ORONO, Maine — The University of Maine had a useful exhibition game against St. Francis Xavier of Antigonish, Nova Scotia in front of 3,828 fans at the Alfond Arena Sunday afternoon.
Maine will open the season by hosting Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (N.Y.) on Friday and Saturday night.
The X-Men used four second-period goals, three on the power play and another coming one second after a five-minute major had elapsed, to erase a 3-0 deficit and post an entertaining 6-5 victory.
After building a 3-0 lead during an impressive first-period performance, Maine was assessed six second-period penalties, including the five-minute high-sticking major on Malcolm Hayes, and the X-Men made they pay dearly.
One of the goals was scored on a five-on-three.
Even-strength goals by Nolan Vesey, Jake Pappalardo and Eric Schurhamer had staked Maine to a 3-0 lead as the Black Bears outshot the X-Men 15-10 in the first period.
But Cole MacDonald’s five-on-three goal and Jagger Dirk’s five-on-four power-play goal cut the lead to 3-2 and Nathan Pancel tied it at the 13:30 mark just after the five-minute major had elapsed.
Eric Locke supplied the X-Men with their first lead on a power play with 3:41 left in the period.
Mark Tremaine made it 5-3 in the third period with a shorthanded breakaway before Blaine Byron answered by scoring from his knees 1:01 later.
Sam Studnicka, son of former Maine center Todd Studnicka, scored an empty-net goal but Chase Pearson made it 6-5 with 20 seconds remaining.
The X-Men held on to notch the win.
Despite the final score, the Black Bears gave the Alfond Arena some reason for optimism.
They moved the puck quickly, broke out of their defensive zone efficiently and attacked the opposing net with numbers.
They also won a lot of puck battles and were physical. The penalties proved to be their undoing.
“I really like our team. We don’t have any soft players,” said Maine head coach Red Gendron, whose Black Bears went 8-24-6 a year ago and we picked last in Hockey East in the preseason coaches poll. “We played pretty well five-on-five with the exception of the final five minutes of the first period.”
Maine had six freshmen and redshirt freshman Stephen Cochrane in the lineup and Gendron said “I was pleased with all of them.”
He was referring to centers Patrick Shea, Pearson and Peter Housakos, right wingers Ryan Smith and Pappalardo and defenseman Patrick Holway.
He wasn’t happy about the penalties, noting that the NCAA sent out a video emphasising that any time a player puts his stick on the hands of an opponent, it is going to be called. The same with a player putting his loose hand on an opponent.
“There some things we’ll learn from. We did a lot of strong things,” said Maine senior left wing and captain Cam Brown. “We played really fast and we got the puck deep. We pressured them.”
Locke, a first team All-Canadian Interuniversity Sport choice a year ago, said they have four of their five power play personnel back from last year’s national runner-up team and that enabled them to battle back.
He game them the lead for good by muscling his way through a crowded slot and flipping the puck past Matt Morris while being knocked to the ice.
Vesey opened the scoring when his centering pass deflected in off an X-Men defenseman, Pappalardo roofed a Schurhamer rebound and Schurhamer scored with a wrister from the left circle.
MacDonald made it 3-1 with a screened wrist shot from the middle of the slot, Dirk redirected the puck past Rob McGovern as he drove the net and Pancel had an easy tap-in when Mitchell Wheaton’s pass deflected to him at the far post.
Brandon Hope made 27 saves for the winners while McGovern stopped 18 of 20 shots and Morris rejected 12 of 15 for Maine.