The University of Maine men’s hockey team snapped a four-game winless streak as junior center Devin Shore had a goal and an assist and linemate Will Merchant scored what proved to be the game-winner in Maine’s 4-3 Hockey East victory over Merrimack College Friday night at Lawler Rink in North Andover, Massachusetts.
Maine is now 11-17-3 overall, 6-9-2 in league play.
The Black Bears extended their road unbeaten streak to four games (3-0-1).
Merrimack fell to 14-12-3 and 5-10-2 in losing its fourth straight game.
The teams will play again at 4 p.m. Saturday at Lawler Rink.
It was Maine’s first win at Lawler Rink since Feb. 27, 2010. Maine was 0-5-1 in its last six visits to Merrimack.
Freshman defenseman Mark Hamilton’s first career goal and Ben Hutton’s sixth of the season came 49 seconds apart to stake Maine to a 2-0 lead in the first period.
Shore’s 11th of the year made it 3-0 early in the second period before John Gustafsson and Jace Hennig scored 4:09 apart to pull the Warriors within 3-2.
But Merchant scored with 3:37 left in the middle period and the Black Bears survived an extra-attack goal by Brian Christie with 17 seconds left in regulation.
Matt Morris finished with 26 saves for Maine while Rasmus Tirronen stopped 29.
Tirronen is now 0-4 in his career against Maine.
“We played well,” Maine coach Red Gendron said. “We played the way we wanted to play. We played physical, we got to the net, we made plays and we battled.”
“We played a complete game for the most part,” Shore said. “We did a lot of good things on the road against a really good team that plays well in its rink.
“We talked about getting pucks to the net and that’s how we scored most of our goals,” Shore said.
Hamilton started the scoring with a shot from the point off a faceoff win.
“Brady Campbell threw the puck to me, walked to the middle of the ice to find a shooting lane and I shot it low glove,” Hamilton said. “It’s nice to get that [first goal] over with.”
Hutton extended the lead by firing home a Steven Swavely rebound.
Shore converted a breakaway off a feed from Dan Renouf.
“Will and Nolan were working their butts off along the wall. I got behind their defenseman and Dan Renouf hit me with a real good pass. I deked the goalie,” Shore said.
Gustafsson scored unassisted and Henning poked a loose puck past Morris from just outside the crease but Merchant regained the momentum for Maine with his fourth of the season.
“Nolan Vesey made a great play [on the backcheck] and threw it to [Shore] in the middle. He made a soft touch pass to me and I had a quick release,” said Merchant, who beat Tirronen from the faceoff circle.
Shore said it was a “heckuva” shot.
“It was a one-timer that went in off the post,” Shore said.
Vesey, playing in the rink his father Jim once called home as Merrimack College’s all-time leading scorer, finished with two assists.
Merchant said the team has been playing “good hockey on the road. Things have been working well for us.”
Maine moved within two points of the University of Connecticut for the eighth playoff spot and last home ice berth for the first round of the playoffs.