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Freshman netminder Filip Lindberg made 13 saves for the Minutemen
Massachusetts Advances to Frozen Four with 4-0 Win Against Notre Dame
Freshman netminder Filip Lindberg made 13 saves for the Minutemen

MANCHESTER, N.H. - No. 1 seed University of Massachusetts hockey used a three-goal second period to help carry the squad to its first Regional Championship in program history with a 4-0 shutout over No. 3 seed Notre Dame on Saturday evening at SNHU Arena. The Minutemen advance to their first-ever Frozen Four with a record of 30-9-0, while the Fighting Irish end the season at 23-14-3.

"That was maybe as complete a game that we've played this year, and this weekend I thought we were outstanding for 120 minutes," said UMass head coach Greg Carvel. "I thought we controlled the play for two complete games. The team obviously responded well from the loss last weekend at BC, which was discouraging, but this group has had a common purpose and it goes deeper than the team, it's through our whole university. We knew we had a good team this year, we proved a lot of things throughout the year. But we always felt that people were waiting for us to trip and stumble and fall and we kind of did that at BC last weekend, but this weekend we redeemed ourselves. I'm extremely proud of this group, staff, players, administration, this is a first for our program and we didn't stumble into this, we knocked the door down, and we're headed to the Frozen Four flying high."

With the teams in a scoreless deadlock, a hooking call on Notre Dame's Michael Graham with 12:47 remaining in the second period gave UMass the first power play of the night. Sophomore Jake Gaudet promptly converted with the man advantage as his seventh tally of the season found its way through netminder Cale Morris' five-hole from the right faceoff circle to give UMass a 1-0 lead 7:49 into the stanza. Sophomore Mario Ferraro set the play up with his initial dump-in to the offensive zone and Ty Farmer collected the secondary helper.

Just two minutes and 19 seconds later, sophomore John Leonard extended the advantage to 2-0. Senior Brett Boeing collected a pass along the half wall from junior Niko Hildenbrand and fired a shot at the Notre Dame net, which Leonard was there to corral the rebound and tuck it behind Morris for his second of the weekend and 15th of the season.

The Minutemen struck again at the 14:49 mark to extend their lead to 3-0. Two seconds after a high sticking call on Notre Dame's Andrew Peeke expired, Gaudet won an offensive zone draw back to sophomore Marc Del Gaizo who slid the puck across to Cale Makar at the opposite point for a blistering one-timer, his 16th goal of the year.

With the Notre Dame net empty, Oliver Chau capped the scoring with his ninth of the season at 17:27 of the third period.

The Minutemen finished the contest with a 34-13 advantage in shots on goal and went 1-for-3 on the power play, while the Fighting Irish were 0-for-2 with the man advantage. Freshman Filip Lindberg made 13 saves and earned his second shutout of the weekend, Morris made 30 stops for Notre Dame.

The Minutemen will square off against the winner of the West Regional Final, Denver, on Thursday, April 11 on ESPN at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York.

Game Summary

Saturday, March 30, 2019
NCAA Northeast Regional Final (Manchester, NH)

0
4
Game statistics
13 Shots 34
0 / 2 Power Plays 1 / 3
4 / 8 PIM 3 / 6
23-14-3 Records 30-9-0
GOAL SCORERS
Notre Dame Massachusetts
Jake Gaudet (7)
2nd/7:49 PP GW
John Leonard (15)
2nd/10:32
Cale Makar (16)
2nd/14:49
Oliver Chau (9)
3rd/17:27  EN
GOALTENDERS
Notre Dame Massachusetts
Cale Morris
57:38, 30 Saves, 3 GA
(L, 19-13-3)

Empty Net
2:22, 1 GA
Filip Lindberg
60:00, 13 Saves, 0 GA
(W, 10-3-0)

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