Albin Boija, a second team All-American a year ago and a finalist for the Mike Richter Award which goes to the nation’s best goalie, will return to the University of Maine next season after a sub-par 2025-26 campaign.
Boija, who will be a senior, lost his job to freshman Mathis Rousseau at the end of this past season.
Rousseau started the team’s final six games including its 5-0 loss to Boston College in their Hockey East quarterfinal contest.
UMaine finished up at 18-14-3 and missed the NCAA tournament for the first time in three years.
UMaine head coach Ben Barr is confident Boija will have a bounceback year in 2026-27.
“You know he is capable of doing it. Now it is on him to do it,” Barr said. “Unfortunately, it didn’t happen for him this year but he’s a great kid and he works hard.”
Boija started 20 games this season and posted a 10-7-3 record, a 2.59 goal-against average and an .899 save percentage. He had four shutouts.
His GAA was 36th among goalies at the 63 Division I schools and his save percentage wasn’t among the top 50.
Boija, who hasn’t been drafted by an NHL team, said returning to UMaine felt right.
“I definitely put some thought into it,” Boija said. “It’s what I wanted to do.”
He acknowledged that he wanted to erase the memories of this past season “and show what we can actually do here in a positive way moving forward … with the whole team and a fresh, clean slate.”
Boija led the Black Bears to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances in his first two seasons. UMaine hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since the 2011-12 campaign.
Last season, he posted a 23-8-6 record with a 1.82 GAA and a .928 save percentage. His GAA was third best in the country among goalies who appeared in at least 20 games and his 23 wins and his save percentage were fifth-best.
He was a second team All-Hockey East selection and the runnerup to Boston College’s Jacob Fowler for the league’s Goaltender of the Year Award. He was chosen to the all-tournament team as UMaine won its first Hockey East tournament title since 2004.
He was 10-6-1 his freshman year with a 2.01 GAA and a .916 save percentage.
His 10 career shutouts are second most in school history behind long-time Detroit Red Wings goaltender Jimmy Howard and his current career 2.07 GAA and .918 save percentage are third and fourth-best in the history of the program.
“He is a good goalie who has proven himself to be capable of being very good at this level,” Barr said. “He will be a senior and, hopefully, he will go out on a high note, a better note than we had this year.”
Boija said there were a number of reasons behind his struggles.
“I don’t think I have to go into anything specific, really. I couldn’t find my consistency,” said the 6-foot-1, 195-pound native of Sundsvall, Sweden.
He said he learned a lot of things from this season.
”I’m going to bring everything positive and learn from the negatives,” Boija said.
Boija attended the Boston Bruins development camp last summer but, as of now, has no plans to attend one this summer.
He will be involved in spring workouts at UMaine before returning to Sweden for a few months and coming back to UMaine for their optional six-week workout sessions beginning in July.
“We will bank on him being able to turn things around because we know he will work at it,” Barr added.
Boija expects next year’s UMaine team to contend for an NCAA Tournament berth.
“It will be in our hands to make it happen. You can see from Merrimack winning the (Hockey East) tournament this year. Anyone can do it. You just have to come together and make it happen,” said the 22-year-old Boija.
Merrimack was the eighth seed in the conference tournament. UMaine swept the Warriors in Orono on Feb. 20-21, 5-3 and 5-2.
“I want to be ready and in a spot where I need to be in order to perform well consistently. I want to keep working on details like rebound control, balance, skating ability,” Boija said. “Everything pretty much. Just keep working.
In addition to the physical part of his game, Boija said he is going to devote time to also working on the mental side.
“The biggest part is the mental part. The physical capacity is there,” Boija said. “I know that.”