Three takeaways from the Hockey East semifinals

By Patrick Donnelly

The UConn Huskies won 4-1 against the Northeastern Huskies in the first semifinal to advance to the Hockey East championship for the first time in program history, and the UMass Minutemen defeated the UMass-Lowell River Hawks 3-1 in the nightcap to continue their conference and national title defense.

UMass and UConn will square off in the conference final at 7 p.m. Saturday at TD Garden.

Here my three takeaways from the conference semifinals. All opinions are my own.

UConn pushed Northeastern around

UConn just seemed like they wanted it more than their Huskies counterparts. Similar to their blueprint against BU, Connecticut happily threw their bodies around, particularly in the third period when Northeastern was really pressing. Co-captain Carter Turnbull (all 5-foot-8 of him) was more than happy to lay into NU captain Jordan Harris and Jakov Novak, with a thunderous hit by co-captain Jachym Kondelik in between. After that sequence you knew Northeastern was in trouble.

Lowell deserved better

The second semifinal matchup proved much more entertaining than the first. Lowell and UMass traded momentum all throughout the first two periods, but Lowell carried the play for a lot of the third period until Matt Crasa put it in his own net. I’m sure UMass fans pointed, laughed and rejoiced, but I couldn’t help but feel horrible for the River Hawks. It felt like they were going to break through and tie things up, but some serious misfortune put the game out of reach.

UMass’ experience was key

Lowell may have held a lot of the attacking zone time and shot attempts in the third period, but Amherst didn’t give he River Hawks much of anything in the high-danger areas. The Minutemen largely kept UML to the outside, and were more than willing to put their bodies on the line, whether it was Colin Felix getting in the way of everything that moved, or captain and star Bobby Trivigno diving to block shots. That’s the sign of a team who’s been here before and knows how to win when it matters.