It was a costly loss for UMass in the Hockey East race, losing twice and tying once over the last five days.
T.J. Syner scored on a breakaway for the only UMass goal in a 2-1 loss at Vermont.
Too many times in sports, the inmates run the asylum. Yet, hopefully this particular message works out in the long term because it didn’t in the short term as the University of Massachusetts just didn’t have the offensive punch to catch Vermont, falling 2-1 to the Catamounts before 3,509 at Gutterson Fieldhouse on their traditional pre-Thanksgiving meeting.
Michael Pereira, who leads the team with eight goals, and Adam Phillips, the sophomore defenseman with a big right-handed shot but recent defensive woes were not in the lineup.
“Michael Pereira and Adam Phillips were both healthy scratches, coach’s decision,” UMass coach Toot Cahoon said after the game.
Cahoon was certainly reacting to the duo’s play in the horrendous 4-0 loss at Lowell Saturday night. But benching Pereria had risk associated with it. This was a huge Hockey East game for UMass, which doesn’t play another conference game until Jan. 5, and that only two days before the re-match with Vermont at Frozen Fenway. And the question has to be raised if it would have been better to give him a chance to redeem himself in such an important game.
The loss drops the Minutemen to 4-6-3 overall, and 2-7-3 in Hockey East. And with better than a third of the season gone, that’s like a 20-point pace which would leave them buried near the bottom of the standings.
“Michael’s our leading goal scorer, but there are other facets of the game we’re trying to emphasize,” Cahoon said. “So we could have used him for that extra goal, but I think we had opportunities around the net.”
Cahoon said that UMass also took some untimely penalties that hurt. One of those was by freshman Mike Busillo, who was filling in for Phillips. He took an interference penalty with 3:56 remaining in the third period when the Minutemen were trying to tie it.
Cahoon felt Busillo had a good first period, but struggled in the second. As far as the penalty was concerned, Cahoon said he’d have to look at it on tape, but that “it looked like a good call.”
The Minutemen fell behind 2-0 for the third straight game, but got back into it on a late second period breakaway goal by T.J. Syner. Yet, they managed only 19 shots for the game as a result of what Vermont coach Kevin Sneddon said “from Rob (goaltender Madore) on out, it was our best game of the season.”
The Minutemen gave up only three shots in the first period, but the second one went in. Vermont freshman Kyle Reynolds made a quick turn in the right faceoff cicle, and wristed a shot past UMass goaltender Jeff Teglia at 11:39.
UMass played a fairly sold period, but had only six shots of its own.
Reynolds, who had seven shots on the night, scored again in the second period, a similar wrist shot, but this time on the power play. On the first goal, it looked like UMass goaltender Jeff Teglia was screened, and maybe not as much on the second. Cahoon felt it was responsibility of the defense to know down those high shots with the glove.
Overall, Cahoon felt the team had taken a step in the right direction with its overall play. Vermont (2-7-1, 1-6-1) managed only 22 shots.
However, the power play went 0 for 4, shutdown for the third straight game at a combined 0 for 16.
UP TO THE MINUTE – In the Tuesday edition of the Burlington Free Press, Sneddon was calling for his coaching staff and himself to maintain a more positive attitude during the Catamounts’ struggles, saying it can’t be a them against us situation. …UMass is at Quinnipiac Saturday afternoon at 3:30 in a non-conference game.