To be successful, a team has to be resilient, tough mentally as well as physically, and has to find different ways to win games.
That was the case for the University of Maine men’s hockey team this past weekend in its series sweep over visiting Quinnipiac. Quinnipiac has the nation’s longest active streak in consecutive Division I Tournament appearances with five including its national championship run two years ago.
It was just the third time over their past 55 weekends of play that the Bobcats had lost back-to-back games.
The sweep catapulted UMaine to the top of the Pairwise Rankings, which mimic the NCAA Tournament selection process and has comparable aspects to the Heal Points standings in Maine high school sports.
The Black Bears also moved up to sixth in both national polls.
On Friday night, the Black Bears killed four penalties while building a 2-0 first-period lead and protected a 2-1 lead in the third period by limiting Quinnipiac to five shots on goal including just two shots during a 6-on-4 power play at the end of the game when the Bobcats pulled their goalie in favor of the extra attacker.
On Saturday night, the Black Bears appeared on their way to a comfortable victory after jumping out to a 4-1 lead early in the second period.
They were keeping the Bobcats pinned in their own end, and it wasn’t a matter of whether or not the Black Bears were going to win, it was by how much.
But a rare soft goal allowed by goalie Albin Boija on a pass off a two-on-one that glanced into the net off his stick made it 4-2, jumpstarting a Bobcats rally that saw them score three more unanswered goals to take a 5-4 lead in the third period.
Quinnipiac showed why they are among the elite programs in the country.
And when UMaine’s David Breazeale took a tripping penalty with 1:56 left, that appeared to be game, set and match.
But Quinnipiac’s Davis Pennington was assessed a holding penalty 32 seconds later, which gave UMaine a lifeline and they capitalized when Brandon Holt’s screened wrist shot from the midpoint tied it with 28 seconds left while the Black Bears had the extra attacker on the ice after pulling Boija.
That set the stage for Breazeale’s overtime game-winner to cap one of the most thrilling victories in the program’s history.
After 11 years being mired in mediocrity or worse, head coach Ben Barr’s installation of a winning, hard-working culture came to fruition in his third season a year ago when they won 23 games and reached the Hockey East semifinals and NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2011-12 campaign.
On Saturday, the Black Bears outshot Quinnipiac 18-5 in the third period and 5-1 in overtime and won 17 of 23 faceoffs during that span led by senior center Harrison Scott, who picked up his third and fourth assists of the game on the goals by Holt and Breazeale.
Squandering a three-goal lead in front of a sellout crowd and then falling behind would demoralize most teams and the game would wind up in the loss column.
But these players believe they are never out of a game and it shows.
They refused to lose.
Eleven players registered at least one point over the weekend, which reflects the kind of depth this team has and the depth needed to win hockey games.
And UMaine’s second and third leading scorers off last year’s team, linemates Josh Nadeau and Lynden Breen, have just two assists to show through UMaine’s first three games, four if you include the exhibition game win over Army.
Nadeau has the two assists.
But the other three lines all scored as did defensemen Holt and Breazeale.
The power forward line of Nolan Renwick between transfers Taylor Makar (UMass) and Ross Mitton (Colgate) combined for three goals and two assists. Renwick, Mitton and Makar each had a goal and Makar also had two assists.
Scott had five assists and was named Hockey East Player of the Week and his linemates Charlie Russell and Thomas Freel each had a goal.
Clarkson transfer Russell had his first UMaine goal as did Mitton and UMass Lowell transfer Owen Fowler, who is the left wing on the fourth line.
The Black Bear power play finally got untracked and looked better. Freel’s goal came with the man-advantage.
The penalty kill didn’t have a good weekend, numbers-wise, allowing three goals on 12 chances. But it came through when it needed to, especially on Friday night.
Boija was sharp on Friday night but sub-par on Saturday.
However, his teammates bailed him out as he has done for them in the past, and he did make a good glove save in overtime.
The Black Bears need to continue to get better and this weekend series at Northeastern will be a tremendous challenge.
UMaine has lost its last 14 games to the Huskies at Matthews Arena.
