The Bangor High School hockey team hasn’t had the regular season it wanted.
The Rams went 0-4 against their top rivals in Eastern Maine Class A, St. Dominic of Auburn and Lewiston.
Bangor lost a pair of 4-2 games to defending Eastern Maine Class A champ St. Dom’s and dropped 7-3 and 5-4 (overtime) games to Lewiston.
But head coach Quinn Paradis said his Rams won’t be dwelling on the regular season when they take the ice against Brunswick in their quarterfinal at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Sawyer Arena in Bangor.
Class B quarterfinals also will open with No. 4 Brewer, 8-7-3, entertaining John Bapst of Bangor, 10-6-2, in a 6 p.m. game at the Penobscot Ice Arena and No. 3 Winslow, 12-6, hosting No. 6 Hampden Academy, 7-10-1, at Sukee Arena at 7 p.m.
Third seed Bangor is 12-6 after losing its final two games to Lewiston and St. Dom’s.
The sixth-seeded Dragons are 11-7, including a season-ending 10-2 loss to Bangor 10 days ago.
“We’re looking at this as a new season,” said Paradis. “There’s going to be a great atmosphere on Tuesday night.”
The Rams expect to face a different Brunswick team.
“They were playing their second game in 12 hours,” said Paradis.
Lewiston had beaten the Dragons 7-0 the previous night and the Bangor-Brunswick game was an afternoon affair.
Jake Fournier had four of Bangor’s six first-period goals against Brunswick.
Bangor went 5-for-8 on the power play.
“They’re a good team,” said Paradis. “They have a great first line. They’re scrappy. They block shots.”
He said he will be looking for his team to put together a full 45-minute performance. He said his team has played well in spurts but hasn’t been able to sustain it at times.
“We’ll play a great 10 minutes and then we won’t play well for 10,” said Paradis whose team has reached the regional finals the final two years only to lose to Lewiston (5-1) two years ago and St. Dom’s (3-1) last season.
Brunswick’s top line has registered 119 points as Tyler Sullivan has 18 goals and 25 assists; Jared Parent has 20 & 18 and Jacob McGowan has 21 & 17.
Bangor has received balanced scoring with six players with 15 or more points in Fournier (18 & 10), Trevor DeLaite (11 & 10), Nick Graham (9 & 12), defenseman Ben Crichton (7 & 12), Alec Coleman-Pray (10 & 8) and Sam Kenney (10 & 5).
Derek Fournier has been outstanding between the pipes for Bangor, according to Paradis.
The John Bapst-Brewer game pits a pair of teams which scored a total of just six goals in their two regular season games.
John Bapst beat Brewer 2-0 on Jan. 13 and the two teams played to a 2-2 overtime tie on Feb. 18.
It also will be a battle of first-year coaches as Andy Stephenson is leading the Crusaders and Lance Ingerson is behind the Brewer bench.
“It should be a great game,” said Ingerson. “I think it will be close and low scoring like our other games. It will be back and forth.”
“We’re going to have to work very hard and be physical and aggressive,” said Ingerson.
Stephenson said he and his team are excited for the challenge.
“We’re going to have to play our game,” said Stephenson, whose speedy Crusaders like to play a fast, uptempo game.
Brewer has been led by forwards Gabe Valley, Dylan Severance and Tyler Davis along with defensemen Jack Schroder and Trey Wood and goalie Tyler Friel.
The Crusaders have been paced by forwards Jonathan Cheff, Hunter Pate and Tyler Wheeler along with defenseman Logan Cyr-Ellis and goalie Sam Lander.
Dynamic defenseman Riley Eastman has been Hampden’s catalyst and he and his Bronco teammates will be looking to duplicate their 7-3 regular season win over the Black Raiders.