The University of Maine’s men’s hockey team opened the program’s 50th season with a 4-1 victory over Holy Cross on Friday night as Robert Morris University transfer left wing Tanner Klimpke scored a pair of power-play goals in the opening 7:33 and sophomore center Brock James tallied an important insurance goal in the third period.
Senior goalie Albin Boija made 18 saves to earn his first victory since a 6-5 overtime win at UMass Lowell on Jan. 24 and graduate student left wing and captain Owen Fowler added an empty-net goal for the Black Bears, who killed off a 34-second two-man disadvantage late in the third period.
Sophomore Danick Leroux made 26 stops for the Crusaders and Matt Kursonis scored a shorthanded goal.
The two teams will play again on Saturday night at 7 at the DCU Center Arena in Worcester.
“The work ethic was good. Every guy out there worked hard,” said UMaine sixth-year head coach Ben Barr, who has now won his last five season-openers. “We made some mistakes. It wasn’t perfect.”
Senior Klimpke, a 16-goal scorer at Robert Morris a year ago and a second team All-Atlantic Hockey America selection, took advantage of an extended power play to stake UMaine to a 2-0 lead with goals 2:39 apart.
And it was Bemidji State transfer defenseman Isa Parekh and senior center Sully Scholle who earned the assists on each goal.
Ben Riche picked up a cross-checking penalty for the Crusaders and the UMaine coaching staff also used a successful challenge in which Holy Cross’ Owen Kim was assessed a five-minute major for contact to the head at the 3:45 mark.
That gave UMaine a five-minute power play including a full two-minute five-on-three.
Klimpke opened the scoring on the five-on-three at the 4:54 mark when Parekh fed him a nice cross-ice pass and he one-timed it past Danick Leroux.
The two-teamed up again with a five-on-four power play goal at the 7:33 mark with Parekh passing across to Klimpke.
“We worked on our power play a lot. We were well-prepared. We knew what they were going to do. We built some chemistry there and (Parekh) was able to find me for two pretty open ones, which was good,” said Klimpke who added that it “definitely feels good to get off to a (good) start.
“Hopefully, I can keep it rolling into the rest of the season,” added the Calgary, Alberta native.
That gave Klimpke four goals in three games dating back to last season when he had two goals in a 5-2 victory over Sacred Heart in the second game of their best-of-three AHA semifinal round series which was eventually won by Sacred Heart, two games to one.
“It was important to score on those power plays. If we don’t score there, that would be a big momentum shift,” said Barr, who credited director of hockey operations Nick Fonzi for making the call for the challenge based on his video review.
Junior center Kursonis cut the lead in half at the 5:05 mark of the second period as he scored a nifty shorthanded goal off a two-on-one with Riche, who picked up an assist.
Falmouth’s James extended the lead six minutes into the third period when he was set up nicely by sophomore defenseman Lukas Peterson and he converted into the open net.
Alaska-Anchorage transfer Judah Makway also earned an assist on the goal.
Peterson and Arizona State transfer Sam Alfano assisted on the goal by Fowler, which was his sixth over his last six games dating back to last season.