The University of Maine men’s hockey team has had its struggles at the University of New Hampshire’s Whittemore Center.
Friday night’s 3-1 road victory snapped a six-game winless streak (0-3-3) at the Whittemore Center. UMaine had gone just 2-6-3 in the previous 11 games there.
In addition to ending its six-game winless streak at the Whittemore Center, it has already snapped a 16-game winless streak at Northeastern’s Matthews Arena (0-14-2) and six-game losing streak vs. Boston University with a win and a tie in each series.
This is fourth-year UMaine head coach Ben Barr’s deepest team and the evidence is that 11 players have scored at least two goals already and five have scored four or more. The depth is paying off in key wins.
It was a Whiteout Night and a rowdy sold-out crowd of 6,501 was in attendance to cheer on the Wildcats and it was rewarded when UNH’s Liam Devlin scored the game-opening goal early in the second period.
And that fueled the crowd even more.
But this UMaine team wasn’t intimidated. The players knew they had a job to do.
After making the Hockey East semifinals and the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2011-12 season a year ago, the goal is to be the last man standing at the end of this season with a trophy hoisted high in the air.
The team’s performance was impressive especially considering the Black Bears were without their leading scorer off last year’s team, Josh Nadeau (head/facial injury).
The tenacious Black Bears swarmed the puck and gave UNH very little time and space with it for most of the game.
UMaine attempted 69 shots compared to UNH’s 47 and had a 34-26 edge in shots on goal.
Graduate student and co-captain Lynden Breen got the equalizer 3:19 after Devlin scored; Breen linemate Owen Fowler scored what proved to be the game-winner 2:40 after that and Frank Djurasevic iced the win with an empty-net goal.
UMaine outshot the desperate Wildcats 14-6 in the third period while efficiently protecting the one-goal lead although three of those six shots were Grade-A’s (high-percentage) and required top-notch saves from sophomore goalie Albin Boija.
The Black Bears killed a late penalty before Djurasevic scored.
The win over New Hampshire could hold even more importance considering that one of the four NCAA Division I regionals is being held at the Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) Arena in Manchester, N.H.
If UNH gets into the NCAA Tournament, the Wildcats will be sent to the Manchester Regional based on the NCAA’s desire to fill its regional arenas and Frozen Four venues.
hockey breakdown
If UNH doesn’t make it, it would be beneficial to UMaine because the Black Bears would probably be sent to Manchester if it earned an NCAA berth.
As the NCAA Tournament Committee knows, Black Bear fans travel well and a short trip to Manchester would ensure a possible sell-out crowd.
So hurting UNH’s NCAA aspirations is a plus and UMaine will host the Wildcats for a pair of games on Feb. 14-15.
The other regionals will be in Allentown, Pa., Toledo and Fargo, North Dakota so that would limit the number of UMaine fans in attendance.
But there is still a long season ahead.
Just because UMaine is 8-2-2 overall, ranked fifth in both major polls and, more importantly, fourth in the Pairwise Rankings that emulate the NCAA Tournament selection process, doesn’t ensure anything right now.
Just look at defending national champion Denver, which took a 12-0 record into a home series against first-year National Collegiate Hockey Conference member Arizona State over the weekend and got swept by the Sun Devils 3-2 and 5-2.
That dropped the Pioneers to eighth in the Pairwise Rankings.
Denver had won 21 straight games and hadn’t been swept at home since February, 2020.
Hockey is unpredictable because of the dominant role that goalies play in the outcomes of games.
Fortunately for UMaine, Boija has the nation’s eighth-best goals-against average (1.58) and the team is the third stingiest defensive team among 64 Division I programs, allowing just 1.67 goals per game.
The Black Bears are ranked among the top 25 percent in virtually every major category.
They are tied for ninth in goals per game (3.58); 15th in penalty-killing (86.7 percent) and 16th in power play (23.5 percent) and faceoffs (52.9 percent).
UMaine is averaging 66.1 shot attempts per game compared to the opponents’ 42 and has a 33.6-23.4 edge in shots on goal.
The Black Bears have had 200 of their shot attempts blocked and they have missed the net 190 times so those are areas that need to be improved.
They need to do a better job off the puck by moving their feet to get into a shooting lane, get their shots off quicker and put more of them on net.
But, overall, so far, so good, through the first 12 games.
UMaine has four games left before its Christmas break: two at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. on Saturday and Sunday at 3 p.m. and two at home against Stonehill (Mass.) on the following Saturday and Sunday at 2 and 3 p.m., respectively.
The Black Bears can’t afford to take anyone lightly because every game counts when it comes to NCAA postseason consideration.