There were plenty of excuses Massachusetts coach Greg Carvel could have used after a weekend sweep at Colorado College to open the 2026-27 season.
The Minutemen had no exhibition games to work out the kinks; they were playing at altitude; and Colorado College proved to be better than preseason prognostications indicated.
Carvel mentioned all those things at a weekly media availability days after losses of 2-0 and 6-1 to the then-unranked Tigers at Ed Robson Arena (elevation 6,035 feet) to open the season. But to Carvel, the lopsided results came down to one thing.
“Bottom line was that our top players didn’t play very well,” Carvel said. “It wasn’t about our young players, it was about our returning players. That was a bit of a surprise. They’ll return to their capabilities. I have no doubt.”
Carvel’s faith in his returning players was particularly evident in the play of senior forward Jack Musa, who overcame a sluggish start to the season to rack up four assists in a 5-1 win against RIT last Saturday, UMass’s first victory of the season.
“There were some comments from me after the first period, from me, that apparently hit the spot,” Carvel said of Musa’s offensive output in the RIT game.
UMass, ranked 19th in the latest USCHO men’s D-I poll, entered the season with high expectations — picked to finish first in the Hockey East preseason media poll and second to Providence in the coaches poll. The ambitious outlook stemmed mainly from two major offseason developments: Musa’s return for his senior season following a 36-point campaign in 2025-26 that earned him second-team All-American honors, and a 12-player incoming class featuring several NHL draft picks and prominent junior and international standouts.
While two losses to start the season turned some heads in the college hockey world, Carvel emphasized that he was not hitting the panic button.
“I don’t mind losing those two games against a good team,” Carvel said. “This group maybe needed a little humbling. (There were) a lot of positive headlines throughout the summer about a lot of things. Maybe this is what we needed to get our heads back on straight.”
With a roster chock-full of players new to the college game, Carvel acknowledged it will take some time for his team to find its footing, which is why he expressed only mild concern after two losses to start the season.
“I tell them pretty consistently, I don’t care if you win or lose, it’s how you play,” Carvel said. “I’m going to be happy if you play well, and upset if you don’t.”
In net, the Minutemen have been left to deal with the departure of goalie Michael Hrabal, last year’s Hockey East Player of the Year, who signed with the NHL’s Utah Mammoth during the offseason. So far this season, Ethan Eskit, a freshman from Calgary, has started three games for the Minutemen, posting a 1.32 goals-against average and .950 save percentage. Eskit made 34 saves in the season-opening 2-0 loss at Colorado College.
“He made the saves he was supposed to make,” Carvel said. “It gave us a chance in a game that we didn’t really deserve to have a chance in.”
Carvel said Eskit will compete for playing time with Jackson Irving, the only returning goalie on UMass’s roster, who started seven games last season with two shutouts and a .934 save percentage; and 6-foot-4 freshman Tobias Trejbal from Most, Czechia, who played 35 minutes in the 6-1 loss at Colorado College.
“They need to play,” Carvel said. “I don’t care how good you are, you gotta play games at this level to get experience and learn how to play at this level.”
One of the Minutemen’s most highly touted first-year players is Maxim Massé, a 20-year-old forward from Rimouski, Québec, who led the QMJHL in scoring last season with 51 goals and 51 assists for eventual QMJHL champion Chicoutimi Saguenéens. He took home the Michel Brière Trophy as QMJHL MVP and scored his first college goal in the 5-1 win against RIT.
Massé was selected in the third round (66th overall) by Anaheim in the 2024 NHL Draft.
Freshmen Melvin Novotny (Buffalo), Egor Barabanov (Calgary) and Max Curran (Colorado) are all expected to add depth to UMass’s scoring attack.
Defensively, UMass will rely on juniors Francesco Dell’Elce and Larry Keenan, who headline the returning defensemen, as well as sophomore Coleson Hanrahan (co-captain along with Musa), who played in 31 games last season as a freshman.
The Minutemen scraped out a 2-2 tie against RIT in their home opener Oct. 9, when Dell’Elce scored with less than a second remaining in regulation to force overtime. (RIT won the exhibition shootout.) Though UMass didn’t get the win, it was able to carry momentum into the rematch the following night, with the Minutemen earning their first victory behind Musa’s four assists.
For UMass fans, the hope is that the win set the stage for a season of continued improvement.
“I thought we took a step forward as a team tonight, and we have every game,” Carvel told the UMass student newspaper after the win against RIT. “(I’ve) been way more concerned about (the) improvement of individual players (and) I’m seeing that through four games.”