{"id":100697,"date":"2019-11-07T14:00:06","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T20:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/?p=100697"},"modified":"2020-08-24T11:20:35","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T16:20:35","slug":"umass-lowell-netminder-returns-for-senior-season-proving-to-be-wall-in-net-for-river-hawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2019\/11\/07\/umass-lowell-netminder-returns-for-senior-season-proving-to-be-wall-in-net-for-river-hawks\/","title":{"rendered":"UMass Lowell netminder returns for senior season, proving to be Wall in net for River Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
UMass Lowell senior goalie Joel Wall has gone 6-1-2 thus far with a 1.63 GAA and a .947 save percentage for the River Hawks (photo: Rich Gagnon).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Prior to the Hockey East season beginning, there was a lot of talk of goaltenders.<\/p>\n

You had Stefanos Lekkas at Vermont and Jeremy Swayman at Maine that drew a lot of headlines as two of the top leaders of their respective teams. Matt Murray and Filip Lindberg had split time at UMass, the tandem advancing the Minutemen to the 2019 national title game.<\/p>\n

Then there were transfers.<\/p>\n

Providence looked like goaltending would be an issue, but that was until Michael Lackey from Harvard transfers as a graduate student. The same went for Northeastern as Craig Pantano moved from Merrimack for a single season and at Boston University where Yale\u2019s Sam Tucker landed for his final season.<\/p>\n

On the other end of the spectrum, Boston College began the season with easily the top goaltending recruit in the country, Spencer Knight.<\/p>\n

But one month into the season, while many of these goaltenders have had great performances, the most talked about netminder is probably the least heralded entering the season: UMass Lowell\u2019s Tyler Wall.<\/p>\n

As a freshman, Wall was a standout, setting multiple school records en route to a Hockey East championship and an appearance in the NCAA regional final. He was 26-10-1 as a rookie with a 2.06 goals against average and a .918 save percentage.<\/p>\n

In his sophomore season, Wall\u2019s numbers weren\u2019t quite as elite. After a true sophomore slump, Wall did improve as a junior and posted a better (.921) save percentage than he did as a freshman. His 2.09 goals against average returned to freshman form, but his record of 11-7-3, splitting time with Chris Hernberg for much of the year, didn\u2019t gain much recognition.<\/p>\n

Through just nine starts, though, as a senior, Wall is again turning heads. He is 6-1-2 with a 1.63 GAA and a .947 save percentage, numbers that shouldn\u2019t just receive notice, but also put him in early contention for the Mike Richter Award, given annually to college hockey\u2019s top goaltender.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is what happens when kids stay for their senior year,\u201d said Lowell coach Norm Bazin, referencing Wall\u2019s return for his senior season with the River Hawks.<\/p>\n

In fact, when you exclude goaltenders who transferred into Hockey East schools this year, the only other senior goaltender in the league who has played this season is Lekkas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey know it\u2019s their last go round and they want to make the most of it,\u201d said Bazin. \u201c[Tyler] came back and streamlined his body from where it was in the previous years. He\u2019s seeing the end come as far as his academic and athletic career at UMass Lowell, so I think he\u2019s pretty dialed in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fitness factor for Wall is something Bazin references often. Though he never identified him as out of shape, he feels that his offseason conditioning brought a player back to Lowell\u2019s campus who is in a game shape that can positively impact his performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a big strong kid. When I say streamlined, he lost some weight and he came back as fit as I\u2019ve seen him,\u201d Bazin said. \u201cI think that\u2019s coming back to help him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wall\u2019s elite performance goes beyond the ice. In the classroom he excels as a mechanical engineering major, one of the more difficult majors offered on Lowell\u2019s campus. Bazin says that his off-ice intelligence also translates onto the ice. Even if sometimes his personality is a little more casual.<\/p>\n

\u201c[His intelligence] helps him anticipate. It helps him recover from tough performances. He\u2019s just a really grounded, smart kid,\u201d said Bazin. \u201cHe\u2019s a mechanical engineer. He\u2019s not only bright, but he\u2019s grounded.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a very loose and carefree type of person. Sometimes as a coach, you wonder if some people are dialed in or intense enough, but that\u2019s just his personality. He\u2019s a very intelligent guy, but when he\u2019s not in school, he likes fooling around with his teammates and gets along very well with everybody.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not the class clown, but he\u2019s certainly a guy you can laugh with. It\u2019s for a good reason that the guys play hard for him. He\u2019s definitely one of the guys. He\u2019s easy to like.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReckless\u201d young players continue to learn as Merrimack earns first league win<\/h4>\n

It hasn\u2019t been easy for the Merrimack Warriors to this point in the season. The inexperienced team, which sports 16 freshman up and down the lineup, has felt some growing pains to this point.<\/p>\n

And after last Friday\u2019s loss at home to Connecticut, dropping the team to 1-6-0 and 0-2-0 in Hockey East, those pains likely felt worse.<\/p>\n

Sunday, though, Merrimack bounced back with a 3-2 road win over UConn in the back end of the home-and-home series.<\/p>\n

There were certainly positives in the win, most notably just getting the needed confidence boost.<\/p>\n

But head coach Scott Borek said after the game, the exuberance of youth needs to be bridled a bit for success to be sustained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made a lot of mistakes in the second half of the second period; in the third period as well we were trying to make plays when we shouldn\u2019t be making plays,\u201d Borek said. \u201cThat\u2019s because we are young and kind of reckless.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to be aggressive but another thing to be intelligent in how you\u2019re reckless. I didn\u2019t think we were [intelligent]. We gave [UConn] a lot of their offense. But in the third period, when push came to shove, we buckled in and did a better job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Merrimack needs to continue to be better as their next two series are doozies. They will play a home-and-home with 13th-ranked Northeastern this weekend. After a weekend off, they\u2019ll then take on powerful UMass in a two-game home-and-home series.<\/p>\n

Not exactly the battle of No. 1 vs. No. 2 that many expected<\/h4>\n

Raise your hand if you looked at the schedule at the beginning of the season and though that this weekend\u2019s series between Maine and UMass Lowell would be a battle of the top two teams in Hockey East.<\/p>\n

Certainly there are a lot of early games in hand for much of the competition, but that doesn\u2019t take away from the point that Maine has a 2-1-1 record in Hockey East and a 5-2-1 mark overall and that Lowell would be 3-0-1 in Hockey East and 6-2-2 overall. Not bad for teams that were picked eighth and sixth, respectively, in the preseason coaches\u2019 poll.<\/p>\n

Maine coach Red Gendron talked a bit about the series on his weekly coach\u2019s radio show, saying that facing off against Lowell often feels like playing against a very similar team.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, when we watch the players as a coaching staff, we see nearly a mirror image of ourselves,\u201d Gendron said of the River Hawks. \u201cThey\u2019re a very in-your-face hockey club and every inch of the ice is going to have to be earned over the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prior to the Hockey East season beginning, there was a lot of talk of goaltenders (photo: Rich Gagnon).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":108524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[800],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nUMass Lowell netminder returns for senior season, proving to be Wall in net for River Hawks - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Prior to the Hockey East season beginning, there was a lot of talk of goaltenders (photo: Rich Gagnon).\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100697\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UMass Lowell netminder returns for senior season, proving to be Wall in net for River Hawks - 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