That first road win in over a year remained elusive Saturday night but the University of Maine men managed to earn a point with a 4-4 Hockey East tie against Merrimack College on Seniors Night at Lawler Arena in Andover, Massachusetts.
UMaine, which squandered a 3-0 lead in a 4-3 overtime loss on Friday night, had leads of 2-0, 3-2 and 4-3 on Saturday night only to have the Warriors rally.
UMaine (10-18-4 overall, 4-14-2 HE) snapped a five-game losing streak but its road winless streak was extended to 20 games (0-16-4).
The Black Bears will be the 11th seed for the upcoming Hockey East playoffs.
Merrimack (13-13-6, 7-7-6 HE) stretched its unbeaten streak to eight games (5-0-3).
First-period goals by Cedric Lacroix and Blaine Byron supplied the Black Bears with their 2-0 lead. Lacroix’s goal was a power-play tally.
But the Warriors tied it on power-play goals by Sami Tavernier and Jace Hennig before Rob Michel’s power-play tally restored the lead for UMaine later in the period.
Ludvig Larsson drew the Warriors level 7:34 into the third period and Ryan Smith answered just 14 seconds later for UMane, but Hennig’s second goal of the game and third of the weekend tied it at the 9:32 mark.
Hennig had the game-winner on Friday night.
“Last night was a tough pill to swallow but our team came out and competed and played their tails off again,” said UMaine coach Red Gendron. “The pace was tremendous, it was physical and competitive. We wanted more points but we can’t fault our effort and compete level.”
“Last night was unfortunate but we showed a lot of character to go from the low feeling we had last night to being able to compete and work our tails off tonight even though we didn’t get the result we wanted,” said junior center Lacroix. “We just need to clamp down when we get a lead.”
“It was good we were able to respond after last night’s game,” said senior left wing Byron.
Matt Morris finished with 41 saves for the Black Bears while Collin Delia made 23 for the Warriors.
Lacroix opened the scoring at the 7:16 mark when he fired the puck past Delia after Eric Schurhamer’s shot deflected over to him.
Byron made it 2-0 off a Brendan Robbins pass as scored after fanning on his first attempt.
Tavernier and Hennig scored their goals just 1:51 apart in the second period before Michel converted a Cam Brown pass.
Larsson equalized 7:34 into the third period when Chris LeBlanc’s pass deflected to him off a UMaine stick and he snapped it past Morris.
Smith answered rapidly when he swept the puck into the net after Delia had gotten caught out of his net.
But Hennig deflected Alex Carle’s shot past Morris to tie it for the last time.
UMaine will conclude its regular season at home next Friday and Saturday nights against Northeastern (15-12-5, 8-9-3 HE), which has won four in a row and eight of its last 10.