ORONO, Maine — The University of Notre Dame’s first visit to the University of Maine’s Alfond Arena as a Hockey East member was a successful one.
Goals one minute, 24 seconds apart by Sam Herr, Vince Hinostroza and Jake Evans over the final 1:49 of the middle period snapped a 1-1 tie and sent the Fighting Irish on their way to a 5-1 victory Saturday night at Alfond Arena.
Notre Dame, which tied Maine 4-4 on Friday night, improved to 12-14-4 overall, 7-5-4 in Hockey East.
Hinostroza added an empty-net goal to give him two goals and six assists in four career games against Maine.
Maine (10-17-3, 5-9-2 HE) is winless in its last four games (0-2-2), the third time this season Maine has gone through a stretch of at least four games without a win.
Freshman goalie Cal Petersen turned in an impressive 33-save performance in backstopping the victory. He had 13 Grade-A (high-percentage) stops.
Matt Morris made 28 saves for Maine of which 11 were Grade-A’s.
Anders Bjork and Maine’s Connor Leen swapped first-period goals.
“This is probably the most consistent we have played for 60 minutes this season,” said Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson.
Hinostroza said Jackson told them they needed to put together a full 60-minute performance and they did.
“All four lines were going tonight, and when we get all four lines going full speed, protecting the puck and controlling the puck, we’re a really good team,” said Hinostroza.
Maine coach Red Gendron said his team didn’t follow his pregame instructions.
“We talked in our meeting how we needed to elevate our game tonight. We needed to have laser-lock focus and intensity. But that clearly didn’t happen,” said Gendron.
“It’s not like they were all over us. They didn’t do much either until that 1:24 span. How many times did we miss passes that bounced off our sticks? How many times did we sweep a pass right past [the intended pass recipient]?
“We just weren’t sharp, and I don’t know why,” said Gendron.
“We came out flat in the first period, we didn’t pay attention to details, and then we fell apart in the second,” said senior left wing Leen. “We dug ourselves a hole and couldn’t get out of it in the third period.”
Herr’s game-winning goal came off a sustained forecheck with 1:49 left in the period.
Robbie Russo slid the puck to Jordan Gross, and he found Austin Wuthrich at the top of the left circle for a one-timer that Herr deflected past Morris.
“We had good puck possession the whole shift,” said Wuthrich. “I popped toward the [faceoff] dot, I got my shot on net, and Herr tipped it in. It was an all-around good shift by our line.”
Just 39 seconds later, Bjork poked the puck free from a Maine defenseman along the left wing boards in the neutral zone and put a nifty diagonal pass on the stick of Hinostroza, who had all kinds of open real estate down the right side.
Hinostroza took a few strides and took a 15-foot wrist shot that squeezed through Morris into the short-side corner.
“Bjork made a nice play, and I had pretty much a breakaway,” said Hinostroza. “I saw [Morris] sliding over, so I tried to put it short side under his glove. He got a piece of it, but it still went in.”
Evans capped the flurry courtesy of a fortuitous bounce.
Evans had a free lane down the right side and tried to pass it across to a teammate driving the net. But the pass deflected off Maine defenseman Dan Renouf’s stick and trickled between Morris’ pads.
“I was going from my glove side to my blocker side, but it took a weird bounce and went through my legs,” said Morris. “Allowing three goals in that span is unacceptable. I needed to make at least two of those saves if not all of them.”
In the first period, Bjork scored his second goal in as many games and third in his last five at the 4:18 mark, but Leen snapped a 14-game goalless drought 3:05 later.
Hinostroza set up the Bjork goal with a pinpoint pass across the low slot to a wide-open Mario Lucia at the far post. Morris made a great save off Lucia’s point-blank one-timer, but the rebound carried over to an unattended Bjork, and he swept it past the helpless Morris.
Leen scored seconds after Petersen had made a nice right pad save off his shot from the middle of the slot. Leen tracked down the puck behind the net and wheeled out to the left of Petersen.
Petersen initially hugged the short side post, but Leen had carried the puck out wide and his wrister banked in off Petersen, who had pulled off the near post.
The Black Bears had the better of the play over the first half of the initial period, but the Fighting Irish had an edge over the second half of the period, and Morris came up with three important saves to keep the score deadlocked.
He held the short side to make a pad stop off Gross’ shot from the right circle; he was able to get his left shoulder on Connor Hurley’s 16-foot wrister off a two-on-one caused by a poor Maine line change, and he stopped a Hinostroza wrister from the middle of the slot.
The Fighting Irish outshot Maine 16-8 in the decisive second period after having a 12-11 edge in the first period.
The desperate Black Bears outshot Notre Dame 15-5 in the third period but couldn’t transform that dominance into a goal.