Massachusetts-Lowell Blanks Providence

Carter Hutton grabbed his 10th career shutout as the University of Massachusetts-Lowell stymied Providence College, 4-0, in front of a crowd of 4,348 at the Tsongas arena.

Hutton ended the game with 30 saves.

“It’s always nice getting a shutout, but the biggest thing is we picked up a huge two points here in the race to try and make the playoffs, and get home ice,” Hutton said.

It took 103 games for River Hawk defensemen Steve Capraro to notch his first career goal. It happened 3:25 into the first period.

Capraro received a pass from Barry Goers at the left point, and fired a shot through traffic beating Alex Beaudry (34 saves) between his glove and pad.

A smiling Capraro had this to say about his first career goal.

“I got the puck and I passed it over to Goers, he was very patient with it, and I called for it back, I kind of just fired it, and it found the lane. The puck had eyes; it was a good thing for me.”

River Hawks’ head coach Blaise MacDonald thought that Capraro’s goal energized his team from that point on.

“It really energized our team, and our guys were really excited for him. That play wasn’t in the playbook, but we’ll take it.”

That would end up being the lone goal in the first, as Beaudry made 20 saves and River Hawks netminder Carter Hutton made 10.

Both teams had two power-play opportunities, but could not find a way to score on the man advantage.

In the second period River Hawks blew the game wide open, scoring three goals in a span of about six minutes to give them a comfortable 4-0 lead.

Scott Campbell started the scoring by knocking in a rebound that came off of a shot by Michael Budd. Budd Shot from the bottom of the right faceoff circle, and it hit Beaudry’s right pad, but it went straight down and Campbell skated into the crease, and put it into an empty net.

Chris Auger tallied for the second goal as he knocked in a rebound that came off of a two on one down low. He was trailing the play and got the rebound and beat Beaudry upstairs.

Finally, the last goal in the period was scored by Jonathan Maniff. He received a pass from behind the net from Barry Goers, and beat Beaudry short side. That goal was Maniffs’ first goal of the season.

Providence College made a goalie switch in the start of the third period. Alex Beaudry came out and Justin Gates went in.

Through two periods of play, Beaudry had made 34 saves.
Providence College head coach Tim Army had this to say about his decision to pull Beaudry.

“I didn’t take him out because he wasn’t playing well. Were down 4-0 after 40 minutes, it gives a chance to put Justin [Gates] in, who is playing really for us, and it gives Alex a little bit of a blow, and to get him ready for tomorrow night. Nothing reflective of Alex, I thought he played really well.”

Providence College played a much better third period, keeping Lowell off of the scoreboard, and gaining momentum going into Saturday’s game.

“There point men did a good job of getting pucks through. I thought their forwards did a good job of getting secondary opportunities,” said Army. “We need to do a better job of boxing people out, particularly the last 10 minutes of the second. We gave up the three goals, and we gave up a lot of chances around the net.”

On the other side, MacDonald was pleased with his teams overall effort.

“We played pretty hard, were pretty thorough, and went hard to the net. They have a phenomenal goaltender and some talented players. They really held us in the first period,” said MacDonald. “I thought we might have been able open up the game a little bit, but they were very resilient in the first, and we just kind of stuck to our game plan and it worked out for us.”

Providence and Lowell will play the finale of their season series Saturday night in Providence. Game time is at 7:00 p.m.

MacDonald says they need to continue to build on their style of play.

“I think we need to just continue to build on our style of play. Providence is a tough place to play for a lot of teams. This game is behind us now, and we need to get ready for a really good challenge on the road.”