LOWELL \u2014 The less than 10-mile drive from the Tsongas Center to Merrimack College hasn\u2019t been a pleasant one for the UMass Lowell hockey team.<\/p>\n
The River Hawks are 0-2 in North Andover this winter, including a 5-3 loss six days ago at Lawler Arena. If that trend continues Wednesday in the opening round of the Hockey East playoffs, UML\u2019s 2025-26 season will end.<\/p>\n
Ninth-seeded (13-21-0) UML blanked the Warriors in the season opener, 4-0, but eighth-seeded Merrimack (17-15-2) has won both meetings in front of their home fans. The puck will drop at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an exciting time of the year,\u201d UML head coach Norm Bazin said.<\/p>\n
To advance, the River Hawks must solve junior 6-foot-5 goaltender Max Lundgren. It\u2019s no secret who will start in net for the Warriors \u2014\u00a0Lundgren has played every minute this season between the pipes.<\/p>\n
He sports a 2.69 goals against average and .915 save percentage.<\/p>\n
Defensively, UML will have to be aware whenever freshman forwards Justin Gill and Parker Lalonde hop over the boards.<\/p>\n
Both lead the team with 32 points, with Gill pocketing 16 goals and Lalonde scoring 12. In the two games against UML in North Andover, Gill has scored three goals and added an assist.<\/p>\n
Gill played professional hockey last season, suiting up for 35 games for Bridgeport of the AHL, one rung below the National Hockey League, and for 23 games for Worcester of the ECHL, before enrolling at Merrimack.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s smart. He\u2019s a heck of a player,\u201d Bazin said of Gill.<\/p>\n
Bazin said the Warriors are a much different team than last season, citing the strong play of Lundgren in net, and the additions of Gill and Lalonde.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose three, yeah, it\u2019s a big difference,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to find a way around that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the 5-3 loss to Merrimack less than a week ago, the River Hawks got off to a solid start and carried play. But two quick goals changed the momentum of the game and led to a loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more of what we have to do better than last time. We have a pretty good handle on them. They have a good handle on us,\u201d Bazin said.<\/p>\n
While Lundgren will man the net for Merrimack, his opponent at the other end of the ice isn\u2019t set in stone.<\/p>\n
Senior Samuel Richard (2.85 GAA) and Austin Elliott (3.01 GAA) have had shining moments in net for UML, but neither was able to get on a roll during the regular season.<\/p>\n
Offensively, UML will look for production from the likes of senior Dillan Bentley (13-11-24), junior Jak Vaarwerk (7-13-20), graduate student Jay Ahearn (13-6-19), freshman Dalyn Wakely (7-12-19), Chris Delaney (3-15-18) and senior defenseman TJ Schweighardt (4-13-17).<\/p>\n
The River Hawks ended the regular season by upsetting Boston University last Saturday, 4-3, at the Tsongas Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s never a bad thing to come into the playoffs with a win,\u201d Bazin said.<\/p>\n
Bazin said he expects older players like Bentley and Schweighardt to lead the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou saw their leadership against BU. They\u2019ve been through the fire before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
UML has played better on the road (7-8-0) than at home. UML holds an 8-7 postseason edge over Merrimack. The teams are 3-3 in Hockey East playoff action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOWELL \u2014 The less than 10-mile drive from the Tsongas Center to Merrimack College hasn\u2019t been a pleasant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[463,464],"tags":[2918,1880,5,58966,5191,1180,997,58967,4,60,30027,43,14,104,718,11232],"class_list":["post-499917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl-playoffs","category-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-college","tag-college-hockey","tag-hockey","tag-hockey-east-playoffs","tag-keywee","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-merrimack","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-playoffs","tag-norm-bazin","tag-sports","tag-stanley-cup","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs-nhl","tag-umass-lowell"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116217560661871736","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}