ORONO, Maine — The University of Maine men’s hockey team’s scoring woes continued on Saturday night.
But, unlike Friday night’s 1-0 loss to the University of Connecticut, the Black Bears at least salvaged a point courtesy of a 1-1 overtime tie against the Huskies in a lively and entertaining affair in front of 3,891 people at Alfond Arena.
UConn freshman center Max Letunov’s power-play goal 2:52 into the third period cancelled out Steven Swavely’s shorthanded goal in the second period.
UConn is now 8-13-2 overall, 4-7-2 in Hockey East, while UMaine is 5-13-5 and 2-6-2, respectively.
UConn junior goalie Rob Nichols, who made a career-high 44 saves Friday night, came up with 38 more stops Saturday and Tanner Creel saved the only shot he faced over 3:49 in the third period when he spelled Nichols, who was temporarily shaken up.
Nichols had 24 Grade-A (high-percentage) stops among his 38 while UMaine goalie Matt Morris made 15 Grade-A’s among his 33 stops.
“Both goalies were great and [Creel] came up with a good save,” Connecticut coach Mike Cavanaugh said.
“We battled, we played well for the most part,” Maine captain Swavely said. “We gave them more [scoring] opportunities than we did on Friday night
“It sucks not to win, but a point is a point,” he said.
“We dominated every facet of Friday night’s game except the score,” said Maine coach Red Gendron, whose team outshot Connecticut 40-34 after having a 44-19 edge Friday night. “Tonight was more of an even game. We had some great chances to score but we didn’t and that’s that.
“We had 84 shots on goal in the two games and we had only one goal to show for it so it’s back to work on finishing off plays,” Gendron added.
“We played a much better hockey game tonight,” Cavanaugh said. “It was a great college hockey game. Both teams had chances, both teams played hard and even though it was a tie, I was more pleased with our effort tonight than I was in the win on Friday night.”
Maine has now been held to one goal or less 13 times and has scored only five goals in its last five games.
Letunov, who is from Russia, scored off a scintillating rush after collecting a Joseph Masonius pass as he carried the puck through the neutral zone, maneuvered past a few Black Bears and busted in alone on Morris before pulling the puck around him and tucking a backhander inside the post to the goalie’s left.
“I came down the left side with a lot of speed,” Letunov said. “In our pre-game scouting report, their guy in the middle usually comes over on me but when I got the puck, I was able to get around him. Then I cut across the net and put it far side.”
Swavely’s shorthanded goal at the 9:04 mark of the second period gave Maine its first 1-0 lead in eight games as he poked the puck away from freshman defenseman Masonius at the defensive blue line and converted six-foot breakaway backhander over Nichols’ blocker.
“I knew he wanted to go to the [boards] with the puck so I put my stick behind his back where he couldn’t see it, it hit my stick and popped out and, luckily I got the first jump on it,” Swavely said. “I knew [Masonius] would pressure me so I tried to make a move and hoped it worked.”
That snapped Nichols’ shutout streak at 162 minutes, 21 seconds.
Swavely had another shorthanded break-in early in the third period but Nichols got a piece of his glove on his shot from the right circle.
“I thought I had it,” Swavely said. “I tried to go upper righthand corner and he just nicked it [with his glove]. He made a nice save.”
Maine killed off two penalties in the final 8:04 of regulation to preserve the tie.
“Maine did a pretty good job killing penalties. We didn’t get many good looks,” Cavanaugh said.
Maine will host 19-1-3 Quinnipiac, which is No. 1 in one national poll, at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Quinnipiac beat Maine 4-0 Oct. 20 in Hamden, Connecticut.