Through junior forward Jack Musa’s brilliant three-point performance, the No. 15 Massachusetts hockey team vanquished Northeastern 4-1 on Saturday night to earn a trip to the infamous TD Garden for the Hockey East semifinals.
Musa made history for the Minutemen (22-12-1, 15-9-1 HEA), scoring his 100th career point to propel him into No. 15 in program point-scoring rankings. He passed Mike Merchant (1973-77) with 98, and is now just two points off of No. 12.
“It’s awesome [to get my 100th point for the program],” Musa said. “It’s such an honor to be here. I’ve loved every day I’ve been here. Hopefully, we can keep going.”
The Orange Park, Fla. native scored the decisive goal to ultimately send the Huskies (17-18-1, 11-14 HEA) packing on Saturday night.
With 30 seconds left in the second period and the score knotted up at one apiece, Václav Nestrašil dug out a puck and played it along the boards to Jack Musa, who skated with it towards the edge of the near-side face-off dot.
The junior’s first shot rang off the shin of Dylan Compton and fell back to his stick. He skated even closer to Lawton Zacher’s frame and unloaded a knee-high wrist shot past the right knee pad of the Northeastern netminder. The goal came after a rugged second period and gave UMass its second lead of the game, one it wouldn’t let slip away.
“You don’t get that combination very often when your most talented player is your hardest worker,” head coach Greg Carvel said. “He doesn’t talk much. He doesn’t talk to me anyways. I just thanked him. There’s a good chance this might be his last game in this building. What a way to go out, with a game-winning goal.”
During the week, Musa received second-team HEA honors after another impressive season in Amherst. He’s helped the Minutemen to multiple wins throughout his playing career, and has helped Carvel to many unbelievable feats in his head coaching career.
“I’ve loved [Musa] since the day he stepped on campus,” Carvel said. “He’s been probably my favorite forward in 10 years. Just how hard he plays, how talented he is, how humble he is. He’s a really talented hockey player that plays harder than anybody else on our team.”
The forward has a track record of shining when the lights are the brightest. In a must-win game last season against UConn, he registered a hat trick on the road to save UMass. Earlier this season, in a similar scenario at a similar time in the year, Musa put up four points on the road versus UMass Lowell to help win his squad that game.
On Saturday, with the Minutemen sitting right on the edge of an at-large bid and with their season pretty much on the line, the junior delivered again with three points.
Along with the goal at the end of the second period, he delivered a nifty pass out to the point for Larry Keenan’s goal early in the game, and he combined with Nestrašil in the third period to add the tally to put the game away. Both assists were crucial to the victory.
“That was the biggest game of the year,” Musa said. “We knew we needed to win or else the season would be over, so to get the chance to play at [TD] Garden, it’s special.”
In the first half of the year, while UMass was barely keeping afloat in the conference picture, Musa tallied 21 points and led the team in the little conference success it was having. Since then, the Minutemen are 13-3-1, and UMass faithful have a lot to thank the Florida native for.
The Minutemen will now head to TD Garden in Boston for the semifinals against Merrimack on Friday, March 20, for their first appearance at the Boston Bruins’ home stadium since 2024. Puck drop is at 4 p.m. and can be streamed on NESN or ESPN+.
“There’s going to be a lot of lights and cameras [in Boston],” Musa said. “You don’t look at it, you don’t let it get to you. You just go out there and play the game the way we’ve been playing, and the results will go in our favor.”
Ezekiel Altman can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @EzekielAltman.
