‘Winning’ and ‘UMass hockey’ were like oil and water before Greg Carvel arrived in Amherst.

The Minutemen were perennial losers – save for their lone NCAA Tournament appearance in 2006-07 — who finished a season with a winning percentage above .500 just three times in the 23 years of UMass’ history as a Division 1 program pre-Carvel.

But now, in less than a decade at the helm at UMass, Carvel has completely revamped the hockey team’s identity and reputation en route to claiming the Minutemen’s all-time program coaching wins record following their 5-3 victory at UMass Lowell on March 1.

Carvel earned win No. 167 against the River Hawks, passing Don ‘Toot’ Cahoon, in his ninth year behind the bench. Cahoon picked up 166 wins in 12 years as UMass’ coach.

“This is one of the bigger regular-season wins for me, not because of any milestone, this was the next step for this team,” Carvel said following win No. 167 in Lowell. “I think consistently our teams here have done that, the second half we really pick it up and you saw that last year. We almost beat Denver in the NCAA Tournament and I have that same feeling here with this group.”

Carvel’s answer showed just how far the Minutemen hockey program has come. Not only are they in good position to qualify for their sixth NCAA Tournament under Carvel this season, but they expect to be in the mix for a national championship.

More accurately, another national championship.

Before Carvel, UMass hockey fans would call a 15-win season a successful one. Now, since the team’s magical run to the national championship game in 2019, not appearing in the NCAA tournament would be considered a letdown.

TOUGH LOVE

The million dollar question is simply, how? How did Carvel do what some thought to be impossible? How did Carvel take a floundering college hockey program and turn it into a national champion in just five seasons?

To start, coaching style.

“He’s a hard coach who wants the best for every single one of his players,” Minutemen captain Linden Alger said. “He does a good job of building a relationship with his players throughout their time here and he, like I said, he wants the best for all the players.”

Carvel spent seven years as an assistant coach in the NHL between the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and the Ottawa Senators before he shifted to coaching in the college ranks in 2011-12 at St. Lawrence — his alma mater.

After five seasons with the Skating Saints, Carvel was hired by UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford in the spring of 2016 to turn the Minutemen around.

His first season was infamous in that he won just five games and lost 29. However, his second year behind the bench in Amherst is when the groundwork toward success really started to be laid.

“I remember being impressed… impressed and intimidated,” former Minutemen captain Jake Gaudet —who now stars for the Cleveland Monsters in the AHL — said of his first impressions of Carvel during his freshman season in 2017. “With how prepared he was, I think for all aspects, not just practice. I think the practices, there was no wasted time at all. Every single thing you do on the ice, there was intent and there's purpose behind it, but it was almost the same philosophy away from the rink as well, where it was probably as demanding. There was expectations to be a good student, a good person, to carry yourself as a part of the team, as the culture. And I think it was very quick, even in the summer, when we were training, that it quickly became understood kind of what was expected was a lot more than just what happened at the rink.”

The culture shift — plus help from a loaded freshman class of Cale Makar, Mario Ferraro, Mitchell Chaffee and Gaudet — was immediate as the Minutemen improved to 17 wins during Carvel’s second year. They also claimed a Hockey East playoff series victory against Vermont.

The following year, UMass opened eyes around the college hockey world with 31 wins and a national runner-up finish. Since then, the Minutemen have been a respected program, but Carvel’s coaching ways haven’t wavered.

“He really hammers down on the tiny, small details that make a huge difference in our game,” Alger said.

COLLECTIVE TRUST

Ben Barr — the current head coach at Maine — interviewed for the head coaching gig at UMass the year it went to Carvel.

Despite compiling an impressive resume as an assistant where he helped Union and Providence build national-championship-winning teams, plus another stop as an associate coach at Western Michigan, Barr was beat out for the job in Amherst by Carvel.

That didn’t stop Barr from phoning Carvel — who he barely knew — to see if he’d be interested in bringing him on as an assistant coach.

“I mean, in our world, you don't know who's interested and not, and he would have not known that I would have been interested in leaving Western [Michigan] either,” Barr said.

Carvel obviously liked what Barr brought to the table and hired him as an assistant, which proved to be a shrewd decision. Barr’s spectacular ability to find under-the-radar recruits helped the Minutemen land some high-end players including Chaffee — who was originally eyeing Western Michigan — before Barr convinced him to consider UMass when he joined the Minutemen coaching staff.

Barr spent five seasons with UMass and earned his first national championship as a coach — he left both Union and Providence before they ultimately won their national titles – with the Minutemen in 2021. Now in his fourth season as the leader of the Black Bears, Barr said that Carvel’s ability to trust not only his players, but his coaching staff was what he learned the most from working alongside him.

“I think the biggest piece was just understanding how important trusting your assistants is, and letting them do their thing and grow through things,” Barr said. “I don't have all the answers to everything and when you go from an assistant to a head coach, I think maybe human nature is to think you know everything just because you have a new title, and it really doesn't change. You're still always trying to get better and understanding you need all the people around you to feel empowered to do things too is really important. We have that here [at Maine] and I think I learned that from him, with how he treated us.”

STANDARD SET

If you’re around Carvel for any sort of time in a hockey rink, he’s likely to mention his standard for the team. He says it often throughout the course of the season to the media and probably even more frequently to his players behind closed doors.

Simply put, Carvel expects all his players to play a certain way and if they don’t, they’re not the right fit for his program.

“I think there's an expectation there of a standard,” Gaudet said. “We talked about that a lot, but he's not willing to tolerate anything lower than that. I think as a result, it maintains the culture and the expectations around the program, and I think it instills an expectation of success within that.”

Clearly, that standard yields success as the Minutemen have averaged 20 wins a season — following Carvel’s first year as coach — since the Canton, New York native took over in Amherst. UMass currently has 18 wins with two games left in the regular season — a weekend set Friday and Saturday against Barr’s Maine Black Bears at the Mullins Center.

While not for everybody, the players that handle Carvel’s rigorous expectations feel that they’re better off because of it.

“I'd say he's definitely the best coach I've ever had,” Alger said. “He's a very, very fair coach. You kind of get what you deserve with him. That's kind of something he says, like he doesn't really care where you came from, if you're drafted [or] undrafted, he will give everyone an opportunity.

“I have so much respect for him, kind of the way he goes about his day, the way he cares about his players, the way he looks out for his players, he's really just a special guy and a special coach,” Alger said.

Respect seems to go hand-in-hand with Carvel’s philosophy in running a hockey team, and while players have come and gone throughout the years, one thing appears to remain the same — with Carvel at the top, UMass is a winner.

“He's my favorite [coach], for sure, and is the one I've spent probably the most time with, and that's had the greatest impact on me, both professionally and just as a person,” Gaudet said.  “I think he asked a lot of me and a lot of my teammates, but I don't think any of us would be who we are without having gone through that experience. And it's something I'm super grateful for now, kind of looking back and reflecting on my time at UMass.”

Nearly a decade into Carvel’s tenure, ‘UMass hockey’ and ‘winning’ have become synonymous. And the program’s new all-time wins leader only has eyes to add to that growing number.

Ryan Ames is a Daily Hampshire Gazette sports reporter who covers the UMass hockey team. He can be reached at rames@gazettenet.com