ORONO, Maine — The University of Massachusetts gave the University of Maine a bitter dose of its own medicine Saturday night and bounced back from a humbling 7-3 loss on Friday night to deal the 11th-ranked Black Bears a costly 4-1 setback in a men’s hockey game at Alfond Arena.
UMass, with just one previous road win this season (1-10-2), received a gift goal 51 seconds into the game on a miscue by goalie Dan Sullivan and never relinquished the lead.
Sophomore left wing Michael Pereira scored what proved to be the game-winner on the power play with 7:35 left in the second period.
Joey Diamond gave the Black Bears some life with a highlight-reel goal 30 seconds into the third period but Rocco Carzo’s goal off a four-on-two with 8:16 left in regulation gave UMass some critical breathing room and Eric Filiou added an empty-net goal.
UMass improved to 11-14-5 overall, 7-12-4 in Hockey East while the Black Bears fell to 18-10-3 and 13-9-2, respectively. Maine had its six-game Alfond Arena winning streak snapped.
“They won a lot of the one-on-one battles for the puck. They outworked us,” said Maine senior defenseman and co-captain Will O’Neill.
“We didn’t play hard enough,” agreed Diamond.
Maine coach Tim Whitehead said “the better team won.
“They won more puck battles. That first goal energized them and we tried to do too much [individually],” said Whitehead, who watched his Black Bears often try to stick-handle through a maze of well-positioned Minutemen instead of dumping the puck in the offensive zone and establishing a forecheck.
Redshirt freshman Steven Guzzo snapped a 12-game goal-less drought in opening the scoring.
Sullivan lost sight of the puck behind the net and inadvertently carried it into the crease between his skates.
“I think the goalie lost it and I was lucky enough to be there and put it in,” said Guzzo.
Sullivan said, “I don’t know what happened.
“I tried to give the puck to [Ryan Hegarty] behind the net,” he said.
“That really helped. It gave us a lift,” said UMass coach Don ‘Toot’ Cahoon.
The Minutemen caught a break a few minutes later when Theo Andersson’s wrist shot off a faceoff to the left of goalie Kevin Boyle rang off the far post.
Boyle came up with five Grade-A saves in that first period, including a short-side stop on Brian Flynn’s two-on-one opportunity, and he and his mates also stymied two Black Bear power plays.
Pereira expanded the lead when he was positioned at the edge of the crease to the left of Sullivan and jammed the rebound of a Michael Marcou shot between Sullivan’s left skate and the post.
“I tried to get back but [Pereira] was there,” said Sullivan.
Diamond energized the crowd with his goal as he came out of the corner to the left of Boyle and, while falling to the ice, he lifted a wrister into the short-side corner.
Just 2:37 later, Maine’s John Parker was assessed a five-minute major and game misconduct for hitting from behind, which curtailed his team’s momentum.
Maine killed it off, catching a break when UMass’ T.J. Syner was assessed a minor penalty with 2:29 remaining on the Parker penalty.
But Carzo converted later as Marcou placed a perfect pass on his stick at the top of the crease and he chipped it past the helpless Sullivan.
The four-on-two was generated off a turnover by Matt Mangene in the offensive zone.
“I heard [Jon] Swavely calling for the puck so I dropped the puck for him. But he lost his stick and Theo Andersson and I bumped into each other,” said Mangene.
Cahoon was pleased with the victory.
“It’s an interesting team [I have],” he said. “We had a lot of energy left from last night. We pressured the puck pretty well and [Boyle] was solid.”
Boyle made 21 saves, including 11 of the Grade-A (high-percentage) variety.
He stopped a Diamond breakaway in the second period and a Flynn one-timer from the right circle in the third.
Boyle also received a lot of help from his teammates, who blocked 14 shots while effectively protecting the front of his net.
“We didn’t get enough traffic in front of him,” said Whitehead.
“He played really well. He deserved the win,” said Sullivan, who wound up with 19 saves of which five were of the Grade-A variety.
You simply cannot lose a game like this, at this point in the season, especially at home.
Maine missed a golden opportunity to move 3 points ahead of Merrimack for 4th place. Fortunately for Maine, Merrimack and Lowell have a home-and-home next weekend and Maine plays 9th place Northeastern. Then again, Massachusetts was in 9th place going into tonight’s game….
Tough loss. All Black Bear fans should be pulling hard for Clarkson and Providence. Both teams are on the verge of becoming TUC teams. If Maine can get those comparisons it will make the road to the tourney much easier. Hate to rely on other teams for help but this team can make some noise if it can make it to the dance
How do you not show up for a home game? I don’t get it at all. They couldn’t have played any worse. The 5 min major on Parker was a beeping joke. Corkum let the ref have it anyway.
I’m glad somebody behind the bench has a spine and isn’t afraid to stand up for the team. Corkum coached the team Friday night and it was apparent. Last night Bob let us see how well Tim coaches.
And you know this how? Did Coach Corkum tell you or are you just guessing?
All you had to do was watch the bench…timmay never moved, corkum was actually talking to players and involved…
All Timmay does is stand there chewing his gum.
Corkum would be yelling to the players on the ice while Tim stood there with his hands in his pockets, then when he realized what Corkum as doing and would yell something soon after.
Great weekend for the program!!!!!!!!!!!!! UMaine got screwed in this one big time
Sullivans turnover…??? Your kidding me…Nemec was the turnover prone d-man tonight…his turnovers(4 total)resulted in 2 UMass goals…Come on Larry what game/players were you watching tonight..?
Which game were you watching? The first goal was Sullivan and Hegarty fumbling the puck around on a dump in and that was the only goal Nemec was on the ice for.
that was mostly hegarty, sullivan left it for him and hegarty completely fumbled it…but Nemec was a turnover machine last night, was one of the worst games i’ve seen him play
He was horrible as was the D in general. All I’m saying is the only goal he was on the ice for was the first one.
Nemec needs to sit friday night.
I was at the same game you were at…and sticking to want I said…no matter.
Subject: [bdn] Re: UMass rebounds, knocks off Black Bears 4-1
WTF whitehead!!!!! this is your fault..i thought i was watching john bapst out there tonight…this was a HUGE losss at home…oh yeah that nemec STINKS..sullivan needs to stay in front of the friggin net not behind he screws up so much when he goes behind the net
Besides the lack of effort and the coasting of the seniors on the top line what was frustrating was watching a Maine team totally outclassed and outworked and the staff doing nothing to change the way they played. They couldn’t skate the puck out of their zone, yet they tried all night. They waited to long all night to make passes and when they did pass it was behind or in the skates. It looked like they were back in November.
Very disappointing showing last night, a great crowd showed to support the team but had very little to cheer about. The team never showed and allowed UMASS to dominate in every way.
Agreed – gotta dig deep this time of year boys – congrats to the women today for their come from down 3 in the third — to win 4 – 3 in overtime — that’s how you do it – now lets go get NU boys
It certainly SOUNDED (I wasn’t at the game) like Maine doesn’t realize the kind of tussle they are in in the league and how precious every point is.
Outworked again. Seems to be a problem with this team. TIMMAY’s teams in general, really.
They decide they want to play hard, and work hard, they can play with anyone. But too often they just show up and go through the motions, coast along, and then tell us in the paper how they just didn’t work hard enough.
Well, if you know you aren’t working hard enough, do something about it.
That has Maine’s things for many years now. When they are a good club they tend to often play to the level of their competition. By smoking UMass Friday night they thought they could show up in win. They did that against UAH and didn’t play like they should until they realized “oh crap we might lose”. The positive is that they didn’t drop in the PWR. Mass’s win put them back as a TUC in the PWR so that helped in the national picture apparently. Better than fourth place in HE is looking like a long shot so gotta win out and sew up 4th. This loss to UMass and that loss at Providence knocked them out of shot for better than 4th unless something crazy happens. Merrimack has been awful the second half, below .500. So even if they finish 5th I don’t see it impossible to take 2 out of 3 in Andover but would certainly be better if it was at home.