ORONO, Maine — The University of Maine men’s hockey team’s performance against Northeastern University over the weekend left a lot of the Alfond Arena faithful scratching their heads.
After a 6-4 loss on Friday night in a showing described by head coach Red Gendron as “brutal” and “unacceptable,” the enigmatic Black Bears rebounded on Saturday night to beat the Huskies 6-3 and snap NU’s nine-game unbeaten streak (8-0-1).
That gave the Black Bears sole possession of eighth place, which allows UMaine to control its own destiny.
UMaine’s split with Northeastern and New Hampshire’s sweep of suddenly-struggling Connecticut means the Black Bears enter the final weekend of the regular season in eighth place by one point over New Hampshire and two over UConn.
Teams earn two points for a win and one for a tie.
Every team makes the Hockey East playoffs, but eighth place represents the final home-ice berth for the best-of-three, first-round series. The eighth seed will host the ninth-place team.
The top four teams receive a bye, and No. 5 entertains No. 12, the sixth seed hosts the 11th seed and the No. 7 team hosts the No. 10 team.
They will re-seed the teams after the first-round series with the league regular-season champion hosting the lowest-seeded survivor for the quarterfinals and so on.
UMaine would lose a tiebreaker with UConn because the Huskies won the season series with a win and a tie. UMaine would win the tiebreaker with New Hampshire because the Black Bears won the two regular-season meetings.
Bu t the Black Bears have a more difficult final weekend assignment as they travel to play a pair of games against Providence College, which is tied for third and ranked 13th in the country in the latest U.S. College Hockey Online poll. New Hampshire entertains 11th-place Merrimack for a pair, and UConn has one game remaining against last-place Massachusetts.
Merrimack is 0-6-1 in its last seven games and is 0-8-1 on the road in Hockey East.
UMaine has lost its last five games at Providence.
But the Black Bears are unbeaten in their last five road games (4-0-1).
“I’m not worried about anything or anyone other than our own team,” said Gendron. “We played really well for 60 minutes on Saturday night.
“We want everything to be perfect every night, me more than anyone,” said Gendron. “We’ve taken some [positive] steps in the second half of the year. We just have to keep improving and establishing some consistency in our performances.”
He said what has happened in the past doesn’t mean anything this weekend.
“What happened to them last weekend and to us … none of it matters,” said Gendron. “It’s about [what’s going to happen] next Friday at 7 [p.m.] and then we’re going to play another one on Saturday.”