When the University of Maine men’s hockey team wins the special teams battle, it is 3-1 this season.
When it surrenders more power-play goals than it scores, it is 1-8-2.
The Black Bears (5-12-4 overall, 2-5-1 in Hockey East) are in a special teams slump. The have to snap out of it to have any success this weekend in a two-game Hockey East set against the visiting University of Connecticut (7-13-1, 3-7-1 HE).
UMaine is 1-4-1 in its last six games and has been outscored 9-2 on the special teams.
It has scored a power-play goal in just one of its last six games, going 2-for-4 in a 5-4 loss to New Hampshire. It is 2-for-16 with the man advantage during the six games.
More disturbing is the Black Bear penalty kill, which has surrendered the nine power-play goals among 25 chances.
“The biggest thing is we have to stop taking penalties,” said UMaine junior defenseman Eric Schurhamer. “We’ve been giving some dangerous teams with good power plays lots of looks.”
The Huskies have the nation’s 21st-ranked power play (19.5 percent efficiency) thanks to freshman right wing Tage Thompson, whose eight power-play goals ties him for No. 1 in the nation along with UNH’s Dan Correale. Classmate Max Letunov’s 12 power-play assists tie him for the national lead with UNH’s Tyler Kelleher.
UConn has already scored four more power-play goals than it scored all of last season.
UMaine is 50th in penalty killing among 60 teams (77.9 percent).
Compounding matters is the fact that UMaine is the fifth most penalized team in the nation at 14.7 minutes per game.
Colgate scored two power-play goals on three chances in its 5-1 win over UMaine on Saturday night with Darcy Murphy and Mike Borkowski finding themselves uncovered at the far post for simple one-timers off back-door passes.
“We have to be more disciplined on the penalty kill,” said UMaine senior left wing Will Merchant. “We can’t allow back-door passes. We have to pressure them earlier and limit their time and space with the puck.”
“We have to focus on doing our jobs and not running out of position,” said senior captain Steven Swavely. “We have to stick with what we practice during the week.”
UMaine has had only one game where it has scored more than one goal on the power play, and it has had 13 games without one.
“We’ve been moving the puck well on the power play lately, but we need to take more shots and generate more quality shots,” said junior center Cam Brown.
“Special teams are going to be very important,” said UConn coach Mike Cavanaugh, noting that they often mean the difference between a win or a loss.
Cavanaugh expects two closely-contested games.
“I think they’ll be just like last year’s games, which both went into overtime,” said Cavanaugh, whose Huskies beat the Black Bears 2-1 and rallied to tie them 2-2 two nights later.