ORONO, Maine — Rand Pecknold, head coach of the nation’s top-ranked Quinnipiac University Bobcats, conceded after Tuesday night’s 3-3 overtime tie with the University of Maine that his team was fortunate.
“I was really impressed with Maine. They deserved a better fate. They deserved to win,” said Pecknold whose team tied it on Thomas Aldworth’s power-play goal with 46.6 seconds remaining. “We were glad to get the tie. We didn’t play well the first two periods.”
Sam Anas’ goal with 6:01 remaining in regulation had pulled the Bobcats within 3-2.
UMaine appeared in good shape when it went on a power play with 3:18 left, but hooking penalties on Cedric Lacroix and Blaine Byron gave the Bobcats a power play and they capitalized on a six-on-four just after having a six-on-three with goalie Michael Garteig on the bench in favor of the extra attacker.
Anas did an exceptional job keeping an attempted clear-out in the zone at the midpoint and fed Aldworth in the left circle. Aldworth beat UMaine goalie Rob McGovern with a wrist shot to the short side.
“[McGovern] was cheating over to the far post because we had been trying to go back door on our power plays. So I took a shot to see what would happen,” said Aldworth.
“We played a helluva’ game but those stick fouls bit us,” said Maine coach Red Gendron whose team also had a brief five-on-three power play in the first period erased by a cross-checking penalty on Nolan Vesey.
“We have to be precise in every area to be successful and tonight we weren’t precise when it came to taking penalties,” said Gendron.
Anas had scored with a wrist shot from the high slot that trickled in off McGovern.
Quinnipiac is 19-1-4, and UMaine is 5-13-6.
UMaine’s Steven Swavely and Vesey scored first-period goals to answer a game-opening goal by Tanner MacMaster, and Brendan Robbins extended the Maine lead 34 seconds into the middle period.
Swavely and Vesey scored just 1:18 apart midway through the period.
Swavely scored his fourth goal in his last five games and fifth in his last eight courtesy of a rebound off a Dane Gibson shot.
Gibson’s shot from the left circle hit Garteig in the chest, and Brendan Robbins converged on the rebound only to be tied up by Bobcat defenseman Alex Miner-Barron. The Robbins-Miner-Baron entanglement served as a screen and the puck rolled a few more feet back to Swavely, who snapped a 16-footer into the short side past a screened Garteig.
Vesey broke the tie by finishing off a pretty passing sequence involving Cam Brown and Byron.
Brown was in the corner to the right of Garteig and sent a pass behind the net to Byron, who was positioned to Garteig’s left. Byron took a few strides before slipping a pass to the far post where Vesey pumped it into the exposed net to snap an eight-game goalless drought.
MacMaster had opened the scoring against the run of play by getting inside position on UMaine’s Brian Morgan behind the net, stealing the puck and sweeping a shot along the ice from a difficult angle near the extended goal line inside the far post.
Robbins made it 3-1 with his first college goal as he took a pass from Gibson and fired a slap shot past Garteig from the right circle.
The desperate Bobcats carried the play in the third period but the Black Bears did an exemplary job limiting their high-percentage chances throughout the game by having layers of defense in place and getting their sticks and bodies in passing and shooting lanes.
Maine was without two defensemen (Rob Michel and Keith Muehlbauer) and leading scorer Will Merchant due to injury.
“We played well, we played hard,” said Maine captain Swavely. “We showed we could play with the best team in the country.”
Garteig had 29 saves and McGovern wound up with 30.