Gillies turned away all 44 UMass shots as the Friars completed a weekend sweep.
Jon Gillies, pictured here on Jan. 12 making a stop on UMass defenseman Darren Rowe, stopped all 44 UMass shots on Jan. 13.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — After Friday night’s 5-4 win over the University of Massachusetts, Providence hockey coach Nate Leaman said he thought his goalie Jon Gillies might have been rusty following a three-week layoff from game action while backing up John Gibson in the World Junior Championships.
Consider the rust gone.
Gillies made a career-high 44 saves in his third shutout of the season, as Providence topped the Minutemen 2-0 and completed the weekend sweep Saturday in front of 1,800 fans at Schneider Arena.
After his team played a sloppy game Friday, UMass coach John Micheletto said he was pleased with everything but the score Saturday.
“I don’t think we could play a better game,” he said. “We’re pursuing excellence every night. Tonight was pretty darn close.”
The Minutemen had opportunities from just about everywhere — the slot, the point, rebounds — it didn’t matter to Gillies, who Leaman said turned the corner in the third period Friday night, when he stopped all 12 Minutemen shots.
On Saturday, no period better exemplified the UMass futility against Gillies than the second, when the Minutemen outshot Providence 21-4, but found themselves trailing 1-0.
In the middle section of the period, Gillies stopped UMass forward K.J. Tiefenwerth’s shot from point blank range after a centering pass from Shane Walsh, then a few minutes later denied a Rocco Carzo rebound from virtually the same spot, this time on a power play
The Friars broke through later in the period. Derek Army won a race to a loose puck in the corner to UMass goalie Steve Mastalerz’s right, shook off Conor Allen, then curled around the cage where he found Ross Mauermann, who beat Mastalerz to give Providence the 1-0 advantage with 1:47 to go in the second.
Tim Schaller doubled Providence’s lead midway through the third, scooping up a rebound after Mastalerz made the save on a Myles Harvey blast from the point, and banging it home with 10:02 remaining.
Mastalerz, who made his first start since an Oct. 26 loss at Boston University, was solid in net for the Minutemen, making a couple of excellent saves in the first period to keep things scoreless, and certainly not shouldering any of the blame for the defeat, making 22 saves.
“It’s not an easy game when the ice is so tilted,” Micheletto said, referring to the fact that the Minutemen had a marked territorial advantage throughout the contest. “He gave us a chance to win.”
Emphasizing his satisfaction with the team's overall play, Micheletto compared their performance Saturday to its dominant 4-0 win over the Friars on Nov. 9 at Mullins Center.
“If there’s any better exemplification of how fickle it can be, we outshot them and kept the ice tilted equal to as much as we did in that first game, and the score is a reversal,” Micheletto said.
Now, UMass (7-11-2, 4-8-1 HEA) prepares for a trip to No. 3 Boston College and Conte Forum, where it has lost its last 13 games dating back to Nov. 17, 2007.
“As I tell our guys, I don’t like to lose, but when you leave it all out there, you don’t come out with a win, you tip your cap and you move on and start focusing on what’s next,” Micheletto said.