UMass Lowell swept Vermont in Burlington last weekend to advance to its first Hockey East semifinal game since 2002, and the River Hawks will take on Northeastern in a matchup of the two most physical teams in the league.

Ben Holmstrom

Inside College Hockey caught up with Lowell junior captain Ben Holmstrom earlier this week. Holmstrom has six goals and 14 assists this season, and he registered an assist against the Catamounts in the quarterfinals.

Inside College Hockey: Describe the mood in the locker room as you guys are getting set to return to practice today.

Ben Holmstrom: Everybody is real excited around here coming off a big weekend like that. Obviously, it’s been awhile since Lowell has been to the Hockey East final four, and the emotions are high right now. We’re ready to get back to work this week. We’re excited to go out there and give it our best on Friday.

INCH: What do you anticipate the atmosphere to be like?

BH: I think the atmosphere is going to be great. There’s going to be a lot of energy in the building, but I don’t think it will be anything that will affect our game too much. We’re going to go out there and play hockey. We should be upbeat, and it’s an easy game to get up for with some good electricity going through the building.

INCH: Did you keep a close eye on the other Hockey East playoff games Sunday night?

BH: Yeah, the guys were watching the scores on the Internet and refreshing the page every period or so, just keeping an eye on it. It was interesting. We wanted to know who we were going to be playing on Friday night and how things were shaking out.

INCH: Why have you had so much success up in Vermont?

BH: There’s a lot of reasons that we’ve had some success up there. We stuck to our game plan pretty good. We got to our forecheck and kept things pretty simple up there and played a good road game. Then, obviously we got good goaltending throughout the weekend. When you’re making a playoff run like that, it’s huge. We were just kind of keeping things simple. We didn’t have anybody to impress out there on the road. I think that kind of worked in our favor.

INCH: You guys could have gone up to either UNH or Vermont, depending on how the last weekend of the regular season played itself out. Were you excited when you knew  you were going to Vermont because you just had a solid weekend up there a few weeks before?

BH: Yeah, I think it definitely helped our confidence going up there knowing that we did have some success up there. When you get hot, you get confident that a team can ride that a long way.

INCH: You were down 3-1 Friday night, tied the game with the goalie pulled and then won in overtime. What happened to turn it all around?

BH: We got down there, but we really just stuck to our game plan. We kept playing the body and stuck with our system. We started chipping away at it, made it 3-2, got that big goal from [Nick] Schaus late with like 30 seconds to go, which was huge. But it was the same thing we were doing all game. We got the puck in. We tried to get it in on our forecheck, turn the puck over and then we got it on the net. Fortunately, we were able to get it to go in. Overtime, we had a face-off in there with probably 30 seconds left. We had two guys in there, Scott Campbell and Mark Roebothan, just kind of mucking it out in the corner there. They pulled the puck out, found Maury Edwards in the slot. Just kind of working it all the way out to the buzzer was something that early in the season caused us to lose some tight one-goal games in similar situations. I think we’ve learned from that a bit, playing all the way to the buzzer and getting it to go our way.

INCH: On Saturday, did the team discuss attacking Vermont early with a little extra intention because you knew they might have still been suffering from a shock factor from Friday night’s loss?

BH: Yeah, a little bit. We wanted to get off to a good start regardless, but I think when you’re on the opposite end of a game like that, it can take a lot of life out of you. They came out real hard, and we knew they were going to do that. But we knew if we stuck with our game and matched their intensity then we’d be all right.

INCH: Scott Campbell has been on an impressive run in the last few games. Has he become your on-ice leader?

BH: Yeah, he’s playing on a good line there with Mark Roebothan and Mike Potacco. That line together works really well. They get into the corners, and all three are big and strong. Soupy takes it to the net and finds loose pucks around the net. He’s a smart player on the ice, and he knows how to find those spots to score goals. That line was really what got us going on Saturday night, and Soupy got that empty-netter. I forget if it was [Roebothan] or Potacco. They were low in the zone, pushed the Vermont defenseman out, and Soupy came and mopped up the puck and put it in the net. He’s been playing real well. That line really gets a lot of energy going for our team.

INCH: I’m sure it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why his nickname is Soupy.

BH: Yeah, it’s pretty common.

INCH: Is that something that started in Lowell, or did he tell you that’s been his nickname for awhile?

BH: I think that was something they called him for awhile, and it was kind of a no-brainer when he got here. We just started calling him Soupy.

INCH: Are there any other good nicknames on the team?

BH: Well, Paul Worthington has about 20 nicknames. Nobody would understand them if we went all the way through them, but we call him “Snakeskin” for a long story. That’s one of them. It’s just something that goes through the locker room, everybody calling everybody nicknames and stuff like that.

INCH: Is the “Snakeskin” story one that I could print?

BH: Yeah, it is. He wears these ridiculous cowboy boots, and I think one pair might be made out of snakeskin or something like that. He catches a little flack for that.

INCH: What’s it like being on a team with so many juniors?

BH: It’s a lot different of a situation than a lot of teams have. We’re really heavy in that one class. Right now, it’s working out great for us. In the previous few years, it’s tough because you’re going through some growing pains together with a lot of young guys playing and not having a lot of experience. But right now, it’s a tight group, and it helps with all of the experience that we’ve gained as a class and as a team really. Because even the seniors and the sophomore class right behind us, we all went through the playoffs last year and losing to BU in Game 3, we got a lot of experience coming from that. It seems like it’s a fairly seasoned team when it comes to the first round of the playoffs now. Playing at the Garden this weekend is obviously something nobody on this team has been through before, but I think we got a lot of confidence and guys know how to handle pressure situations like this. It should work out good.

INCH: With that large junior class and the growth you had made together, did you know going into the season you had the makings of something special?

BH: Yeah, we knew going in that we had a lot of seasoned guys that had a couple years under their belts, a lot of big games, a lot of ups and downs. But you knew this was going to be a season that we could try to do something special. I think making it to the Garden is a great reward for us, but I don’t think anybody really wants to stop there. We’re going to go in there knowing we want to play all the way through to the end.

INCH: You had a six-game losing streak earlier this season and lost a lot of one-goal games before you started winning the majority of those one-goal games. Do you think the process of growing together as a team took a little while as the season progressed?

BH: Yeah, absolutely. We had a lot of one-goal losses earlier in the season. Toward the second half, we were on the right side of those. It takes a little bit to learn how to win those close games. It’s guys doing the little details throughout the game that can make the difference. When we started amplifying those small details, I think that’s when we started to pick up the one-goal wins. That’s something you definitely have to go through kind of as a growing pain and a learning process. I think that helped our team here in the stretch run.

INCH: What needs to happen differently against Northeastern that didn’t happen when they swept you at the end of February?

BH: I think we have to worry about how we play our game. If we go out there and we do what we know what we can do, we should be all right. We’ve got to be sharp defensively. Last series when we played them, we had a couple small letdowns. And they’re a good team, and if you make a mistake, that leads to a goal against good teams. I think we just have to have extra concentration out there. Do our thing, but at the same time, not let little mistakes creep into our game.

INCH: Have you watched the Hockey East semifinals and finals in the past, or is that something you tried to stay away from once you were eliminated?

BH: We’d definitely watch it. Obviously, your season is over, and you’re not always in the greatest mood watching teams that beat you. But you keep an eye on it because you want to know what’s going on. You want to be there. You want to know what it’s like. We’ve definitely watched the games in previous years.

INCH: And now you guys are in that spotlight while it’s the other teams watching you.

BH: Yeah, absolutely. Guys are really excited that we got a couple good wins this last weekend and excited to be playing on a big stage right now.