The University of Maine’s 17th-ranked hockey team will return home for the first time since Dec. 14 when it takes on one of the nation’s hottest teams in the seventh-ranked Providence College Friars at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Alfond Arena.
Head coach Nate Leaman’s Friars have won six in a row and nine of their last 10 to improve to 15-7-2 overall and 10-3-1 in Hockey East. The Friars kicked off their six-game winning streak with 6-1 and 3-0 wins over UMaine in Providence earlier this month.
UMaine is 14-9-2 overall and 8-7 in Hockey East and has won five of the last six meetings with the Friars in Orono.
UMaine is coming off a road sweep at UMass Lowell, winning 2-0 and 6-5 in overtime.
“They’re the best team we’ve played from top to bottom,” said UMaine head coach Ben Barr, who was an assistant coach under Leaman at Union College and Providence. “And they’re playing as well as anybody in the country. It will be a great challenge for us.
“They kicked our butts three weeks ago and this will be a great measuring stick to see if we’ve improved at all,” he added.
Barr called the Friars “a big, physical team” and said they hit you every time you have the puck on your stick.
“So you have to make the right play with it. You don’t have time and space with the puck like you might have against other teams,” Barr said. “We weren’t able to manage it a couple of weeks ago so, hopefully, we’re in a better mental place to manage it now. It’s going to be extremely difficult but we have to embrace that and love it.
“We have to play better and tougher,” added Barr.
The Friars are extremely deep with four quality lines and six or seven solid defensemen according to the fifth-year UMaine coach.
And freshman goalie Jack Parsons has stepped in for the injured Philip Svedeback and posted six straight wins including two shutouts, one over UMaine. He is now 7-1 with a 2.11 goals-against average and a .914 save percentage.
“They’re really hot,” observed UMaine junior defenseman and assistant captain Frank Djurasevic. “They’ve been scoring a lot of goals and been getting good goaltending.”
Djurasevic said that Providence is “really structured” and that’s something UMaine aims to be as well.
“We’ll be playing at home for the first time in a while so the building is going to be juiced. We need to use that to our advantage,” Djurasevic added. “We want to get our feet wet the first five minutes, get our forecheck game going and hopefully we can carry that through for the whole 60 minutes.”
The Black Bears assistant captain added that his team wants to be disciplined, efficient and be able to execute on every play that they can.
“You’re going to have to fight for every inch,” said UMaine senior defenseman and co-captain Brandon Holt. “We’re going to have to earn everything we get and we want to make them do the same thing.”
If the Black Bears can do that, Holt thinks they have a pretty good chance against the Friars.
“They took it to us when we played them down there and we would like to give it back to them up here,” Holt added.
According to Leaman, after Svedeback got hurt, everyone on his team has stepped up a notch.
“That has been a big key to our success,” Leaman said. “A lot of guys are playing pretty good hockey.”
Leaman, a former assistant at UMaine and at Old Town High School, said he knows his team will be facing a stiff test in Orono.
“They have a good team. It’s going to be a great challenge. It’s a great growth opportunity for us,” said Leaman, who pointed to his team’s poise in a 4-0 road win against BU last Saturday. “And we have to do that again because that will be as tough an environment as we will play in all year.”
Leaman has just one senior and one graduate student on his roster.
“If you get running around and get emotional, it’s going to compound your problems,” the Providence coach added.
The two teams play a similar, up-tempo, relentless, north-south style of game predicated on finishing their checks and winning puck battles all over the ice, particularly in front of both nets.
The Friars have a distinct size advantage as they are, on the average, two inches taller and eight pounds heavier per player.
Six-foot-six freshman center Roger McQueen, a first round draft pick of Anaheim (10th overall), leads the Friars in scoring with 21 points on eight goals and 13 assists. Linemates Logan Sawyer (10 goals, 9 assists), the right wing, and left wing Jonathan Fauchon (7 & 7) are also among the top scorers along with right wings John Mustard (10 & 9) and Julius Sumpf (3 & 13).
Andrew Centrella (2 & 7) and Quinn Mantei (2 & 3) have had impressive seasons for a well-balanced defense corps, according to Leaman.
Freshman left wing Justin Poirier (17 & 11) continues to pace the Black Bears but he is mired in his longest goal-less drought of the season at six games. Holt has 5 & 17, right wing Miguel Marques has 7 & 10, with left wing Owen Fowler at 7 & 8. Right wing Charlie Russell (6 & 8) and center Max Scott (4 & 10) follow.
Right wing Josh Nadeau (10 & 7) is questionable after missing the UMass Lowell series with an undisclosed illness.
Barr said on Wednesday that he hadn’t made a goaltending decision between junior Albin Boija (10-6-2, 2.56, .900) and freshman Mathis Rousseau (4-3, 2.80, .893).
Providence has an edge in faceoff percentage, both special teams and goals-against. UMaine has scored more goals, blocked more shots, has more shorthanded goals and has fewer penalty minutes.