ORONO, Maine — It was a night of mixed emotions for the University of Maine’s hockey team on Saturday night.
Holding a 2-1 lead, UMaine graduate student right wing Ross Mitton took a costly five-minute major and game misconduct for a contact to the head hit and game misconduct with 3:01 left.
Mitton’s hit left UConn freshman left winger Ethan Gardula motionless on the ice for several minutes as the trainers and other medical staff tended to him. He eventually got to his feet and was helped to the locker room.
That enabled UConn junior left wing Jake Percival to tie it with 37 seconds left as the Huskies had pulled goalie Callum Tung and capitalized on the six-on-four.
Percival was parked in front of the net and deflected Kai Janviriya’s wrist shot from the midpoint past UMaine goalie Albin Boija for his ninth goal of the season.
It is the fourth time this season UMaine has given up a goal in the last two minutes of a game, with two of the goals being game-winners and the other two earning ties for the opposing team.
Taylor Makar had given UMaine the first lead of the weekend series with a goal 6:12 into the third period as he one-timed a blast through the legs of Tung after Brandon Holt had carried the puck into the zone and stickhandled to keep the play alive before dishing it to Makar.
It was his seventh goal of the season.
The Huskies retained a five-on-four power play for the rest of regulation and a four-on-three power play for 1:59 into the five-minute overtime.
But the Black Bears were able to kill it and the game went to a shootout that was won by UMaine 1-0 as junior right wing as Nicholas Niemo’s backhander was the only goal.
Boija stopped all three UConn attempts.
“Albin is great in shootouts,” UMaine head coach Ben Barr said.
The game goes into the books as a tie but UMaine earned two points for the shootout win and UConn gets one.
UConn won Friday night’s game 4-2.
UMaine, ranked fifth in one national poll and sixth in the other, is now 15-5-3 overall and 7-3-3 in Hockey East while 17th-ranked UConn is 12-8-2 and 7-6-2.
UMaine freshman center Oskar Komarov scored with 1.7 seconds left in the first period to answer a game-opening goal by UConn junior center Ryan Tattle.
Komarov was set up perfectly in the middle of the low slot by sophomore defenseman Frank Djurasevic.
Djurasevic drove the net down the right wing side before slipping the puck across to Komarov, who one-timed it into the middle of the net for his second goal of the season.
Tattle had scored just 2:41 earlier when his wrist shot from the inner half of the left faceoff circle squeezed between the pads of Boija. It was his 10th.
UMaine outshot UConn 15-7 in the first period.
Both goalies came up with some good saves in the scoreless second period.
Barr was disappointed with the tie.
“For the most part, the guys worked hard but we’re making mental errors at the end of games that are costing us games right now,” Barr said. “It’s just not good enough.”
But Barr was pleased that the team was able to kill the rest of Mitton’s penalty after Percival scored, noting that a four-on-three power play is tougher to kill than a five-on-four.
“Overall, we could have been a lot better this weekend,” Makar said. “It wasn’t our best game or anything like that [tonight], but it was good that we rallied back and got a couple points at the end there.”
UConn coach Mike Cavanaugh said he was a little disappointed with his team’s discipline as the Huskies took a penalty while on the power play and right after UMaine was assessed a penalty.
“But, other than that, I liked our fight. Even when we went down 2-1, our game got better as it went on. That power play goal was a big goal for us,” Cavanaugh said. “To come up here and get a win and a tie isn’t a bad weekend.”
Boija finished with 22 saves and Tung wound up with 30.
UMaine will have next weekend off before hosting Northeastern on Friday, Jan. 31 at 7 p.m. and UMass on Sunday, Feb. 2 at 4 p.m.