PITTSBURGH – The University of Massachusetts soundly defeated St. Cloud State of Minnesota, 5-0, in Saturday night’s men’s ice hockey national championship. For the UMass Minutemen, it’s was their first Frozen Four title win in program history.
The scoring started a little over seven minutes into the first period when Aaron Bohlinger found himself on a 2-on-0 and cashed in to make it 1-0 UMass. With 1:04 left in the first 20 minutes, Reed Lebster tapped one past St. Cloud G David Hrenak to give UMass a 2-0 lead entering the first intermission.
With St. Cloud State on the power play five minutes into the second frame, Phil Lagunov dangled around Nick Perbix to score a shorthanded goal. Matt Kessel added a power play goal in the back half of the second period to make it 4-0.
UMass’ Bobby Trivigno made it 5-0 when he sniped one past David Hrenak early in the third period.
UMass was on a mission to improve one slot heading into the 2021-21 season. The Minutemen finished as 2019 championship runner-ups (2020 playoff was cancelled). They closed out the 2020-21 regular season winning the program’s first-ever Hockey East title and advanced to the championship game after an overtime thriller in the Frozen Four semifinals against Minnesota Duluth,
UMass goaltender Filip Linberg made 25 saves to earn the shut-out.