PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The University of Maine’s six-game winning streak and seven-game unbeaten streak came to an end Friday night.
The Providence College Friars, losers of three straight and five of six, jumped out to a 3-0 lead and used a crucial third-period goal from junior center Tim Schaller to beat the Black Bears 4-3 in men’s hockey action at Schneider Arena.
Providence improved to 11-14-2 overall, 9-10-1 in Hockey East. Maine fell to 16-9-3 and 11-8-2.
Maine will visit UMass Lowell on Saturday night.
“Providence came out ready to play and we didn’t,” said Maine coach Tim Whitehead. “I was disappointed with our start. We were sloppy, especially on our breakouts. Providence deserved the 3-0 lead. We battled back in the second and third periods but it was too little, too late.”
Schaller scored off a two-on-one 7:02 into the third period to make it 4-2.
Whitehead pulled goalie Dan Sullivan in favor of an extra attacker with 1:45 left and Joey Diamond tipped home a Matt Mangene wrister 35 seconds later to pull Maine within one. But the Bears couldn’t get the equalizer.
“We had only three power-play chances. We didn’t have any in the first period because we didn’t work hard enough to draw any,” said Whitehead.
Schaller notched the crucial goal when Matt Bergland pushed the puck around Maine defenseman Mike Cornell at the defensive blue line, enabling Schaller to skate on to it and carry the puck down the left wing.
“I looked over at Drew Brown (racing to the far post) and then I saw their goalie was cheating over (toward Brown) so I took advantage,” said Schaller, who beat Sullivan cleanly with a wrister past his blocker into the short-side corner.
“That was a big goal for us,” said Providence coach and former Maine assistant Nate Leaman.
Senior left wing Bergland gave the Friars a 2-0 lead with goals 3:03 apart
midway through the first period and freshman right wing Shane Luke extended it at the 18:22 mark.
Mangene and Spencer Abbott pulled Maine to within one with second-period goals.
“You can’t come out and give up three goals in the first period against a team like that and expect to come back,” said Abbott. “They outworked us and outmuscled us in the first period. We came out flat.”
“The effort wasn’t there in the first period. They came out flying and we were back on our heels,” said Maine senior defenseman Ryan Hegarty.
The Friars looked like anything but a team that had scored just seven goals in its previous six games over the first 20 minutes.
They were a step quicker and more physical than the Black Bears and won most of the puck battles.
They were able to sustain their forecheck and force turnovers with their pressure.
Maine’s sustained forechecks were few and far between.
Providence generated 10 Grade-A (high-percentage) scoring chances to Maine’s three.
“We’ve been focusing on getting off to a better start,” said Bergland. “It was nice to be able to play with a lead.”
Bergland opened the scoring at the 9:23 mark.
Schaller took a shot from the top of the right circle that Sullivan kicked out.
The puck deflected into the middle of the slot and Bergland and Maine’s Diamond got tangled up.
Begland took a shot and it carried into the net with the body of the sliding Diamond.
Bergland scored again off a Drew Brown rebound.
Brown came out of the corner and snapped off a shot from just beyond the crease. Sullivan made the save but the rebound spilled into the right circle where Bergland converted with a rising wrister into the short side.
Luke finished off a pretty passing sequence for the 3-0 lead.
Stefan Demopoulos controlled the puck in the corner and fed a short pass to Ross Mauermann. Mauermann slipped it across to the far post where Luke flipped it home.
Mangene reduced the lead to 3-1 3:50 into the second period.
Nick Pryor wristed the puck to the net from the right point and a scramble ensued.
Several Bears had whacks at the puck and Mangene was able to jam it home.
Sullivan kept the deficit at two when he robbed Andy Balysky, who busted down the right wing on a breakaway while the Friars were shorthanded.
Sullivan was able to get his blocker on Balysky’s wrister from the base of the right circle.
Abbott sliced the lead to 3-2 with 1:52 left when he converted a two-on-one off a pass from Brian Flynn, one-timing Flynn’s pass inside the near post.
Maine had some great chances to equalize over the final 1:52 but PC goalie Alex Beaudry came out with some important saves off some point-blank shots by Diamond, who was at the edge of the crease to the goalie’s right.
Providence outshot Maine 32-30 and ended Maine’s streak of consecutive games with at least one power-play goal at 19. Maine went 0-for-10 on the power play against Providence in three games this season, including 0-for-3 on Friday.
Beaudry finished with 27 saves including nine Grade-A’s. Sullivan had 28 stops including 12 Grade-A’s.
Difference here tonight is falling behind 3-0 to PC is alot different then falling behind UAH…and PC’s Alex Beaudry hot in net…hopefully a wakeup call,sadly…UML tommorrow…big game and alot at stake in the PWR.
oh another wake up call
Can’t keep getting behind 3-0 in games. It’s a must win at Lowell tomorrow.
Wow, Lowell is now #1 PWR and 1st in HEA after tonight’s win and BU loss. This same team won just 5 games last year. Shows what a coaching change can do…
where are the apologists
?
can ONE of them explain how Maine could play at half speed even when they were down 2-0 and 3-0?
the upside is that Whitehead FINALLY gave a statement to the press that it was his fault for not having the boys ready for this game and they he did not rally the troops to be up for a Nate Leaman-coached team.
Leaman is now 3-2 against Timmy in their last 5 meetings.
(oh and Leaman has been to the NCAA tournament more recently too)
If the team played at half speed being down 1, 2 and 3 goals the fault would be with the coaching staff….and the Captains and then the TEAM
jd, if a coach sees the team hasn’t come out of the gates strong, it is their job to recognize it and refocus the team. They aren’t professional players, they are just college kids. This refocusing has to be before the damage is done. Clearly something happened and they started to play for he final 40 minutes. But this is the second weekend they have spotted their opponent a 3 goal lead in the Friday night game.
Last weekend, Corkum’s tirade between periods supposedly motivated the team and refocused them. What happened last night?
7 of the 11 teams ranked above Maine in USCHO’s weekly poll, including ALL the top 4 teams lost last night. There sure are a lot of crappy coaches in college hockey…
Corkum is the assistant coach, tirades are for the head coach. Apparently Tim has missed the memo in all of his years of coaching. Corkum seems to take things personally when the team doesn’t execute their game plan whereas Tim just tries to find something to blame like not getting the bounces. I remember Corkum, Kerluke and Whitehead walking off after the home sweep by Lowell, Tim didn’t seem too broken up over it, Corkum and Kerluke on the other hand, I’m pretty sure their blood pressure was off the map.
Yes the coaching staff is responsible for preparing the team for the game. The Captains are responsible for executing that plan.
And yes, they are first and foremost college students. But they are far from “kids”. Many have played Minor hockey post high school. Some have played a year of post high school while they attend prep school.
Again, I agree with everything you posted with the exception they are “kids”.
Well to be honest, TIMMAY said the team wasn’t prepared to play. He didn’t say it was his fault.
““You can’t come out and give up three goals in the first period against a team like that and expect to come back,” said Abbott. “They outworked us and outmuscled us in the first period. We came out flat.”
“The effort wasn’t there in the first period. They came out flying and we were back on our heels,” said Maine senior defenseman Ryan Hegarty.”
I’ve said it before, there’s a lot of things in a game that you can’t control. Bad rebounds, puck luck, pucks deflecting, etc. But you can control the effort you put out, and the how hard you’re gonna work in the game. For a team that’s fiighting just to get a shot at the tournament, there’s no excuse for not working hard and not putting out maximum effort, every shift. There’s no reason any other team should be outworking them.
If they decide they will outwork, outmuscle, and outhustle their opponents, every shift, every period, every game, they might just find out that they end up winning those games.
Can’t win them all but you can be ready to play and its obvious they weren’t. Thinking about Lowell would be my guess
Providence ended your win streak, now it is time to end Lowell’s home win streak. Need to play SIXTY MINUTES of hard nosed in-your-face hockey. GOoooooo Blue!!!!!
Ugh…..a tough loss lastnight….UML is going to be just as tough, but maybe thats what we need after how they played lastnight….glad to see Diamond is back, that’ll help tonight even if it didnt much lastnight. Lets take them down and put this loss behind us! Go BlackBears!
Appears to be a classic case of overlooking an opponent and looking ahead to the next game……
So much for that top-notch power play. I think they had three total shots on three power plays. They really need to get some points tonight against UML. Hopefully coach Corkum sits them down today.
Go Blue! Outstanding Lowell game Maine!!!!