AMHERST, Mass. - Junior captain Ryan Ufko scored his fourth goal of the season 1:04 into overtime to help No. 15 University of Massachusetts hockey complete a series sweep of No. 5 Providence, 2-1 at the Mullins Center on Saturday evening. With the win, the Minutemen improve to 8-3-1 on the year, 4-2-1 in Hockey East, while the Friars fall to 8-3-2, 4-2-2 in league action.
"Our goaltender stole one tonight," said UMass head coach Greg Carvel. "We weren't very good tonight. You could just sense on the bench there wasn't the energy that was there Thursday night, but our goaltender kept us in it. We were out-shot and out-chanced pretty badly. Discipline-wise, we had to kill too many penalties, but this is a good group of kids. We talked about it after the second period, digging deep into our character of the team, the heart and soul of the team and find a way and the kids found a way. It was just an elite play by an elite player in overtime to score the goal, but that's a Michael Hrabal victory tonight."
The teams played a scoreless first with Providence coming out with a 14-7 lead in shots and the teams remained deadlocked at 0-0 until midway through the second period. Just 20 seconds after killing off a penalty, the Friars opened the scoring at the 8:28 mark. Guillaume Richard hit Cal Kiefiuk with an outlet pass and Kiefiuk found Graham Gamache in the slot for the finish to put Providence on top, 1-0.
With 2:50 remaining in the third period, UMass managed to tie the score as graduate student Lucas Vanroboys picked up the puck from senior Aaron Bohlinger and fired a shot from the blue line that Jack Musa redirected home to force an extra period.
Then 1:04 into overtime, Ufko circled the offensive zone after receiving the puck from Kenny Connors and Ryan Lautenbach and drove to the net to tuck it behind the left pad of Philip Svedebäck.
The Friars ended the contest with a 33-16 shot advantage and went 0-for-4 on the power play, while the Minutemen were 0-for-2.
Freshman Michael Hrabal made 32 saves in net for UMass to match his season best, while Svedebäck turned aside 14 for Providence.
The Minutemen will break from Hockey East play for a trip to No. 20 Harvard next Friday, Nov. 24, a contest that is scheduled for 4:30 p.m.
