ORONO, Maine — University of Maine junior left wing Nolan Vesey was reminded by a few teammates before Saturday’s Seniors Night game against Northeastern University that he had a hat trick against Northeastern on Seniors Night two years ago in a Black Bear win.
“There were joking with me, saying they wanted to see if I could do it again. I shrugged it off. All I wanted to do was to get a win for our [four] seniors because they mean so much to the program. They’ve done a lot for it,” said Vesey, who did notch another hat trick to lead UMaine to a wild come-from-behind 5-4 win.
Eleventh seed UMaine (11-19-4 overall, 5-15-2 HE) will travel to No. 6 Vermont (18-11-5, 10-8-4 HE) for a best-of-three Hockey East first-round series next weekend.
UMaine snapped a seven-game winless skein (0-6-1) and ended Northeastern’s five-game winning streak.
Eighth seed Northeastern (16-13-5, 9-10-3 HE) will host No. 9 University of Connecticut (12-14-8, 8-10-4) next weekend.
Senior left wing Blaine Byron had a goal and three assists and fellow senior Matt Morris made 40 saves to help UMaine erase four one-goal deficits. Center Cam Brown and defenseman Eric Schurhamer were the other Black Bear seniors honored before the game.
“It doesn’t get much better than that,” Byron said. “Thanks to all the boys for competing the whole night. They never gave up and found a way to win. Matt Morris was unbelievable. It was a great third period.”
The teams were tied 3-3 entering the third period but Nolan Stevens’ 5-on-3 one-timer off a Jeremy Davies pass gave Northeastern a 4-3 lead 4:34 into the period.
But Byron was hooked on a shorthanded breakaway 1:17 later to earn a penalty shot which he converted with a wrister past Ryan Ruck (19 saves).
“It’s a move I always do in practice. He bit on my backhand [fake] and I quickly moved it to my forehand and put it low, blocker,” Byron said.
Vesey scored the game-winner on the power play one minute later when he tipped Patrick Holway’s pass from the right point past Ruck from just beyond the crease.
“We made eye contact and it was a great look by him. I was fortunate enough to make a play on such a great pass,” Vesey said.
Vesey had tied it 3-3 with 28 seconds left in the second period by sprinting to the net front unattended and directing Byron’s pass over Ruck’s right pad after Byron had made a scintillating end-to-end rush.
Tanner Pond staked Northeastern to a 1-0 lead just 18 seconds into the game by diverting Matt Filipe’s pass behind Morris but Vesey tied it later in the period with a wrister into the upper far corner directly off Chase Pearson’s face-off win.
Jeremy Davies responded 6:18 into the second period by tapping in a Nolan Stevens pass but a power-play goal by Pearson drew the Black Bears level 3:02 later as he one-timed a cross-pass from senior Cam Brown behind Ruck.
Dylan Sikura put the Huskies ahead again at the 12:08 mark by shoveling home a perfectly-placed pass from Nolan Stevens, who had stolen the puck from Mark Hamilton behind the net, but Vesey equalized on the power play off the Byron rush.
“Their big guys played real well tonight,” said Northeastern’s Nolan Stevens, who had two assists to go with his goal.
“Maine played with a lot more emotion than we did. I was disappointed in our effort,” Northeastern coach Jim Madigan said.