The University of Maine men’s hockey team’s five-game unbeaten streak came to a halt on Saturday night as senior left wing Maxim Gaudreault and sophomore center Andrew Poturalski scored a pair of goals apiece and sophomore Danny Tirone made 28 saves to lead the University of New Hampshire to a 5-2 victory at the Whittemore Center in Durham, N.H.
The Wildcats, 1-4-3 in their previous eight games including Friday night’s 3-3 tie in Orono on Friday night, improved to 5-6-3 overall, 2-1-3 in Hockey East while the Black Bears will enter the holiday break at 4-9-3 and 2-5-1.
Maine had been 4-0-1 in its previous five games.
“We came out flat. They’re talented offensively and they buried their chances,” said Maine junior center Cam Brown. “[Poor] puck management was a huge thing. We carried the play in the second period. We had chances. We came out flat again the third and that’s never good when you’re trying to come back.”
UNH took a lead it would never relinquish when Poturalski notched his 13th goal of the season at the 3:29 mark.
Gaudreault extended the lead at the 10:43 mark before Cedric Lacroix scored 2:37 later.
The Black Bears dominated play in the second period but Gaudreault made it 3-1 against the run of play with 6:38 left and Ara Nazarian converted on the power play 2:23 later.
Steven Swavely pulled Maine within 4-2 when he scored an extra-attacker goal with 2:37 remaining and Bear defenseman Rob Michel hit the crossbar on a six-on-four power play (including the extra attacker) 30 seconds later.
Poturalski added an empty-net goal.
“Our puck management wasn’t good. The bottom line was we gave them three goals, two on turnovers and another on a broken stick which forced our defenseman to come to the bench,” said Maine coach Red Gendron. “We didn’t play a bad game. But we have to play better. You can’t give a team like UNH easy looks.”
Poturalski opened the scoring off a three-on-two as he took a Dan Correale pass before firing a quick wrister from the middle of the high slot through the pads of freshman goalie Rob McGovern, who was making his first start since he got hurt after allowing four goals on eight shots in the first period of a 6-0 loss to UMass Lowell on Nov. 15.
Matt Morris had started the last five games.
“Rob had a great week of practice and played well this semester so I wanted to get him into a game before the holiday break,” explained Gendron.
McGovern finished with 24 saves.
Gaudreault made it 2-0, capitalizing on the broken stick as he was able to skate freely into the zone before firing a slap shot past McGovern’s glove.
Lacroix swatted an airborne Andrew Tegeler past Tirone to cut the lead in half.
Maine had a 9-2 edge in shots on goal over the first 13 minutes of the second period but Gaudreault scored after Poturalski picked off an errant pass and fed the puck to Tyler Kelleher, who took a shot that was kicked out by McGovern.
But Gaudreault corralled the rebound and calmly out-waited McGovern before flipping the puck past him.
Nazarian expanded the lead by knocking home a rebound after a point shot hit the post.
Maine took three penalties in the third period to hamper their comeback chances but Swavely scored with a shot through traffic off a Dan Renouf pass. Maine couldn’t get any closer.
The teams will play back-to-back non-conference games in Portland and Manchester, N.H., on Dec. 29-30, respectively.