The University of Maine’s men’s hockey team will be looking for more goal production and its first win at 7 p.m. Tuesday when it visits Hamden, Connecticut, to take on ECAC team Quinnipiac.
Maine has been stingy defensively but is just 0-1-3 because it has scored only five goals in those four games.
The Black Bears are 49th among 54 teams in goals per game at 1.25. Six other teams have yet to play a game.
No. 14 Quinnipiac is 3-0 and has earned NCAA Tournament berths the last three seasons.
UMaine head coach Red Gendron addressed the need for more offense in Monday’s practice and feels his team has potential to put the puck in the net despite losing 2013-14 All-Americans Devin Shore and defenseman Ben Hutton, who passed up their senior years to sign pro contracts.
“We need to shoot more, and we need to go to the net more,” said Gendron. “We have go get ourselves in position to score dirty goals [in the low slot]. We have to deliver the puck to the net whether from the point, on the rush or on the grind [forecheck].”
Senior captain Steven Swavely said the team is getting its chances.
The puck isn’t going to stay out of the net all year long. As long as we continue creating chances, they’ll start going in for us,” he said.
In Saturday night’s 2-0 shutout loss to Union, Swavely said the Bears didn’t do an adequate job of screening freshman goalie Jake Kupsky, who made 26 saves in his college debut.
“We could have gotten more traffic in front of him and made his life harder,” said Swavely.
UMaine doesn’t have a veteran who has been a prolific goal scorer. Nobody on the current roster has scored more than 12 goals in a season.
Junior right wing Blaine Byron’s 12-goal campaign a year ago represents the highest output by a current Black Bear. The only other two to score 10 or more in a season were Swavely two years ago and Nolan Vesey last season with 10 each.
The power play was problematic last season and is off to a slow start this season.
Maine was 47th among 59 schools with a 13.1 percent efficiency rate on the power play and is currently 2-for-16 (12.5 percent) with the man advantage.
“We’ve been just a little off. It’s a work in progress,” said Gendron.
Gendron wouldn’t indicate if he is going to change the lines for the Quinnipiac game.
The good news for the Black Bears is they have made huge strides defensively.
Maine has allowed just seven goals, which leaves the Black Bears 10th in the country in goals allowed per game (1.75). They allowed 3.26 a year ago.
Gendron has been pleased with the team defense, the goaltending of senior Matt Morris and freshman Rob McGovern and the freshman class.