Sophomore goalie Rob McGovern made 39 saves to help the University of Maine men’s hockey team earn a 3-3 overtime tie with Miami University on Friday night at Steve Cady Arena in Oxford, Ohio.
It was UMaine’s third-straight overtime game, and the Black Bears are 1-1-1 in overtime.
UMaine is 3-1-1 on the season, and Miami is 1-1-2.
The Black Bears snapped a six-game road losing streak with the tie.
The two teams will play again at 7 p.m. Saturday.
Miami overcame three one-goal deficits and got the tying goal with 4:30 remaining in regulation when senior left wing Anthony Louis converted on the power play after making a nifty move in the slot. It was his second goal of the game.
Louie Belpedio and Kiefer Sherwood assisted on the goal.
McGovern said a teammate went down to block the shot and he didn’t get a good read on it as it came off the stick.
“It was like a knuckle ball. It went short side,” said McGovern.
Louis scored 17 seconds after Rob Michel was assessed a slashing penalty.
After the traditional NCAA five-minute overtime with five skaters and a goalie, which wound up scoreless, each team earned a tie according to NCAA rules. Then the two teams played a scoreless three-on-three (skaters) overtime that is used by the National Collegiate Hockey Conference in its league games.
They followed that up with a sudden-death shootout, and UMaine’s Nolan Vesey was the only one to score after two RedHawks and one Black Bear had failed to convert.
“Even though it might not be recognized [as a win] by the NCAA, there has to be a winner and a loser, and the win will be good for our morale,” said UMaine junior center Cedric Lacroix, who had given the Black Bears their third lead with 6:26 remaining in regulation as he fired a wrister from the top of the faceoff circle past freshman goalie Ryan Larkin off a Dane Gibson pass.
Lacroix, who was wearing teammate Patrick Holway’s No. 2 shirt because of a mix-up that resulted in him not having his No. 14 jersey, picked up a kneeing penalty with 31 seconds left in regulation.
But the Black Bears were able to kill off the RedHawks eighth power play of the evening.
UMaine went 0-for-3 on the power play.
Larkin wound up with 18 saves as Miami outshot UMaine 42-21.
“It was an OK game on our part. It could have been better,” said Lacroix. “We need to stay out of the penalty box. I had two penalties, and that’s not acceptable. We’ve got to keep it simple. This was the first game on the road for our freshmen, and they did a pretty good job. They’ve been scoring a lot of goals, and that’s helping us out a lot. And McGovern had a great game. He gave us a chance to win.”
Freshmen have scored 11 of UMaine’s 18 goals so far.
Freshman Peter Housakos opened the scoring with the only goal in the first period, but Grant Hutton tied it 5:29 into the second period.
Mitch Fossier, the two-time Hockey East Rookie of the Week, restored the lead just 1:23 later before Louis scored with 6:58 left.
Housakos notched his first career point at the 14:24 when he poked the puck away from a Miami defenseman in the corner to Larkin’s left, skated across the low slot to the far post and slipped a backhander past Larkin.
Larkin kept the RedHawks within one when he made a great save off Blaine Byron at the end of the first period as Byron redirected a Cam Brown pass on goal.
UMaine outshot Miami 12-10 in an evenly-played first period.
Hutton tied it when he parked in front of the net and directed a Kiefer Sherwood pass from behind the net past McGovern.
It was sophomore defenseman Hutton’s second goal of the season.
Fossier scored his sixth when he tipped Mark Hamilton’s point shot behind Larkin.
Louis notched his first of the campaign when he got a piece of Josh Melnick’s shot and it trickled in off McGovern.
The RedHawks dominated the second period to the tune of a 17-4 shots margin, but McGovern kept them at bay with several top-shelf saves.
Miami outshot UMaine 13-4 in the third period and 2-1 in the five-minute overtime.
“There were tons of positives, and we have tons to work on,” said UMaine coach Red Gendron. “I was happy about some parts of the game and not so happy with others.
“[McGovern] played great,” said Gendron. “We kept grinding it out. It was another gritty effort. We had some issues with puck management in our end, but we did a good job on the offensive zone grinds. We could have taken more shots.”
McGovern credited his teammates for making his job easier.
“I thought the team played really well. All of their shots were from the outside,” said McGovern. “I feel like we should have won it. I should have [saved] all three goals.”
McGovern stopped both shooters in the shootout.
“I love shootouts,” he said.