ORONO, Maine —- The University of Maine men’s hockey team had been a good overtime team until this season.
Over the previous five seasons, the Black Bears went 10-3-24 in overtime.
But they are just 1-3-1 this season and all three losses have come in Hockey East games. In each of those contests, they led entering the third period, including Saturday’s 3-2 loss to No. 7 University of Massachusetts Lowell.
That has left the Black Bears with a 2-6 league record. They won’t play any more league games until they host UMass Lowell and Boston College on Jan. 16-18.
Maine is 3-12-1 overall and is mired in an eight-game losing streak, which is the longest since the 1985-86 season.
The Black Bears have nonleague 7 p.m. games against archrival University of New Hampshire in Manchester, New Hampshire, and Portland on Friday and Saturday, respectively; a two-game home series against Canisius College from Atlantic Hockey on Jan. 2-3; and two non-conference road games against Hockey East rival University of Massachusetts on Jan. 9-10.
The Black Bears hadn’t lost more than one overtime game in a season since they went 0-3-4 in 2008-2009.
Maine was 1-1-3 in OT a year ago, 1-1-8 in 2012-13, 4-0-3 in 2011-12, 3-1-7 in 2010-11 and 1-0-3 in 2009-2010.
Maine squandered a 1-0 lead after two periods and a 2-1 edge in the third period in Saturday’s loss at Lowell. Maine had a 2-0 lead going into the third period of its 3-2 OT loss to Boston University on Nov. 21 and a 3-2 advantage after two periods of a 4-3 loss at Vermont on Nov. 7.
Maine did beat UMass in OT 6-5 on Oct. 31 after playing to a 3-3 tie with visiting Alaska-Anchorage on Oct. 25.
“I don’t have any answer except that we have to be more focused in overtime,” said Maine head coach Red Gendron.
Maine senior defenseman Jake Rutt, junior center Steven Swavely and junior captain Devin Shore said the Bears have to clamp down, defensively, in the extra five-minute sudden-death period.
“Overtime is hit or miss,” said Rutt. “We have to make sure we’re sound defensively and turn our defense into offense. This is a growing pain we need to solve real quickly.”
Shore added, “You can’t be on your heels in overtime, trying to hold on.”
The Black Bears also noted that the bounces haven’t gone their way.
On Michael Louria’s game-winner for UMass Lowell, Maine defenseman Mark Hamilton lost his stick and was one of three Black Bears who was around the crease when Louria latched on to a rebound, pulled the puck to the edge of the crease and chipped it over goalie Sean Romeo’s pad. Maine’s Cam Brown and Eric Schurhamer were also in the vicinity, but Hamilton was in the best position to intervene as he might have been able to pokecheck the puck away if he had his stick.
“It was a messed up situation, but one of us should have grabbed [Louria],” said Schurhamer. “We need to bear down a little more and maybe get some luck from the hockey gods.”
Different things have been killing the team, according to junior defenseman Ben Hutton.
He pointed out that UMass Lowell’s first goal came on a shot from A.J. White that was going “way wide but it hit me and deflected in.”
The tying goal by Tyler Mueller came off a rebound that bounced in off his chest as he drove the net while being checked by Maine defenseman Dan Renouf.
“We’ve got to create our own bounces,” said Shore. “If we prepare right and keep doing the same things right over and over, those bounces will find a way to work in our favor.”
The Black Bears must also learn to protect or expand leads in the third period.
Maine is now 1-3 when leading after two periods.
In the previous 10 seasons, Maine was 146-7-15 when leading after 40 minutes.
But Gendron and his Black Bears said the performance at UMass Lowell is something to build on.
“We were right there. We played one of our better games against one of the best teams we’ve played so far,” said Gendron. “If we had scored another power-play goal, or converted a breakaway, or a three-on-one, or if we had defended our netfront in overtime the way we are supposed to … You can point to all of those things. We need to be better.”
Swavely said the team knows it can beat any opponent.
“We aren’t deflated at all. We’re all motivated. We know we can win games coming down the stretch. We definitely have a positive attitude,” he said.
“Like [Gendron] said, this is the first time in a long time we played a full game. He was definitely proud of us but because we didn’t get the outcome we wanted, it wasn’t good enough,” said Schurhamer.