ORONO, Maine — The University of Maine men’s hockey team built a 4-0 lead and withstood a Boston University third-period rally to remain unbeaten at Alfond Arena on Friday night by virtue of a 5-2 victory.
Junior left wing Owen Fowler scored a pair of goals as the Black Bears improved to 7-2-1 overall and 4-2-1 in Hockey East. UMaine is now 6-0 at Alfond Arena.
BU is 5-5 and 2-2.
Fowler scored for UMaine in the first period on a shorthanded goal.
Sophomore defenseman Frank Djurasevic expanded UMaine’s lead to 2-0 early in the second period and junior left winger Thomas Freel and senior center Harrison Scott scored on 5-on-3 power plays late in the middle period with Scott’s goal coming with less than a second until intermission.
Ryan Greene’s 5-on-3 power play goal and Doug Grimes’ even-strength goal for BU cut it to 4-2 but Fowler added an empty net goal in the third period for the Black Bears.
The teams will play again at 7 p.m. on Saturday.
UMaine won the special teams battle 3-1 with the two power play goals courtesy of simultaneous penalties on Cole Hutson (slashing) and Jack Hughes (boarding) with 1:36 left in the middle period and a slashing penalty on Brehdan Engum 43 seconds later.
“They’re a good hockey team. The special teams hurt us. That was the difference in the game,” said BU coach Jay Pandolfo.
“We took advantage of the opportunities we had,” said Scott. “We were fortunate to get those five-on-threes and we put two pucks in the back of the net.”
Fowler staked UMaine to a 1-0 lead 5:12 into the game.
Freshman defenseman Cole Hutson made a no-look pass across the ice right onto Fowler’s stick and he broke in down the right wing and beat sophomore goalie Max Lacroix with a wrister to the far side.
“I didn’t see much. Their defenseman had a good shot-blocking lane and I just tried to get the shot on net. I heard it hit the post, luckily, it went in,” said UMass Lowell transfer Fowler.
“That got us going. We got a ton of momentum,” said Scott.
It was his second goal of the season.
Merrimack transfer Djurasevic made it 2-0 3:17 into the second period.
He made a scintillating rush down the middle of the ice, muscled his way between two Terriers and shoved the puck past Lacroix with one hand.
It was his first of the season.
Freel and Scott broke the game open with their 5-on-3 goals 30 seconds apart.
Freel was set up perfectly at the far post by Charlie Russell and swept it past Lacroix for his seventh of the season with all seven coming on the power play.
Scott then barely beat the buzzer with a blast into the short side corner off a Freel pass.
“I knew time was running down. I waited for that short side to open up a little bit and ripped it. I heard the buzzer go off after it went in,” said Scott whose goal was his sixth.
Greene of BU scored with a one-timer off a Shane Lachance feed 2:32 into the third period with the two-man advantage and Grimes scored his first on a pass from Matt Copponi with 10:59 to go.
But the Black Bears protected the lead efficiently until Djurasevic pushed the puck out of the defensive zone to Fowler, who flipped it into the empty net.
Albin Boija finished with 23 saves for UMaine and Lacroix wound up with 29.
“The guys played hard. It’s good to get a win,” said UMaine coach Ben Barr. “But we’ve got to be better.”
He was irritated with the three penalties taken by Lynden Breen (hooking), Taylor Makar (tripping) and Fowler (roughing) in the first 6:37 of the third period.
“We’ve got to be smarter than that,” said Barr.
BU came into the game as the most penalized team among 64 Division 1 schools, averaging 16.56 penalty minutes per game. And its penalty-killing percentage of 66.7 percent was 61st best.
Each team had 16 penalty minutes. UMaine was 2-for-6 on the power play and BU was 1-for-6.