The Massachusetts hockey team is hoping their luck continues this weekend in the desert.
After defeating Bentley in Saturday’s opener, the Minutemen head to Las Vegas on Wednesday, open an icebreaker tournament against Omaha on Friday, and are scheduled to face either Air Force or Minnesota on Saturday.
Friday’s contest is scheduled to begin at Orleans Arena at 7 p.m.
Although this is an early-season showdown, how this tournament goes could have big tournament implications for the Minutemen.
Omaha finished 11th in pairwise last season and qualified for the NCAA Tournament, while the Gophers advanced to the postseason in seventh place. Being a major non-conference game, a strong performance over the weekend and a slim chance of qualifying for the tournament could be a big factor in whether UMass plays in March. There is.
“That’s what we’re thinking about because we have to play a team from Omaha that was right next to us trying to get into the tournament,” Minutemen coach Greg Carvel said. “This game is going to have a big impact at the end of the year. It’s very important to take a step forward. I didn’t mind the game at Bentley, but Omaha is going to be the next step and the players are ready for it. I think we’ve done that. I don’t care about that. If you look at all the games we have on our schedule, there are probably five or six games that will have a big impact on our NCAA chances. It’s one of those days, so I’m going to do everything I can to prepare for the game.”
It will be a good opportunity to see the Minutemen play against an unfamiliar opponent. Massachusetts has never faced Omaha or Air Force during Carvell’s tenure, and last faced Minnesota in the 2022 NCAA Tournament. That will require special preparation by the Minutemen’s staff to ensure the team is able to adapt to the opponent’s personnel and tactics.
It’s even more difficult when you don’t know who you’re going to play on Saturday. In the four-team tournament, the winners of each game on Friday will play each other on Saturday, as will the losers of both games.
“It needs a little more work,” Carvel said. “I’ve never coached against Omaha or Air Force. I play against Minnesota, so that’s usually a team you play a few times — Denver while I was at the University of Massachusetts. We’ve played against them five, six, seven times — I can get a good feel for how they play. Omaha is a team I don’t have much experience with because I don’t know the coach very well. , dive into videos (Tuesday) and most plane rides (Wednesday) to get something ready for Thursday.
“My assistants help me a lot when we play against three teams that we need to prepare for,” Carvel added. “I’ll be focused on Omaha and they’ll be focused on the other two teams.”
One area of improvement from the opening weekend will be the power play.
The Minutemen were just 25-125 in man-up situations last year and went 0-4 on the power play Saturday against Bentley. In Massachusetts’ scrimmage against RPI on Sunday, the Minutemen were 0-5 on the power play.
Scott Morrow and Ryan Ufko led the unit for the past three years, but with both departing, Carvel will need to come up with the right combination to get the group back on track.
“One of the biggest things on my list is to understand the power play. I’m going to start going a little bit with two even units to see if I can run a full two minutes on a top-level power play. I might switch that up,” Carvel said. This week, the power play let us down last year and we need to make sure that doesn’t happen this year. ”
With their forward group, the Minutemen thought they could light up the scoreboard again this year.
One game proved that to be true. Massachusetts scored five goals against Bentley, including three by sophomore Aidar Sniev, one each by sophomore Jack Moussa and freshman Daniel Genko.
Kenny Connors scored the only goal in Sunday’s game against RPI. The production up front will be a huge contributor to the Minutemen’s success this season.
“Sniev got a hat trick,” Carvel said. “Everyone knows he’s a goalscorer and that’s what he wants to do. He’s going to shoot. Moussa could have had a hat-trick too. He scores goals and posts We expected them to continue to raise their game. (Dunns) Rokmeris, (Cole) O’Hara, (Michael) Cameron, the list is long. Yes, we have a lot of depth up front. We didn’t see any goals against RPI, but after a hard-fought game on Saturday night, we have a team that has a lot of games left. It was a rare game that lasted until the 3 o’clock exhibition. We played five lines, but it was difficult to get the energy up.”
