University of Wisconsin-bound Cole Caulfield scored a pair of goals and linemate Jack Hughes had a goal and two assists as the United States National Team Development Program’s Under-18 team beat the University of Maine 6-4 in an exhibition game Saturday night at the USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth Township, Michigan.
Team USA, which plays in the United States (Junior) Hockey League, is now 18-6 overall and 5-4 against Division I college teams.
UMaine will be off the next two weekends before returning to the ice to face Princeton University in New Jersey on Dec. 28-29.
The Black Bears, who are 5-7-2 overall and 3-3-2 in Hockey East, will host Colorado College on Jan. 2 and will play six of their eight games at home in January. They will also play Yale University in Portland and a Hockey East game at Boston College.
Case McCarthy and Trevor Zegras, who have both verbally committed to attend Boston University, and Patrick Moynihan (Providence) scored the other goals and Boston College-bound goalie Spencer Knight made 37 saves.
Moynihan and McCarthy each also picked up an assist. Marshall Warren (Boston College) had two assists.
Hughes, the team’s leading scorer and a native of Orlando, Florida, hasn’t committed to a school as yet.
Sam Becker and Alexis Binner, who are both defensemen, scored for UMaine and Jack Quinlivan and Eduards Tralmaks had the other goals. Mitch Fossier, UMaine’s assists leader with 11 in 14 games, picked up a pair of assists.
Jeremy Swayman, who had started all 14 regular season games, was given the night off by UMaine head coach Red Gendron so senior Rob McGovern and junior Stephen Mundinger handled the netminding chores.
Each allowed three goals with McGovern making 18 saves and Mundinger rejecting 14 shots.
McCarthy, a defenseman, scored the only goal of the first period as he beat McGovern with a shot from the point through traffic.
Caulfield expanded the lead on the power play 23 seconds into the second period as he converted from the low slot but Becker pulled a goal back 2:27 later by beating Knight from between the face-off circles off a Fossier feed.
Caulfield responded just 1:20 later when he fired the puck past McGovern from the middle of the slot off a Hughes pass.
Zegras started a wild flurry of three goals in a span of 49 seconds early in the third period by sailing a shot past Mundinger’s stick side off a pass from his future Boston University teammate Domenick Fensore. That came on the power play.
Tralmaks answered just five seconds later with a backhander before Hughes converted a pass from Warren 44 seconds after that.
Binner and Quinlivan cut the lead to 5-4 with goals only 31 seconds apart as Binner wired a wrister past Knight off a Chase Pearson pass and Quinlivan re-directed a Keith Muehlbauer shot into the net.
But Moynihan restored the two-goal lead 2:10 later from a tough angle off a pass from Warren.