ORONO, Maine — The University of Maine men’s hockey team got third-period goals two minutes apart from senior right wing Donavan Houle and freshman left wing Bradly Nadeau, spurring a 4-2 win over No. 1 Boston College at a sold-out Alfond Arena Friday night.
The Black Bears, who are ranked 13th, improved to 6-1 overall and 3-0 in the Hockey East Conference while BC fell to 7-2 and 2-1. The teams will finish their series Saturday at 7 p.m. UMaine is now 5-0-1 in its last six games against BC and has won five in a row.
It is UMaine’s second-ever win over a No. 1 team at Alfond Arena and the team’s 3-0 Hockey East start is the best since 2005-06.
In the last period, Houle broke a 1-1 tie off a faceoff play to the right of BC goalie Jacob Fowler. Harrison Scott won a faceoff back to Ben Poisson and he touched it over to Houle who beat Fowler with a shot inside the far post to the low glove side of Fowler.
Scott won 17 of his 23 faceoffs in the game. The goal-scoring play was a planned one, said Houle, praising Scott’s ability to give the team a jump on restarts.
“It’s fun playing with him because you always start with the puck,” Houle, whose goal was his third of the season, said. “It makes a big difference in the game.”
Two minutes later, Lynden Breen flipped a cross-ice pass to Nadeau and he blistered a one-timer past Fowler for his team-high sixth of the season.
“That was a big-time shot,” said UMaine head coach Ben Barr, who pointed out that sophomore defenseman Grayson Arnott took a thunderous hit at center ice to set the play in motion that led to the goal. He got it to Josh Nadeau, who passed it to Breen.
BC’s Ryan Leonard made it 3-2 by jamming a Gabe Perreault pass between Ostman’s pads with 8:33 remaining for his fourth of the season.
Grayson Arnott added an empty-netter late in the game to sew up the victory for UMaine.
Ostman finished with 26 saves, while Fowler had 34. Both goalies were outstanding, especially during the stalemate that preceded the flurry of third-period action.
Breen, a senior center, opened the scoring for UMaine at the 4:26 mark of the second period, but Eagle graduate student right wing Jack Malone equalized on the power play just 1:31 later.
Breen’s goal was his third of the season and was set up by the Nadeau brothers, Bradley and Josh. Josh Nadeau slid a cross-ice pass to his brother, Bradly’s one-timer squeezed between the pads of Fowler, and Breen tapped it over the goal line.
But Cornell University transfer Malone answered with his fourth off a pretty passing sequence involving first-round NHL draft choices Cutter Gauthier and Perreault. Gauthier passed the puck down to the extended goal line to Perreault, who snapped it across to the far post where Malone swept it home.
Fowler made an alert save on Scott later in the period when the puck took a wild bounce off the boards and came out front to the left of Fowler. Fowler held the short side.
A few minutes after that, BC’s Will Smith broke in alone on Ostman off a Perreault pass, but the Swedish goalie robbed him with a glove save.
UMaine had a goal by Josh Nadeau late in the period waved off by an offsides call after Boston College coach Greg Brown asked for a video review.
The goalies were the story in the first period as each made 12 saves, including a number of gems, to keep the game scoreless.
The Eagles generated a two-on-one and Aram Minnetian slid a pass across to the far post to Andre Gasseau, who got off a one-timer that was kicked out superbly by Ostman.
Later in the period, it was Fowler who came up with a pair of great stops. He held the short side post to thwart Bradly Nadeau, who rifled a one-timer off a pass from brother Josh.
Seconds later, Bradly Nadeau tracked down the puck behind the net and fed his brother Josh, who burst down the middle of the slot and fired a 10-foot one-timer that Fowler stopped with his chest as he was well-positioned.
“We made it hard on them and that’s what you have to do against a team with that much talent,” Barr said. “It was good to see.”
Boston College coach Brown said UMaine “outworked us” and played smarter.
“Both teams made some plays, but they were more together than we were,” Brown said. “They were able to cause a lot of turnovers in the neutral zone and our zone. They kept the pressure on us much more than we did on them.”