LOWELL SUN: Ice Hockey - River Hawks' 'Odd Couple' have kept their net clean
By Chaz Scoggins, Lowell Sun Staff

(February 7, 2008) In terms of their goaltending styles, sophomores Nevin Hamilton and Carter Hutton couldn't be more different. Even off the ice they're complete opposites.

"I call them our 'Odd Couple,'" says UMass Lowell hockey coach Blaise MacDonald, alluding to the popular Neil Simon play that became a movie and long-running TV series. "Nevin's very neat, and Carter's more of a slob. But they get along together great."

Proving, once again, that opposites do attract.

But as different as they are, Hamilton and Hutton do have something in common.

They win.

With Hamilton and Hutton guarding the UML net, the River Hawks have already won more games than they did a year ago, and the team that won only eight games all last winter has been nationally ranked for the last nine weeks despite regularly dressing 16 freshmen and sophomores.

At last look Hutton ranked high among Division I goaltenders with a 1.98 goals-against average and .924 save percentage. Hamilton had a 2.50 GA average and .915 save percentage, and they both ranked among the top six goalies in Hockey East.

"I don't expect goalies to steal games for us," MacDonald says. "But I do expect them to give our team a level of confidence and trust that they will be our strongest warriors."

Hamilton and Hutton have met those expectations.

"I don't think we ever go into a game anymore hoping our goalies are going to play good and holding our breath for the first three or four shots," MacDonald says." "It frees up your mind."

Both goalies showed flashes of excellence as freshmen last winter. But injuries held both of them back.

Hamilton, who had red-shirted the previous year, started the season's first game at Minnesota-Duluth and pulled a hamstring just 2:03 into the game. He played only 8 1/2 more minutes in a relief role until mid-January when Hutton went down with an ACL injury.

"I played real well at the start," Hutton says. "Then, after I got hurt, my game dropped off."

Having played barely 10 minutes of competitive hockey in more than 18 months, it took Hamilton awhile to get into a groove. But in February he earned Hockey East Rookie of the Month honors by posting a 1.52 GA average and .932 save percentage in seven games, including three shutouts and a scoreless streak of 187:45.

"I still felt I could have played a lot better," Hamilton says. "But that month was a huge boost to my confidence."

Hutton played the last 2 1/2 games of the season and allowed only four goals while stopping 66 of 70 shots.

"My grades for them as freshmen would have been incompletes," MacDonald says. "We didn't get Carter until July, and he wasn't mentally or physically ready for college hockey. And then when he got injured after a good start, he never got the back to the form he should have.

"Nevin started the year by pulling a muscle in his first game, and he wasn't the same goalie for most of the season. So they never really had a chance to compete with a clean slate. They were never completely healthy.

"But I thought with a year's experience they would play well as long as they stayed healthy and played," MacDonald says.

Neither arrived on campus with an overwhelming goaltending resume.

Hamilton played five years in the Eastern Junior Hockey League, and after his first season Colorado College and Maine tried to get him to commit as a future recruit. But Hamilton wasn't ready to make a commitment, and his next three seasons were mediocre.

"Everything dropped off until my last year when we won the league championship and Lowell called," says Hamilton, who compiled a 28-8-4 record with a 2.02 GA average and .920 save percentage for the Boston Junior Bruins that winter.

But he still had to red-shirt at UML for a year before getting a chance to play.

Hutton was barely scouted because he played junior hockey in a Canadian league not renowned for developing future college players.

"Most of the players in our league weren't college oriented. They were going to become tradesmen," Hutton explains. "But I wanted to go to college, so I took the SATs and was ready."

But he played for a terrible team and wasn't noticed until he backstopped the Fort William North Stars to the Central Canada Junior A Championship in 2006.

"When I first started playing juniors, we were one of the worst teams in the country. I think we won only four games all season," Hutton remembers. "I had to learn how to lose first before I could learn how to win."

Once he learned, he couldn't lose. Hutton went 32-1-0 with a 1.90 GA average and .925 save percentage during the regular season and then went 7-0 with a 1.57 GA average and .921 save percentage in the tournament.

Still, college offers weren't filling his mailbox back home in Thunder Bay, Ont., until UML's Peter Vetri, Hockey East's Rookie of the Year in 2004-05, decided to transfer to Quinnipiac during the summer following his sophomore year.

"I didn't have any other options. But Vetri left, and I stepped right in," Hutton says. "Then Nevin got hurt right away, and that opened up the door for me to play more."

Now both Hamilton and Hutton are healthy, playing well, and providing inspiration for the young teammates in front of them.

"I talked with Arturs Irbe when he was with the Lowell Lock Monsters a while back, and he said his only goal was to play well so his defensemen could explore their potential," MacDonald says of the former NHL goaltender. "As a former defenseman myself, I can appreciate that."