Carvel's honor as the CCM/AHCA Division I Men's Hockey Coach of the Year marks the 11th time a UMass head coach has been honored as coach of the year across all sports.
University of Massachusetts hockey head coach Greg Carvel has been tabbed the 2019 Spencer Penrose Award winner, given annually to the CCM/AHCA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Coach of the Year, the American Hockey Coaches Association announced on Tuesday. Carvel's honor marks the 11th time a UMass head coach has been selected as a national coach of the year across all sports, with men's lacrosse's Greg Cannella being the previous most recent recipient in 2006.
Under Carvel's guidance, UMass has enjoyed unprecedented success in 2018-19 with the team breaking program records for wins overall and in conference play. The Minutemen finished their Hockey East slate with a mark of 18-6-0 to capture the school's first Hockey East Regular Season Championship and sit at 30-9-0 overall after surpassing the program's previous wins record of 21 from 2006-07. UMass earned its first Frozen Four berth after posting a pair of 4-0 shutout victories over Harvard and Notre Dame en route to the Northeast Regional title. Four Minutemen were named to the All-Tournament Team at the Northeast Regional and Cale Makar was the Most Outstanding Player.
Carvel's Minutemen have also eclipsed previous school records for home and road victories and posted the longest win streak in program history, nine straight from Oct. 26-Nov. 30, 2018. Taking a team that won just five games two seasons go, Carvel led UMass to its first-ever No. 1 rankings in both the USCHO.com and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine Polls this season and the Minutemen have resided in the top-five in the nation the past 20 weeks straight.
UMass sits in the top-10 nationally in virtually every statistical category, currently first in combined special teams (58.0), second in power play percentage (28.2), second in scoring margin (1.79), third in scoring offense (3.77), fourth in penalty kill (87.5) and sixth in scoring defense (1.97). The Minutemen have posted their highest goals total in the program's Hockey East era (147) and set a program record for power play goals, currently at 40.
On Carvel's watch, UMass has collected a school-record six Hockey East All-Star accolades this season and the program's first-ever Hockey East Player of the Year and Hobey Hat Trick Finalist in Makar. Seven Minutemen have garnered 14 total Hockey East weekly awards in 2018-19, one Goaltender of the Month and one Player of the Month. Sophomore Mitchell Chaffee earned the title of Hockey East Scoring Champion and received the Herb Gallagher Award as New England's best forward. Chaffee, Makar and senior forward Jacob Pritchard were all tabbed New England All-Stars, while Makar picked up both the Bob Monahan Award as New England's best defenseman and the Leonard Fowle Award as New England player of the year. College Hockey News selected Makar as its CHN Player of the year and to its All-CHN First team, while naming Marc Del Gaizo to its CHN All-Rookie Team.