Redshirt junior goalie Matt Morris made 40 saves to post his second shutout in his last three starts as the University of Maine beat the University of New Hampshire 4-0 Saturday night in front of a sellout crowd of 6,501 at the Whittemore Center in Durham, New Hampshire.
The Black Bears, with their season-high third straight win, improved to 10-15-1 overall, 5-7 in Hockey East. UNH fell to 8-14-2 and 3-8-1, respectively.
Maine, which received early third-period goals 21 seconds apart from Cam Brown and Nolan Vesey, has now won seven of its last 10 games including a sweep of archrival UNH this weekend.
The Black Bears posted a 6-4 win in Orono on Friday night.
Maine is now 2-1-1 in its last four visits to the Whittemore Center after losing the previous nine games in Durham.
Maine coach Red Gendron said “we made some plays and scored some goals. We got a very good goaltending performance from Matt Morris and we finished the game the right way by scoring three goals in the third period.”
UNH had scored 37 goals in its previous eight games and 13 in its last three.
Liam Pecararo’s power-play goal staked the Black Bears to a 1-0 lead midway through the first period before Brown and Vesey scored at the 4:23 and 4:44 marks of the third period.
Steven Swavely added an insurance goal with 9:57 left in regulation.
“[Morris] was awesome. He was the real backbone of our team tonight,” said sophomore center Brown.
“I thought I played well. I saw the puck pretty well. I was confident and when I made a mistake, the defensemen bailed me out,” said Morris, who has stopped 109 of 111 shots in his last three starts for a save percentage of .982. “The guys in front of me did a tremendous job.”
Morris shut out UMass 3-0 on Jan. 10 with a 29-save performance before stopping a career-high 40 shots in a 2-0 loss to UMass Lowell eight days ago.
He tied his career-high on Saturday and denied UNH coach Dick Umile his 550th career win.
Freshman left wing Pecararo opened the scoring at the 10:17 mark as he was set up nicely in the low slot by Brown and directed the puck past freshman goalie Adam Clark.
“I found a soft spot in the [penalty-killing] rectangle. It was a nice play by [Brown]. He made a quick pass and I one-touched it to the far side,” said Pecararo.
Pecararo’s goal was his third of the season and second in the last three games.
UNH outshot Maine 40-21, including a 28-14 edge over the first two periods.
But Morris was outstanding as he made a number of point-blank saves.
One of his gems was a glove save off an unattended John Furgele while using the stick of Dan Renouf after he had lost his goal stick.
“I’m not sure what happened, it may have been a delayed penalty, but I lost my stick. [Renouf] gave me his. It was a great job by him,” said Morris. “I made two saves with it. The first one was along the ice and, on the other one, I was lucky enough to get my glove on it.”
Both teams had a goal nullified in the second period as Maine center Stu Higgins’ score was overturned by a player in the crease infraction before Grayson Downing put the puck behind Morris only to have the referees wave it off and uphold it on review because he had bumped Morris before shooting.
Brown ended a 16-game goalless drought early in the third period when he snapped a pass from Blaine Byron behind Clark. It was his sixth goal and extended his points streak to three games (1 & 4).
Brown said scoring his first goal since Nov. 7 “definitely felt good.
“Blaine made a great play. He won a battle for the puck, carried it to the middle and chipped it over to me. I was in the middle of the slot to the right of the goalie and I put it far side.”
Seconds later, Devin Shore spotted Vesey behind the UNH defense and threaded a pass to him. Vesey broke in on Clark and lifted a backhander past him for his sixth goal and second in as many games.
Swavely notched his seventh when he pounced on a deflected pass and deposited a backhander into an open net past a helpless Clark, who had lunged out to try to corral the puck but failed to do so. It was Swavely’s third goal in two games.
Clark was then replaced by Jamie Regan.
Vesey had an assist and now has two goals and three assists in a three-game points streak.
“It feels great to win, especially against UNH,” said Brown. “We had good puck management for the most part and we had great energy on the bench which helped us in that (hostile) atmosphere.”
UNH was without standout junior defenseman Brett Pesce (chest injury).