It was a forgettable Saturday afternoon for the University of Maine’s men’s hockey team.
The Black Bears were assessed two five-minute major penalties for kneeing and the Quinnipiac University Bobcats scored three power play goals en route to a 4-0 victory at the M&T Bank Arena in Hamden, Connecticut.
Tenth-ranked Quinnipiac is now 3-1-1 overall while No. 7 UMaine fell to 2-1-1.
Junior Matej Marinov made 19 saves to earn the shutout while UMaine freshman Mathis Rousseau finished with 29 stops in his Black Bear debut.
Senior defenseman Will Gilson’s first-period goal came on a five-minute power play courtesy of a major and game misconduct assessed to UMaine freshman center Jaden Lipinski.
Junior left wing Mason Marcellus expanded the lead to 2-0 with an even-strength goal in the second period before senior left wing Jeremy Wilmer and freshman right wing Ethan Wyttenbach produced power play goals in the third period.
Wyttenbach’s goal came after junior defenseman Bodie Nobes was assessed a five-minute major and game misconduct.
“We just got beat by a team that played much better than us,” said UMaine head coach Ben Barr. “This is indicative of what we’ve seen in the first month and a half. We can do some good things but when it’s tough, we don’t really have an identity to pull ourselves out of it right now.”
UMaine was without injured senior left wing and co-captain Thomas Freel, and junior right wing Josh Nadeau, the team’s top returning scorer, left the game with a lower body injury late in the second period.
Freel also has a lower body injury.
Barr said he will know more about the extent of their injuries early next week.
“We’re going to have some guys who play a lot potentially out for a little bit so it’s going to test us and we’ll see what kind of character we have here,” Barr said.
Gilson, who had previously played at Alaska-Anchorage and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, opened the scoring with his first goal as a Bobcat.
He took a pass from Wilmer and scored with a shot from the point.
Aaron Schwartz also picked up an assist.
Marcellus notched his second of the season at the 7:49 mark of the second period with a wraparound goal. Schwartz and Elliott Groenewold earned assists.
Wilmer made it 3-0 at the 4:56 mark of the third period by beating Rousseau with a shot from the middle of the slot. Marcellus and Schwartz had assists.
Wyttenbach capped the scoring with his fourth of the season off an assist from Antonin Verreault and Chris Pelosi.
Quinnipiac, chosen to win the Eastern College Athletic Conference in the coaches’ preseason poll, went 3-for-8 on the power play while UMaine went just 0-for-2.
UMaine was assessed 42 penalty minutes to Quinnipiac’s eight.
“We killed close to 20 minutes in penalties and when you take two five-minute majors, you have no chance,” said Barr.
During the teams’ Friday night contest, Quinnipiac scored three unanswered goals, including two with the goalie pulled in favor of the extra attacker, to earn a 4-4 overtime tie.
UMaine will host Colgate at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24 and Saturday, Oct. 25 while Quinnipiac will visit Holy Cross (Mass.) at 7 p.m. Tuesday.