The University of Maine’s hockey team has one goal this season; winning a national championship.
But after being swept at Boston College over the weekend, it is clear this team has some work to do if it is going to realize its goal.
In the 3-2 loss on Friday night, the Black Bears squandered a two-goal lead in the final 10 minutes of the game.
And Sunday’s response wasn’t what it needed to be according to UMaine head coach Ben Barr as BC triumphed 3-0 including an empty-net goal.
The Black Bears had certainly played well enough over the first 50 minutes on Friday night to deserve the win especially considering it was a packed Conte Forum and it was an emotional evening in which the Eagles paid a moving tribute to three of their former stars in brothers Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau along with Tony Voce, who all died this summer.
During a five-minute Boston College power play in the second period resulting from a questionable kneeing major and game misconduct on UMaine’s Ross Mitton, the Black Bears outshot the Eagles 5-0 and had three break-in opportunities.
Mitton was lost for the rest of the game and that influenced the line combinations, which didn’t help.
But protecting a lead has been problematic for UMaine in the early going.
The Black Bears blew a 4-1 lead at home against Quinnipiac, giving up four unanswered goals before rallying for a 6-5 overtime win.
On Friday night, an offensive zone tripping penalty on Grayson Arnott with 9:44 remaining resulted in Andre Gasseau’s power play goal which changed the whole complexion of the game.
The Black Bears needed to kill the penalty as they did in the second period but couldn’t do it.
Mike Posma tied it with 3:01 left when he was able to get to the net front and flip home his own rebound.
And Ryan Leonard won it with 1:33 left off a two-on-one.
Three of the things you can’t do when you are protecting a lead is take a bad penalty; allow a player to get to your net-front uncontested and surrender an odd man rush.
On Saturday night, the Black Bears allowed Leonard, BC’s best player and a first round draft pick of Washington, to break a scoreless tie in the second period by skating from the right wing boards across to the middle of the ice unattended. He beat UMaine goalie Albin Boija with a wrist shot from between the face-off circles.
The second goal came in the third period when Gasseau jumped on a loose puck in the right faceoff circle and beat Boija with a wrist shot to the far corner from the faceoff dot. A Will Vote check on Josh Nadeau into the boards created the loose puck.
Barr has always said that his team has to get solid performances from all of his players in order to win and that is especially true against a team like Boston College, which is ranked second in the country.
And that wasn’t the case for the now seventh-ranked Black Bears, especially on Sunday, according to the UMaine coach.
But the season is young and a painful lesson was learned.
The encouraging aspect of the series is that UMaine proved it is capable of competing with the more talented Eagles and are capable of beating them even though the Black Bears didn’t do so over the weekend.
The 6-2-1 Black Bears have talent, just not as much as BC, so their margin of error is slimmer.
UMaine wins with depth, structure, grit, tenacity and goaltending.
It is a long season and the BC series could eventually prove to be beneficial because the Black Bears found out what they need to improve on going forward.
And that learning curve must be expedited because Boston University visits UMaine’s Alfond Arena on Friday and Saturday nights at 7.
BU, which is 5-4, is 11th in one national poll and 13th in another.
BC was chosen to win Hockey East in the preseason coaches poll and BU was chosen second. UMaine was fourth.
BU has 13 National Hockey League draft picks, nine of whom were chosen in the top three rounds, while BC has 12 with eight being top three-round choices.
UMaine has one in Colorado Avalanche seventh-rounder Taylor Makar.
So, after the BU series, UMaine will have finished its games with BC and BU.
That doesn’t mean that the rest of the Hockey East schedule is easy, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Hockey East is the best league in the country from top to bottom. Even the bottom-third teams are capable of beating the front-runners.
But having BC and BU in the rear-view mirror is a positive.
