The University of Vermont Catamounts erased a pair of one-goal deficits and used Brendan Bradley’s goal with 2:07 left in the game to snap a 2-2 tie and post a 4-2 victory over the University of Maine in the first game of their best-of-three Hockey East quarterfinal series Friday night at the Gutterson Fieldhouse in Burlington, Vermont.
Brady Shaw added an empty-netter to ice it with 1:33 left.
UVM improved to 19-12-4, including five wins over Maine this season, the first time the Catamounts have beaten a team five times in one season in school history.
Maine fell to 13-21-3 while losing for the fourth time in five games. The Bears have lost eight straight to Vermont.
Game two will be 7:05 p.m. Saturday.
Jake Rutt snapped an eight-game goalless drought in the first period to stake Maine to a 1-0 lead, but Alexx Privitera’s power-play goal with 1:19 remaining in the second period leveled the scoreline.
Will Merchant’s power-play goal 6:55 into the third period gave the Black Bears a 2-1 lead, but Jarrid Privitera, Alexx’s brother, tied it just 2:45 later.
Bradley gave Vermont its first lead after a neutral zone face-off.
Maine defenseman Dan Renouf tried to flip it ahead but it hit Jake Fallon and dropped to the feet of Shaw, who pushed the puck ahead to Bradley.
Bradley took the puck to the outside of Maine defenseman Ben Hutton to get a shooting angle and his 20-foot wrister beat Maine goalie Matt Morris to the short side. Morris had already dropped down into his butterfly and Bradley capitalized on the open room above the goalie’s blocker-side shoulder.
“It was a very nice, hard, accurate shot that happened to go in,” said Hutton.
“I’ll have to see the replay,” said Morris. “I know I was out far [to cut down the angle]. It was a good shot.”
Bradley’s goal was his fourth of the season but his second in three games.
Rutt opened the scoring at the 12:42 mark when he took a Cam Brown pass which was banked off the boards, quickly shuffled to his left to avoid UVM’s Travis Blanleil and wristed the puck through a maze of players and between the pads of Mike Santaguida.
A wide open Alexx Privitera equalized when Fallon put a pretty cross ice pass to him in the far faceoff circle and he easily one-timed it into the vacant net.
Merchant restored the lead and it came on a similar play as he did a nice job controlling Nolan Vesey’s one-hop cross-ice pass and snapping it into the upper short-side corner past Santaguida.
But the Catamounts tied it when Mike Paliotta stickhandled into open space at the midpoint and wristed the puck toward the net, where it hit the shaft of Jarrid Privitera’s stick, popped into the air and evaded Morris.
“Outside of a stretch in the second period, we played a real good game,” said Maine coach Red Gendron. “We did a lot of good things. We worked hard, we competed and we executed for most of the game. But that’s playoff hockey. We have to execute even better on Saturday night.
“When you play a pretty good opponent, you have to learn how to get the job done,” added Gendron.
“We played very well,” said junior defenseman Hutton, who had an assist. “Tonight could have gone either way. Unfortunately, it didn’t go our way. If we can finish a couple of more chances, we should be fine.”
Santaguida finished with 23 saves including a gem off Brown with the score tied 2-2 in the third period.
Connor Leen burst into the offensive zone and made a nifty backhand pass to the open Brown in the middle of the slot.
“I tried to go blocker side but he made a nice save,” said Brown.
Morris wound up making 26 saves.