This UMass team didn’t have the stars it had two years ago, when current NHLers Cale Makar, Mario Ferraro and John Leonard helped lead the Minutemen to the program’s first national championship game before ultimately falling to Minnesota-Duluth.
What this year’s Minutemen did have was depth, defense and the best all-around team in the country. They proved that definitively Saturday night, trouncing St. Cloud State, 5-0, to capture their first-ever national title.
This was the team that was supposed to lose Thursday night when it had to take on two-time defending champion Minnesota-Duluth without two of its best players due to COVID protocols. Well, they had enough depth to win that game in overtime.
Those two players -- starting goalie Filip Lindberg and leading goal-scorer Carson Gicewicz -- were both cleared to return Saturday night. While both have been huge parts of UMass’ success this season, it was once again the depth that led the way Saturday night.
The game’s opening goal came from maybe the most unlikely of sources, with freshman third-pairing defenseman Aaron Bohlinger, who didn’t have a goal before Saturday, finishing off a 2-on-0 rush assisted by fourth-line forward Ryan Sullivan, who had just three points coming in.
Then it was the third line’s time to take over. Cal Kiefiuk set up Reed Lebster for his second goal of the season to make it 2-0 late in the first period. That capped off a first period in which the Minutemen surrendered just three shots on goal, as St. Cloud got in the offensive zone a number of times but couldn’t find any way through to the net.
Early in the second period, third-line center Philip Lagunov made it 3-0 with a shorthanded goal for the ages. Picking up the puck in the neutral zone, Lagunov turned St. Cloud defenseman Nick Perbix inside-out with a filthy dangle before flipping a backhander under goalie David Hrenak’s left arm.
Then the big guns got in on the party. The top power-play unit came through on a Matthew Kessel goal that made it 4-0. Leading point-scorer Bobby Trivigno -- who set up the OT winner Thursday night, who was suspended for the national title two years ago, and who was named the Frozen Four's Most Outstanding Player this year -- made it 5-0.
All that was left was the celebration -- not just for this remarkable team that has reached college hockey’s pinnacle, but for all the fans of a program that not too long ago was the laughingstock of Hockey East.
When head coach Greg Carvel took over the program in 2016, the Minutemen hadn’t had a winning season or made the NCAA tournament since 2006-07. They didn’t have a winning record his first two seasons either.
When this year’s seniors arrived on campus, UMass was coming off a 5-29-2 season. With the help of those aforementioned stars, led by Makar, they helped turn the flagship around. And after those stars moved on to the pros, they helped keep it going.
"Very happy for our kids. They’ve earned this," Carvel said after the game. "We’ve pushed them really hard the last four years, the senior class especially."
They didn’t lose a game after Jan. 18 this season. They won the program’s first Hockey East tournament championship. And now they’re national champions.