA to select teams for the NCAA Hockey Tournament.
 
SEEDS
This is just the second time since the NCAA Hockey Tournament expanded to a field of 16 teams split into four regions that UMass Lowell has been a number 4 seed.  That other occasion was 1996 when UMass Lowell knocked off Michigan State, 6-2, before falling to Colorado College in regional final.  The River Hawks have been a number one seed just once, 2013.  The team has been a number two seed three times and a three seed twice.
 
THE NUMBER FOUR SEED
Ten number four seeds have made it to the Frozen Four, four have earned a place in the Championship Game and two have claimed the title of National Champion.  The most recent to win it all was Providence in 2015.  The previous four seed to win it all was Yale.  The Bulldogs did it in 2013 and UMass Lowell, a number four this season, was one of their Frozen Four victims.
 
PLAYING IN LOVELAND
You can add Loveland, Colorado and the Budweiser Events Center to the list.  It is the first time UMass Lowell has played a game in the building and it is the 95th building in which the River Hawks have played a game.  It is the second new building/ice surface added to the list this season.  Earlier this season UMass Lowell and Maine faced off at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland, Maine.  The River Hawks won that November 27th meeting 2-0.
 
FACING THE HOST
UMass Lowell is 3-1-1 all-time when playing the "host" school in the NCAA tournament. If you eliminate 1988, when the higher seed just hosted a 2-game total-goals series, and reduce it to true "regionals" (which started in 1992), then Lowell is 3-0. They beat Michigan State 4-3 in 1994 in East Lansing. They beat Michigan State again 6-2 in 1996 in East Lansing, and they beat New Hampshire 2-0 in Manchester in 2013.
 
AGAINST THE WEST
UMass Lowell is 5-3-1 all-time against "Western" teams in the NCAA tournament.  Western teams are those who are members of the current NCHC, CCHA and Big Ten.  The wins have come against Michigan State (2), Miami, Minnesota State and Wisconsin.
 
AGAINST NUMBER 3
Denver is ranked third in the nation in the USCHO Poll.  The last time that UMass Lowell faced a team ranked third in one of the national polls the River Hawks were winners.  It took a while.  That last time was March 17, 2021 when UMass Lowell came from a four-goal third period deficit to beat Boston College 6-5 in double overtime.
 
SCORING AGAINST DENVER
Nobody on this River Hawks roster has ever scored a point against Denver.  Only six players have ever skated against the Pioneers.  Five were in the lineup in December of 2018 when last the two teams faced one another.  Ryan Brushett played for Omaha for a couple of seasons and has played in three-games against Denver.
 
EXPERIENCE
Experience can make a difference in the post-season.  Eleven players on the UMass Lowell roster made their playoff debut during the Hockey East Tournament.  Included in that group are a couple of juniors, Carl Berglund and Ryan Brushett.  Neither had played a post-season game in 2020 because the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancelation of the playoffs.  Berglund missed last season because of injury.  Brushett was left inactive at Omaha.  Berglund had a pair of goals and Brushett a goal and an assist in their first playoff appearance.  No one on the UMass Lowell roster has ever played in an NCAA Tournament game.
 
NCAA OVERTIME
UMass Lowell has gone to overtime five times in NCAA tournament play, winning twice.  The wins came in 2012 when Riley Wetmore scored to beat Miami 4-3 and in 2016 when Joe Gambardella's goal stopped Yale.  The losses came in 1994 in double overtime against Minnesota, 2-1, in 2013 when Yale emerged with a 3-2 win and in 2017 when Notre Dame took a 3-2 win.
 

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