LOWELL, Mass. – New Hampshire head coach Dick Umile knew a lot about his team coming into Friday’s season opener against fifth-ranked UMass Lowell.
When the final buzzer sounded, he could confidently say he knows one more thing: this team has heart, character and leadership.
The Wildcats went toe-to-toe with the River Hawks, dominating play at times and countering every time the River Hawks threw a haymaker. That allowed senior Shane Eiserman to push a rebound past Lowell goalie Tyler Wall with 13.4 seconds to play to give the Wildcats a 4-3 upset victory.
It was a night that felt like Lowell might have had fate on its side. They raised the banners for last year’s regular season and Hockey East championship as well as the school’s eighth NCAA tournament appearance. And despite looking sloppy and falling behind 2-1 and 3-2, two third-period power play goals, the second coming with just 1:14 remaining, allowed the River Hawks to draw even.
But New Hampshire simply wouldn’t quit.
“I felt like we all knew that we were somehow going to pull out a win,” said Eiserman, who was one of UNH’s fastest and most dominant forwards on the ice on Friday. “I want to say [Marcus] Vela got a stick on a puck and [defenseman Max] Gildon just brought it to the side to put it on net.
“It was just at my feet. It was crazy.”
The upset might surprise some but really shouldn’t. A season ago, the Wildcats finished their season in the Hockey East quarterfinals on the Tsongas Center ice but not before they pushed the River Hawks, the eventual champion, to a third-and-deciding game.
That series, though, barely resembled Friday’s game. At times last March, UNH looked like it was drinking from a firehose. Friday, after withstanding an early charge from the River Hawks that included a Connor Wilson goal to open the scoring at 6:06 of the first, the Wildcats didn’t simply survive. At times, they dominated.
New Hampshire took advantage of its power play in the second, knotting a goal on a Vela tally while skating 4-on-4 before Frankie Cefalu gave the Wildcats the lead on the man advantage just 45 seconds later.
When the horn sounded to end the second, New Hampshire had limited the River Hawks to just four shots while mustering 15 of its own.
Lowell coach Norm Bazin was blunt when asked what he saw change in the second.
“I saw four shots in the second period; I didn’t see a whole lot of urgency,” Bazin said. “We were on the wrong side of the puck the whole second period. We had four shots despite getting two power plays and that’s not enough to win in any league.”
The River Hawks did find a second gear at times in the third, usually sparked by the man advantage. Lowell tied the game when John Edwardh one-timed a shot at 4:52. And after UNH retook the lead at 10:05, Lowell again struck on the power play, this time with an extra attacker when Wall (25 saves) was pulled and Jake Kamrass deflected a puck while screening UNH netminder Danny Tirone (20 saves).
But that was when UNH showed its best resilience, leading to Eiserman’s late tally.
“I think it’s the leadership on our team that kept us in the game,” Umile said. “Obviously, we had to kill some penalties. The guys stayed positive on the bench. That’s great leadership.”
Certainly walking away from a road opener – the Hockey East opener as well – with a win over a nationally-ranked team is a good feeling for Umile and his club. But even he doesn’t want his team to get too high, knowing a rematch of the two clubs comes Saturday in Durham.
“We’ve got a long way to go. It’s only Game 1,” he said. “But I liked the way the guys competed.”
