The University of Maine’s hockey team will be the fifth seed for the Hockey East Tournament and will receive a first-round bye before traveling to take on fourth seed Boston College in next Friday’s quarterfinal round. Puck drop is at 7.
The Black Bears did nothing to earn it on Saturday night, losing their regular season finale, 5-3, to a last-place Vermont team that entered the game 0-6-1 in its previous seven games and had been outscored 34-17.
But Boston University couldn’t take advantage and leapfrog the Black Bears into fifth place because the Terriers were beaten by UMass Lowell 4-3.
Vermont improved to 13-20-1 overall and 8-15-1 in Hockey East while UMaine wound up 18-13-3 and 12-11-3.
Vermont will travel to Boston University for a Wednesday preliminary round contest.
“We just got outworked,” said UMaine head coach Ben Barr. “We got fortunate because we don’t have to play Wednesday. Hopefully, we can figure out how to work hard again in between now and then and give ourselves a chance.
“We’ve`got to find our game. One game at a time,” Barr added.
The Black Bears came into the game on a five-game unbeaten streak (4-0-1) but the Catamounts jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period and the Black Bears could never draw even.
UVM outshot the sluggish Black Bears 9-3 in the first period and received goals from Thomas Sinclair, his fourth of the season, and Cedrick Guindon, his third. Guindon’s goal came on the power play.
UMaine’s Josh Nadeau scored his 17th just 59 seconds into the middle period but Colin Kessler restored the two-goal lead on the power play with 4:42 left in the period with his ninth before UMaine’s Miguel Marques scored his 10th of the campaign with 52 seconds remaining.
But Vermont’s Max Strand scored his sixth early in the third period to re-establish a two-goal lead.
UMaine again climbed within one when Owen Fowler scored his 12th with 1:55 remaining while the Black Bears had an extra attacker on the ice in place of goalie Mathis Rousseau.
But UMaine’s Oskar Komarov was called for interference with a minute to go and Kessler scored into an empty net.
Aiden Wright made 23 saves for UVM and Rousseau had 22 for UMaine.