The defending national champion and a team that finished seventh in its league but wound up reaching the NCAA tournament highlight the nonconference portion of the 2018-2019 University of Maine men’s hockey schedule.
The University of Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs, who swept the Black Bears 2-1 and 2-0 last October in Orono, will entertain UMaine next Oct. 19 and 20.
UMaine also visit Princeton University (Dec. 28-29), which finished seventh in the ECAC Hockey League but won six straight tournament games to capture the league title and earn the automatic berth to the NCAA tournament. The Tigers (19-13-4) lost to Ohio State 4-2 in the Midwest Regional.
UMaine returns 10 of its top 11 scorers and all three goalies off last year’s 18-16-4 team (10-11-3 in Hockey East).
Minnesota Duluth, of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, went 25-16-3 last season en route to its second NCAA title in eight years. Five of the Bulldogs’ top seven scorers were freshmen or sophomores and the goalie, Hunter Shepard, was a sophomore.
UMaine will play three other nonconference opponents from the ECAC and one more from the NCHC.
The ECAC opponents are St. Lawrence University (Oct. 12-13) and Quinnipiac (Nov. 23-24) at Alfond Arena in Orono and Yale University at Cross Insurance Arena in Portland on Monday, Jan. 7, 2019.
St. Lawrence (8-27-2 a year ago) finished last in the ECAC at 3-18-1, Yale was eighth (15-14-1, 10-11-1 ECAC) and Quinnipiac was ninth (16-18-4, 9-11-2 ECAC).
Colorado College of the NCHC (15-17-5, 8-12-4 in the league) visits Alfond Arena on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019. The Tigers finished in a three-way tie for fifth place in the eight-team league.
“I like our nonconference schedule,” said UMaine head coach Red Gendron, who will begins his sixth season behind the bench next fall after signing a two-year contract extension in March. “We’ve got teams from a couple of different conferences. We obviously played Minnesota Duluth last year and we’re real happy to go there this season.
“When we played them, we were struggling a bit to create offense. They were a good team, they beat us twice and wound up winning the national championship. Playing them out there this season will help us learn exactly where we’re at.”
Gendron was an assistant at Yale under Keith Allain when the Elis won the NCAA title in 2013.
“It will be nice to be able to play them. They always have a good team,” Gendron said.
Gendron explained that putting together a nonconference schedule is a challenging endeavor.
“Some schools don’t want to come up and play us in Orono,” Gendron said. “We will go and play anyone anywhere as long as they are willing to come up to Orono and play us, too.”
UMaine will open Hockey East play Oct. 26-27 at the University of Connecticut. The Black Bears again play New Hampshire, Boston College, the University of Massachusetts and Boston University three times apiece with two games each against UMass Lowell, UConn, Northeastern, Providence, Merrimack and Vermont.
UMaine plays three of its last four games at home as it hosts Boston College (Feb. 22-23) and Boston University on March 9 and travels to UMass on March 2.
UMaine opens on Monday, Oct. 8 with an exhibition game in Orono against the University of Prince Edward Island.
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