University of Maine men’s hockey coach Red Gendron warned his team before Sunday afternoon’s game that UMass Lowell would come out flying to try to avenge Friday night’s 5-2 loss in Orono.
That’s exactly what happened as the River Hawks scored a pair of first-period goals and never looked back en route to a 4-1 Hockey East victory at the Tsongas Center.
UMass Lowell, the nation’s fifth-ranked team, improved to 7-3-2 overall, 3-1 in Hockey East, while UMaine fell to 4-6-2 and 1-3.
Freshman center Ryan Lohin and junior right wing John Edwardh scored 7:31 apart as the River Hawks outshot UMaine 13-4 over the first 20 minutes and 23-9 through two periods.
Joe Gambardella converted on a five-on-three power play at the 12:59 mark of the middle period to make it 3-0 before Dane Gibson gave the Black Bears a lifeline with his third goal in four games later in the middle period.
But Jake Kamrass’ power-play goal 5:30 into the third period all but sewed up the win.
Tyler Wall finished with 20 saves for the River Hawks while Rob McGovern made 25 for the Black Bears.
“They jumped on us and we didn’t compete hard enough early in the game,” said Gendron. “We got behind and we didn’t generate what we should have because we didn’t work hard enough. We had a lot of people out there watching.”
“We came out pretty flat,” senior center and captain Cam Brown said. “They were obviously fired up about Friday night. We needed to respond harder.”
Lohin opened the scoring by tipping Dylan Zink’s shot past McGovern.
UMass Lowell expanded the lead when Gambardella one-handed a pass to C.J. Smith, who found Edwardh alone in front of the net. Edwardh moved the puck from his backhand to his forehand and slid it behind McGovern.
UMass Lowell attempted 33 shots in the first period to UMaine’s 11.
A Rob Michel cross-checking penalty and Patrick Shea’s boarding infraction gave the River Hawks a two-man advantage for 1:03 and they capitalized when Gambardella tucked home a Zink rebound.
“I was trying to take the goalie’s eyes away, I turned around and saw the rebound and I was lucky to have it bounce in,” said Gambardella.
“We started to play better in the second period but then we took a real stupid, undisciplined penalty and then wound up taking another penalty that put us down five-on-three,” said Gendron.
Gibson scored when he chipped a Brown pass over Wall’s shoulder but the Black Bears couldn’t get any closer despite outshooting UMass Lowell 12-6 in the third period.
Kamrass capped the scoring when he got a piece of Zink’s point shot and it deflected past McGovern.
UMass Lowell then took three straight penalties but UMaine failed to convert.
The Black Bears went 0-for-9 on the power play while UML was 2-for-7.
“We didn’t win battles on the power play. We didn’t sprint to get the puck back and we didn’t win faceoffs,” said Gendron.
“We struggled breaking the puck into the (offensive) zone on the power play and getting pucks on net. We were standing around a little too much,” said UMaine senior defenseman and assistant captain Eric Schurhamer.
Gambardella said his team’s energy level “was very good from start to finish. It had lacked a little on Friday night.”
UMass Lowell coach Norm Bazin said he was “very pleased” to salvage a split.
“Maine is an excellent hockey team. I was proud of our effort,” said Bazin. “We pressured the puck better today. We got back to attacking.”
UMaine will travel to play the University of Vermont with games on Friday night and Sunday afternoon.