ORONO, Maine — The University of Maine men’s hockey team received some offense from unexpected sources and earned a hard-fought 4-3 victory over the University of Vermont on Seniors Night at the Alfond Arena Saturday night.
Fourth-liners Nicholas Niemo and Thomas Pichette each scored their second goals of the season and junior defenseman Luke Antonacci notched two assists, his first two points of the campaign.
Josh Nadeau and Owen Fowler scored the other goals for the fifth-ranked Black Bears and Albin Boija made 25 saves as UMaine improved to 21-6-5 overall and 13-4-5 in Hockey East.
UMaine can’t finish any lower than second in the league standings.
Max Strand, Simon Jellus and Blake Steenerson scored for Vermont, which is 11-18-3 and 6-14-2 and has lost five straight.
Graduate student and Minnesota State transfer Keenan Rancier finished with 37 saves.
Sophomore right wing Nadeau scored his eighth of the season just 2:35 into the game with a wrist shot from an acute angle but freshman center Strand answered with his eighth late in the period on a wraparound.
Niemo and Fowler scored in the second period to make it 3-1.
Jellus cut the lead to 3-2 early in the third period with a goal for Vermont, but Pichette answered for UMaine just 1:20 later.
Steenerson scored for the Catamounts with 5:01 left but UMaine effectively protected its lead.
“For those guys who might not see as much ice all the time, for them to step up in a situation like that is massive,” said UMaine graduate student center and co-captain Lynden Breen, one of five graduate students or seniors honored after the game. “They stepped up big-time when we needed them.”
“Two goals from fourth-liners is a big deal. They gave us positive minutes.,” said UMaine head coach Ben Barr. “They did a great job. It’s good to see.”
“We were just trying to play our part, basically,” said junior left winger and Bentley University transfer Niemo. “Keep it simple and you get a bounce every once in a while.”
He said those goals are “just the cherry on top” for the Black Bears.
“Not necessarily what the team is looking for us to do but every once in a while it’s going to happen and we love that, of course,” Niemo added.
Niemo snapped a 14-game goalless drought 6:34 into the second period to give UMaine a lead it would never relinquish.
The Catamounts were attempting to break the puck out of their zone but they turned it over to fourth-line center Oskar Komarov on the right side, and Komarov quickly fed it to the middle of the slot to an open Niemo and he one-timed it past Rancier.
“[Komarov] made a nice play. They turned it over, he made a quick look and I just ripped it,” said Niemo, who beat Rancier to his glove side inside the near post.
Junior left wing Fowler notched his eighth of the season with a wrist shot from the left faceoff circle off a Sully Scholle feed following a long pass from Antonacci to Scholle.
Senior left wing Jellus collected his ninth of the season 5:20 into the third period when he was set up perfectly in the low shot by Joel Maatta, who made his pass from behind the net.
Freshman right wing Pichette responded just 1:20 later when he roofed the rebound of an Antonacci wrist shot from just outside the crease.
“I just went to the net and their guy left me alone,” said Pichette, who ended an eight-game goalless stretch. He said his line “played a good game tonight and we got rewarded.”
Vermont Freshman right wing Steenerson collected his fifth goal by batting his own rebound out of the air past Boija.
But the Black Bears turned in an exceptional forechecking performance over the last two minutes of the game, keeping the Catamounts pinned in their own zone which prevented UVM coach Steve Wiedler from pulling Rancier in favor of the extra attacker until there were only nine seconds left.
Niemo said it was nice to get a win for the seniors.
“Obviously tonight was for those guys,” said Niemo. “They laid the foundation for us. We’ve gotten the building rocking the past couple of years and they’re the reason for that. Obviously, it’s nice to get a ‘W’ for them.”
“When you play a top five team in the country, you need every inch of the game and they outworked us for the inches,” said UVM coach and former University of Southern Maine hockey captain Wielder. “I’m proud of our team’s work ethic and resolve. They don’t quit but we’ve got to start finding these inches. You’ve got to earn those inches on the ice in this league and we just haven’t firmly committed to it yet.”
UMaine will conclude the regular season with two games at UMass on Friday and Saturday nights at 7:00 and 7:30 p.m., respectively, while Vermont hosts UConn on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. and Boston University on Friday at 7 p.m..