WORCESTER, Mass. — Dan Sullivan holds himself to high standards in terms of his play as a goaltender.
That’s why he was disappointed Saturday night after a fluke bounce and a bad decision by him helped seal the fate of the University of Maine men’s hockey team in their 5-2 NCAA Northeast Regional loss to Minnesota-Duluth at the DCU Center.
The Black Bears’ sophomore made 21 saves, including turning away two breakaway bids, but he and his teammates came up short.
“All the experiences I’ve had with this team have been unbelievable,” Sullivan said after the game. “It’s a terrible feeling right now to end it like this, especially for the senior class.”
Sullivan played well early, making a clutch glove save on Minnesota-Duluth defenseman Brady Lamb on a 2-on-0 breakaway in the first period with the game scoreless. Lamb and J.T. Brown got behind the UMaine defense and Lamb elected to shoot.
“He’s the reason why we go to the playoffs. He’s the reason why we get home ice,” said senior defenseman Will O’Neill. “It’s about goaltending. He really stepped up.”
The tone of Saturday night’s game changed dramatically during a critical 60-second span late in the second period.
With the Black Bears leading 2-1, UMD’s Caleb Herbert stole the puck from defenseman Brice O’Connor inside the blue line near the right point and bore in alone on Sullivan.
Herbert’s shot was deflected away by Sullivan, but the Bulldogs caught a lucky break.
“It went off my glove hand and I looked over my left shoulder for it, thinking it was in the corner,” Sullivan explained of the shot that ricocheted high off the glass, “and it ended up actually behind me on my right and banked off my right leg and in.”
The Bulldogs seized the momentum one minute later. This time, Sullivan cleared the puck toward the left-side wall, where the opportunistic Lamb was waiting.
“I take the fault on that one,” Sullivan said. “I rimmed it to their guy, unfortunately.”
Lamb moved in and took a snap shot that Sullivan stopped with his left pad, but Jake Hendrickson pounced on the rebound and slipped it around the scrambling UMaine goalie.
“I didn’t see anybody at the time and I wanted to get it out of harm’s way,” explained Sullivan, who pointed to puckhandling as one of the skills he must improve during the offseason.
Those two goals re-energized the defending national champion Bulldogs, who seemed to have their confidence restored.
Even though the Bears remained confident heading into the third period, Sullivan said they could sense the momentum swing.
“They started believing and we kind of got the wind knocked out of our sails a bit, I think,” he said. “I really thought we had control of the game and then they came back and really took it to us there in the second period and they kept rolling with it.”
UMaine could not muster many offensive threats the rest of the way and UMD beat Sullivan once more to take control 9:15 into the third period.
Sullivan has continued to make great strides since playing a part-time role as a freshman. This season, he developed more consistency.
“He really emerged as a very steady, calming influence back there,” Maine coach Tim Whitehead said. “So rarely did he give up a soft goal this year.”
The soft-spoken Sullivan started to come out of his shell and demonstrate his intellect (he owns a 4.0 grade point average), his work ethic and his determination.
“He’s a great student of the game,” Whitehead said. “He soaks it in. He’s so coachable.”
Part of Sullivan’s growth during this season stemmed from his ability to put less pressure on himself.
Saturday’s setback in his first NCAA postseason game should serve as another important lesson in Sullivan’s development. O’Neill is convinced his teammate has a bright future.
“He stepped up for us with broad shoulders and he did his thing and we’re really proud of him,” O’Neill said.
“He’s a really confident guy and that’s the reason why he can bounce back in a game when we’re down,” he added.
Sullivan, who said he’ll also be working on his skating and trying to limit long rebounds, is determined to get better.
“Nobody’s perfect, obviously, but there’s a lot of improvement yet to come,” he said.
it was evident last night sullivan will never be anything but a mediocre goalie yeah he has his little stretches where he plays well but then out of the blue gives up many rebounds and very weak goals..i think sullivan should leave with whitehead maine needs quality goaltending like they use to get …..
You really can’t blame Sullivan for the loss. Despite the obvious mistake goal, he kept us in it with our “poke check” defense. In the third UMD consistently took our D wide and beat them almost every time. He knows what he needs to work on, and we shall see if he comes back next season improved. Maybe he can convince Grant to work with him. But laying this at his feet is pretty poor.
the loss is squarely on whoever it was who recruited this group of players and who failed to coach hockey.
anyone who knows the game was shocked that Maine almost always had 3 forwards on the puck with nobody waiting on the weak side for a rebound or an errant shot that went wide.
anyone who knows the game can see the speed differential between Maine (save for Mangene) and the entire UMD squad. (how many times did bulldogs, including defensemen get past Maine and just open up leads wider and wider?)
last, the Maine 4 mph break out. HOw does anyone think that Maine is going to get through the neutral zone by starting out at 4 mph?
The steal from O’Connor is half on Pryor, who sent the pass back to O’Connor and half on the coach who never thought to teach the boys that if you are the last man back, you do not stick handle and you do not pass it back to the last man back when you are already in the neutral zone and there is an attacker bearing down on the last man back. O’Connor has not carried the puck out of the zone once this year and that was a bad time to try for his fist.
there was a BC fan who said it all on a different forum.
“I never thought I would see the day that Maine accepted mediocrity, a loss in the league finals and one and done in the NCAA and that is a good season” [I paraphrase, I am sure]
congrats Tim, you won, you got people to buy into “mediocrity is ok”
Steve Abbott if you are reading this, Tim has lost at least half of the fan base. Keep him around if you want to see 1000 $23 seats sold for each home game.
Last, Larry. You just dealt Sullivan a horrible curse. Every time you write that Maine players will learn from their mistakes, you guaruntee that they will repeat them over and over and over.
I am sure Tim learned from the “conserve your energy strategy” he implemented against Michigan State when he was up 2-0 in St. Louis. That was why the outcome of this game was so different from the outcome of the MSU game. oh wait. the only difference was that MSU did not score an empty netter when they were up 4-2 in the third.
You can’t just blame the goalie and Whitehead, we had several great scoring chances early and several power plays that failed. It was a team loss. Congrats on a great season Maine, get em next year!
I am looking forward to Sullivan’s junior and senior years. And to the seniors on this team thank you and best of luck.
I just hope that Matt Morris(goalie recruit/USHL’s Dubuque Fighting Saints)comes in and puts the heat on Sullivan,Sullivan has improved from last year and to an extent from the first 12 games of the season,but he’s not taking Maine to the Frozen 4…and it’s not out of the realm of thinking that a Freshman Goaltender can come in and be solid and consistant to carry a Team…it has happen many times over in the College Hockey World. And finally the lost can not be pinned on one player…this was alot of Maine not taking the the counter punch and bouncing back up…give UMD credit they knew they were lucky that it was JUST 2-0 and that they could play much better…they made the adjustments after the 1st period and went from there,while Maine had NO PLANS in the 3rd period…what a SHAME…in game adjustments are the norm in College Hockey.
Morris won a championship with Dubuque/Montgomery/Standbrook as an 18-year old last year. He was raw and Grant really coached him into a fine goalie. I’m betting that Whitehead will do just the opposite.
At this point, I’d love to see Dubuque play Maine. My money’s on the Fighting Saints, unfortunately…