UMass jumped from ninth place to a tie for seventh in the Hockey East race with the critical win over Vermont before 38,456 at Fenway Park.
Powerful Boston College, shown here in Sunday's thrilling 2-2 overtime tie with Merrimack, is at the Mullins Center Friday night to play UMass. photo by Walter Rossini
Eating brunch Sunday at the Royal Sonesta Hotel restaurant in Cambridge with his wife Cindy Sunday, Cahoon said he had been up before 8 a.m., and had watched the sun come up over the Charles River and what a beautiful sight that was.
But it couldn’t have much prettier than the previous night at Fenway Park when Michael Marcou scored the game-winning goal to defeat Vermont 3-2 in overtime before 38,456 fans, a victory that long-time UMass hockey supporters will never forget.
And looking at the Hockey East standings is a lot easier on the eyes now too.
With that win, combined with Maine’s equally emotional 5-4 overtime victory over New Hampshire in the second game of the Frozen Fenway doubleheader, the Minutemen (7-8-5, 3-6-4, 10 points) have jumped over UNH, and pulled even with Northeastern to go from ninth place into a tie for seventh. They are also only five points behind fourth-place Maine with a game in hand, although fifth-place Lowell (14 points) and sixth-place Providence (13 points) have played two less games.
“We had to get that done,” Cahoon said, knowing that the hole in the standings would have become likely too deep.
MULLINS MAGIC? – And now UMass has three straight Friday night home games – Boston College, Vermont, and Lowell (first of a home and home set).
Boston College coach Jerry York doesn’t worry too much about playing on the road.
The Eagles play four of the next six on the road, including a neutral ice game against Northeastern at Fenway Park. It all starts with UMass Friday.
“It seems like basketball is more of a home court advantage,” York said following Sunday’s hard-fought 2-2 tie with Merrimack at Conte Forum. “Basketball is kind of like - you’ve got to win at home. Hockey to me (not so much) - although UMass hasn’t lost at home this year, I know that.”
The Minutemen are 5-0-3 at the Mullins Center with the ties coming to Boston University, Maine, and Harvard.
HOW DO YOU STOP BC? After Merrimack played a terrific game Sunday to escape Conte Forum with that tie Sunday (the Warriors had an overtime scored disallowed because it had deflected off the high stick of Rhett Bly before being put in by Kyle Singleton), Merrimack coach Mark Dennehy explained how you try and defend BC, which is so skilled and fast that with one hesitation the puck is in your net.
“Both of their goals were ridiculous,” Dennehy said in describing the beauty of BC’s Sunday scores.
“Possession is important, determining whether you have possession, or they have possession, or it’s 50-50. Two of those three instances, you’d better be on the right side of the puck. If you’re not, you’re going to get odd-man rushes. The hard part is playing with confidence when you have the puck because they take away time and space so quickly. That’s what I thought we did a really good job with.”
Connor Toomey, who scored both Merrimack goals, tied the game with 1:10 remaining in the third period after the Warriors had pulled goaltender Joe Cannata.
So the key for each UMass player will be to quickly identify which team has the puck, get on the right side of it, and to play with confidence when on offense on its bigger and familiar ice surface.
To gain more possessions, they need to win their share of faceoffs. A perhaps unnoticed statistic of the Minutemen’s success at Fenway was that they won 39 faceoffs, and lost only 25 after winning 37 and losing 38 at Providence Thursday. Branden Gracel was 10-6, Eric Filou was 9-3, and Conor Sheary was 6-2.
But watch out for BC first-line center Bill Arnold. Dennehy said that he is one of the best faceoff men in the league as well as one of the best players.