BOSTON, Mass. — Boston University’s Terriers capitalized on a freshman mistake and then gave the youthful University of Maine men’s hockey team a valuable lesson on how to protect a lead.
Senior left wing Chris Higgins’ goal off a turnover by Maine freshman goalie Scott Darling with eight-tenths of a second left in the first period broke a 1-1 tie and the nation’s No. 2-ranked team completely smothered the Black Bears the rest of the way en route to an impressive 4-1 triumph at Agganis Arena Saturday night.
The first of two goals by freshman left wing Chris Connolly staked BU to a 1-0 lead before Maine’s Robby Dee equalized on the power play with 1:49 left in the first period.
In the waning seconds of the period, Darling gloved the puck and tried to flip it into the corner to kill off the clock.
But Jason Lawrence pounced on it and shoveled a backhand pass to the front of the net that Higgins backhanded over Darling’s blocker side shoulder.
“I thought it was the right play at the time but it just didn’t work out. It was stupid by me,” said Darling. “I didn’t want a faceoff in our zone with two seconds left because you never know what can happen.”
“He probably expected Jason to give up on the play,” said Higgins. “But Jason made a great heads-up play to throw it back in front. I went hard to the net and saw [Darling] going down, so I chipped it over his right shoulder.”
“That totally switched the momentum for us for the rest of the game. That helped out a lot,” said BU senior defenseman and co-captain Matt Gilroy.
But the Bears had a golden opportunity to equalize in the second period.
Maine had 8:13 of power-play time, including a five-minute advantage when Joe Pereira was assessed a five-minute major for hitting from behind. Maine also had a 36-second two-man advantage.
But the Terriers used their superior speed, experience and skill to render the Maine power play inept.
The Bears rarely tested BU freshman goalie Kieran Millan the whole evening.
Connolly expanded the lead with 1:07 left in the second period and Brandon Yip added a third-period goal.
The Terriers limited Maine to three third-period shots and a total of 16 for the game which matched Maine’s previous season-low.
BU had 26 shots on goal.
BU improved to 14-4-1 overall, 7-4-1 in Hockey East. The Terriers extended their unbeaten streak to eight games (7-0-1) and they have now gone 9-0-1 in their last 10 meetings with the Black Bears.
Maine fell to 10-8-2 and 5-6-1, respectively. The Bears are 0-3-1 in their last four.
“I don’t like how we played, but BU was a big reason for it. They played great defensively,” said Maine coach Tim Whitehead, who pointed out that his Bears exhibited “poor puck management.”
“We didn’t get the puck deep [in the BU zone] and they scored three of their goals off it,” said Whitehead.
“They have a lot of skill, so when we turn the puck over, we make it harder on ourselves,” said Maine sophomore center Tanner House. “They capitalized on a lot of our turnovers.”
Connolly opened the scoring by taking a Corey Trivino pass, skating unattended down the middle of the slot and roofing a 20-foot wrister over Darling’s blocker.
Dee tied it by gathering a Chris Hahn rebound and lifting it over Millan from in close.
Connolly’s next goal came off a wrist shot from the high slot that deflected in off Maine defenseman Simon Danis-Pepin.
“It was going high glove side, but it hit [Danis-Pepin] in the knee, changed direction and went blocker side before hitting the post and going in,” said Darling.
“I tried to throw it at the net to try to get a rebound. It took a few bounces. I was pretty lucky,” said Connolly.
Yip iced it by sweeping home a rebound after two Darling stops.
Darling finished with 11 Grade-A (high-percentage) saves among his 22 while Millan had seven among his 15.