The University of Massachusetts Minutemen had lost their past eight games and 10 of their last 11 against the University of Maine.
But the Minutemen are the nation’s No. 2-ranked team and they showed why on Friday night as they earned a hard-fought 4-2 victory over the Black Bears at Alfond Arena.
UMass improved to 19-4 overall, 11-2 in Hockey East, while UMaine fell to 8-12-3 and 4-6-3.
The Black Bears are now 1-6-1 in their past eight games at Alfond Arena.
UMass is 7-34-2 all-time at Alfond Arena. It was the program’s first win at Alfond Arena since Feb. 18, 2012.
The teams will conclude their series Saturday night at 7.
UMass has not had a winning season since 2006-07, which was the only time the Minutemen played in the NCAA tournament. They were eliminated by UMaine 3-1 in the regional finals in Rochester, New York.
“It was a good game. We came up a goal short,” UMaine coach Red Gendron said. “We had some great scoring opportunities but the puck didn’t go in.”
UMass coach Greg Carvel didn’t like the way his team played the first 15 minutes of the game “but beginning with the last five minutes of the period and for the rest of the game, we were pretty solid.”
The Minutemen received what proved to be the game-winning goal from sophomore right wing Mitchell Chaffee 3:56 into the third period to supply them with a 3-1 lead.
Emil Westerlund made things interesting by tucking home a loose puck with 53 seconds left and UMaine goalie Jeremy Swayman on the bench in favor of the extra attacker.
But Cale Makar sewed up the win with an empty-net goal as he scored from his own zone.
Filip Lindberg finished with 25 saves for the Minutemen and Swayman made 38 stops.
On the game-winner, Anthony Del Gaizo carried the puck to the UMaine blue line and slid a pass over toward Chaffee and Mario Ferraro, who were standing just a few feet apart. The puck got tangled up in Chaffee’s skates but Ferraro dug it out and started circling the net before making a nifty backhand pass to Chaffee, who one-timed it past Swayman from the inner half of the right faceoff circle.
“The puck was in my skates and Ferraro yelled for it, so I kicked it up to him,” said Chaffee, whose goal was his team-leading 14th of the season. “Then I yelled for it and he made a really good play. I saw an opening far side and that’s where I put it.”
“That was a huge goal,” Carvel said.
“That goal put us back on our heels,” said UMaine senior defenseman and co-captain Rob Michel. “But we pushed back. We were able to hem them in but we couldn’t get [the equalizer]. They have a great team. They have skill and they work really hard.”
Chaffee said it wasn’t one of the team’s better games.
“We were up and down,” said Chaffee, who feels the Minutemen need to put together a better performance on Saturday night.
After scoring the third goal, the tenacious Minutemen used their superior speed to keep the Black Bears pinned in their own end for the next 10 minutes before the desperate Black Bears generated some scoring chances late, leading to Westerlund’s goal after Alexis Binner wristed the puck to the net from the right point.
Freshman defenseman Marc Del Gaizo scored a weird goal 3:01 into the game to stake the Minutemen to a 1-0 lead and graduate student Jacob Pritchard extended the lead with a power-play goal 6:11 into the second period before UMaine freshman right wing Jacob Schmidt-Svejstrup got one back with 5:06 remaining in the middle period.
Marc Del Gaizo capitalized on a miscue by Swayman to open the scoring. He carried the puck down the left wing and wristed what appeared to be a harmless 40-footer toward the net.
It hit a UMaine stick and Swayman had already dropped to his knees. He stabbed at the puck but it hit the top of his glove and tumbled into the net for Del Gaizo’s eighth goal of the season.
“That was a tough goal. It killed our momentum, but we got it back,” Michel said.
Maine carried the play in the early going and Lindberg was sharp, making two stellar saves off Eduards Tralmaks and Chase Pearson.
The Minutemen began carrying the play midway through the first period and Swayman came up with some important stops to keep the Black Bears within one.
Left wing Pritchard, who played for Carvel at St. Lawrence and transferred to join his former coach, picked up his 11th off a Marc Del Gaizo feed. Del Gaizo threaded the needle with a pass from the left point to the far post where Pritchard jammed it home from point-blank range.
It was his sixth power-play goal.
Schmidt-Svejstrup scored against the run of play after Brendan Robbins located a loose puck that had pinballed to him in the high slot. He swatted the puck toward the net, and it hit a UMass defenseman’s skate and changed direction.
Lindberg made the save but lost control of the puck and it trickled behind him. Schmidt-Svejstrup tapped it over the line.