After getting blown out on Friday night, 7-2, the determined University of Maine men’s hockey team jumped out to a 2-0 lead against Boston University in Saturday’s series finale and took that advantage into the third period.
But it turned into another nightmarish evening at BU’s Agganis Arena for the Black Bears as Tynan Lawrence scored a pair of third-period goals to tie it, the second one coming with just 2:12 remaining, and Caleb Malhotra scored 1:35 into overtime as the Terriers extended their Agganis winning streak to 10 games over the Black Bears, 3-2.
UMaine hasn’t won at Agganis Arena since 2018.
BU improved to 6-2 overall and 4-2 in Hockey East while UMaine fell to 4-4 and 0-2.
Mikhail Yegorov finished with 34 saves for the Terriers while Albin Boija made 24 saves for UMaine.
Rowan Calvert and Max Scott had staked UMaine to its 2-0 lead, and the Black Bears outshot the Terriers 21-8 in that initial period.
But Lawrence scored a power play goal at the 6:56 mark of the third period to cut the lead in half off a Conrad Fondrk assist. It was his team-leading sixth goal of the season.
His equalizer came off a three-on-three rush. Jack Harvey skated down the middle of the ice and found an open Lawrence in the left faceoff circle. Lawrence took a stride and beat UMaine goalie Albin Boija with a wrist shot from the faceoff dot.
Harvey also set up the game-winner, with a pass to Malhotra in the right side of the Maine zone.
Malhotra cut to his left, skated through a UMaine stick check and made a nifty move to maneuver around another Black Bear before snapping a wrist shot into the short side corner for his second goal of the season.
“You can’t have a bad gap when you play against players like that. They make plays,” said UMaine head coach Ben Barr.
Freshman Calvert opened the scoring with his first career goal.
He scored from the low slot with Jaden Lipinski earning an assist.
Scott expanded the lead with his second in as many nights.
Lee Parks fed him a pass, and Scott scored with a quick wrist shot from between the faceoff dots at the 14:45 mark.
UMaine outshot BU 8-6 in the scoreless second period, but BU had a 12-6 advantage in the third. Each team had one shot in the three-on-three overtime.
“The guys played hard, but there were just too many guys at the end of the game that you couldn’t put out there and it killed us,” Ben Barr said. “We had some discipline issues at the end, which is unacceptable.”
He was irritated by an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Lukas Peterson at the 5:50 mark of the third period because BU’s Jax Wismer had been whistled for boarding, which would have put UMaine on the power play with a chance to go up 3-0. Instead, it was a four-on-four and then Scott was called for slashing 16 seconds later, which set the stage for Lawrence’s four-on-three power play goal, jumpstarting the rally.
BU had three power plays in the final period.
“When you have to kill that many penalties and shorten the bench at the end, that’s just not sustainable, especially against a team like that,” Barr said.
He said his team has to learn from its mistakes.
“We’ve got to move on from it. It is what it is,” said Barr, whose Black Bears will entertain UMass on Friday and Saturday.
BU will visit Michigan State for a pair of games the same nights.