The University of Maine men’s hockey team squandered a glorious opportunity to move closer to clinching a valuable home ice berth for Hockey East’s best-of-three quarterfinal round when the University of Massachusetts upset the Black Bears 4-1 Saturday night at Alfond Arena.
Maine had raced out to a 6-0 lead en route to a 7-3 win over the Minutemen on Friday night.
Maine currently occupies the fourth and final home-ice berth, two points ahead of Merrimack.
Maine is one point behind third-place Boston University, two behind UMass Lowell and three behind league leader Boston College.
The Black Bears have played one more game than the other four.
Maine will travel to ninth-place Northeastern for a pair of games this weekend before hosting New Hampshire on Saturday, March 3, in the season finale.
The game with New Hampshire has been switched from a 7 p.m. start to a 4 p.m. face-off because the New England Sports Network plans to televise the game.
BU travels to last-place Vermont for a pair this weekend; Boston College has a home-and-home series with sixth-place Providence; UMass Lowell and Merrimack play a home-and-home set and eighth-place UMass hosts seventh-place New Hampshire for two.
Maine coach Tim Whitehead and his Black Bears watched the videotape of Saturday’s lackluster performance on Monday afternoon before closing the book on the loss.
“At this point, we just have to look forward,” said junior defenseman and assistant captain Mike Cornell. “We’ll take what we can from Saturday night. It wasn’t our best effort. We have to focus on Friday night and try to get those two points back.”
Junior right wing Matt Mangene said the team has “to play a full game, not just 20 or 40 minutes.”
“It happens sometimes. The pucks were going in easy Friday night. Saturday was a different story,” added Mangene. “We’ve got to learn to get the pucks to the net and grind in the dirty areas [in front of the net]. We didn’t do that Saturday.”
Junior defenseman Nick Pryor concurred.
“Maybe we thought it was going to come easy on Saturday,” speculated Nick Pryor. “We got away from the little things we’d been doing well all year. For the defensemen, that means breaking the puck out to the forwards; keeping tight gaps [with the forwards] and playing well defensively. For the forwards, it means getting the puck out of our zone, getting it deep in their zone and applying pressure to try to force their defense into turnovers.”
Whitehead said it’s a long season and every team is going to have games such as Saturday night’s, which snapped a six-game Alfond Arena winning streak.
“It was just bad timing,” he said. “We have to resist the temptation to look back and say what if [we had won]. We need to get closure on it and move on.
“It was a good lesson relearned,” added Whitehead. “This team has done a good job fighting through adversity all year. It was disappointing that we didn’t find a way to win Saturday.
“The more consistent we are executing the game plan, the more successful we’re going to be. It’s more crucial to execute it now because there’s a slimmer margin of error.”
Maine’s 22 shots on goal Saturday was its lowest total since it mustered 20 in a 6-4 win at Vermont on Dec. 2 and, according to Whitehead, that epitomized his team’s inability to get pucks to the net as the players tried to do too much on their own.
He knows his team will be severely tested by a desperate Northeastern team this weekend.
“We know the challenge ahead and we’re going to have to rise up. We’re looking forward to it,” he said.
Maine is still tied for eighth in the Pairwise Rankings with Minnesota. The Pairwise Rankings mimic the NCAA Tournament selection process. Maine moved up to 10th from 11th in the USCHO poll.
Yes, as per Tim’s comments, the team must move on. And so must AD Steve Abbott in firing Coach Whitehead at season’s end. What may have worked in Albania doesn’t work in the US.
Absolutely unacceptable “performance” this time of the year. Whitehead proves once again that he lacks both motivational skills and the ability to make in-game adjustments. Good grief enough already Abbott – pony up the $ and get someone in there who can do the job!
How much are you $$ demanding for the job. Or, even an interview at the very least. You definitely seem like the perfect candidate that could take the team to the promised land. But then again, Abbot/Whitehead could really give two craps about who you are or what you say. As well as most of Maine fans, BDN, Hockeyeastonline, and USCHO.com.
oh no there that mikkey-hart noew hatin on them maine fans why why you do that mickey heart you not support team just hate on them fans,,m, oh you a funny little man mikkey-hart haha
“Good Grief” A bad game and you would like to end the program! The team has played well since Christmas except for the Friday game at Provdence and saturdays game. Sounds like you never had a bad shift or a bad game or even a bad day at work. I like this years team because they started out not believing and they now believe in themselves.This game is a cinch up in the stands but on the ice sheet it’s a little different . Go Blackbears!
i dont see anywhere where bbear94 says anything about ending the program. and i have to agree with him that maine team is due for a coaching change. its been what 5-6 years since maine made ncaas that seem like too long for most fans.
Tim Whitehead will never be Sean Walsh. That is just a fact. Perhaps in some ways a change would be better, perhaps a more fiery type of personality is needed. However I have a lot of respect for Tim as it appears he does keep his young men in line and runs a clean program. Look at BU and the mess they have with all the player misconduct issues there. If Whitehead needs to recruit thugs to make our team the best in College Hockey then I would prefer to not be the number one team in college hockey.
Well Written. Tim is not given enough credit for how he leads men. I respect him as a man and think he is good for the school.
Coach Walsh’s name is spelled SHAWN. Loss of credibilty from line 1 and that is too bad becuase it was a really good point.
There are coaches out there who are far more talented that Whitehead who also run clean programs.
Here we go: Jerry York, Norm Bazin, Jeff Jackson, George Gwodzecky, Dick Umile, Don Lucia, Scott Sandelin, Dean Blais, Mike Eaves, Red Berenson, Tom Anastos, Mark Dennehy – well, you get the picture.
I don’t think the “but he’s a nice guy and runs a clean program” argument is enough to offset Whitehead’s obvious lack of coaching and recruiting abilities. UMO needs a head coaching change….
bu is the exception. there are tons of better teams than maine that have no player conduct issues. and every team is going to have one every once a while. remind us all of the player issues maine had under walsh? other than wayne conlin and barry clukey cannot think of any, and those guys had probelms with walsh not police.
Thats going back a few years with Conklin and Clukey. I will not say that I knew Walsh very well, but I did know him as I had occassion to see him from time to time in my work. I found him at times a bit arragont and abrasive. I have occassion to see Whitehead under the same circumstances that I used to see Walsh. I have always found Tim very polite and personable and not at all full of himself. Perhaps a little bit of temper is needed to coach hockey as a little bit is needed in football.
Walsh always seemed to be able to recruit players that no one else noticed and then get the most out of them. Jean Yves Roy was a fireman in Quebec when he was found. Paul Kariya? Montgomery? Garth Snowe? Walsh was a lot like Bill Bellicheck that way in my opinion. Maybe a lot of that had to do with Standbrook too.
I also think we have to take into account the mind set of a young college athlete today versus one from twenty years ago. Are young men playing today of the same mindset as young men were back then? Look at professional sports. Many of todays athletes act in ways that we never saw in years going back.
yes many years but point being both walsh’s record of player staying out of trouble is as clean as whiteheads, who has also had problems with players sirman and darling as examples. darling did something so he was let go or maybe it was whitehead but either way its similar to clukey and conlon so on this point whitehead is no better than walsh. but who has 2 national titles and 4 hockey east trophys and who doesnt.
i was around walsh plenty mostly after games when i worked in the boosted lounge and he would come in after every game and shake hands along with 1 or 2 player who had good game that night. the team would also come into the wells commons for team breakfast every saturday morning and he would go over every aspect of the game. i never read walsh as arrogant as abbrasive but more as totally committed to winning and the development of his players.
two coaches different philosophies but at day end one won alot and one doesn’t. i would ask you don’t you think theres a coach out there who could keep program clean while also winning games?
Darling was more or less kicked off the team do to alcohol abuse issues that he refused to get under control.
Hopefully the other top teams have a few misfortunate games…It’s too tight at the top to be giving up points.
“We have to focus on Friday night and try to get those two points back.”-sorry those two points are gone!
Maine started last weekend in 5th in Hockey East……they are now in 4th
Maine came into last weekend 11th in USCHO poll……..they are now tenth
Maine came into last weekend 8th in the pairwise……..they are now 8th
as they say in “Demolition Man”: “Enhance your calm”