Taylor Makar came through again for the University of Maine men’s hockey team.
The senior left winger scored 2:15 into overtime to give the fifth-ranked Black Bears a 1-0 victory over seventh-ranked Providence College at Schneider Arena in Providence on Saturday night.
UMaine improved to 18-5-3 overall and 10-3-4 in Hockey East while Providence fell to 16-7-5 and 6-6-5, respectively.
Makar extended his goal-scoring streak to five games and now has seven goals during that span, with three of them being game-winners.
Nolan Renwick set up Makar by winning a battle for the puck with a pair of Friars along the left wing boards and then slipping a short pass across to him in the high slot.
Makar had time to take a few strides in the middle of the slot and he snapped a wrist shot over the glove of Phillip Svedeback.
“[Renwick] made a great play,” said Makar. “He gave the puck to me and I decided to shoot high glove and, luckily, it went in. I could have walked in a little more but I wanted to catch the goalie off-guard so I decided to fire it.”
Makar is UMaine’s only NHL draft pick (7th round, Colorado).
“[UMaine goalie coach Alfie Michaud] had scouted their goalie and was yelling at us to shoot high glove side,” he added.
Makar said he doesn’t remember having a goal-scoring streak like this in a long time.
The Calgary, Alberta native and University of Massachusetts transfer had scored an extra-attacker goal with 2:04 remaining on Friday night to earn the Black Bears a 3-3 tie. They went on to win the shootout Friday night for the extra Hockey East point, 1-0, with sophomore winger Sully Scholle scoring the only goal among the four shooters for each team.
Makar scored the game-winner in a 3-1 win over Northeastern and added an empty-net goal to ice it; he had another game-winner in the 3-2 victory over his former team before scoring a pair on Friday night including a shorthanded goal before he notched his tying goal.
He started his run with a goal in the 2-2 overtime tie with UConn.
Makar has now run his career single-season high to 13 goals on the season.
His previous high was 10 at UMass during the 2022-23 campaign.
He has a team-high five game-winning goals this season.
Sophomore goalie Albin Boija made 28 saves for the Black Bears Saturday night and posted his fourth shutout of the season.
The Black Bears had to kill two five-minute major penalties including one that began with just 7:08 left in regulation.
“Penalty-killing won the game for us and Albin was fantastic when he needed to be,” said UMaine head coach Ben Barr.
Barr said there are a lot of things his team has to improve on based on the weekend’s performance but noted that it is always nice to come out with a win.
“We missed a lot of hits. We turned a lot of pucks over in bad areas. Providence puts a lot of pressure on you. But I was really happy about how the guys found a way [to get the win]. It was really gutsy,” said Barr.
Svedeback finished with 19 saves for Providence.
UMaine will host arch-rival New Hampshire at 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday while Providence will play a home-and-home series against Boston University, both at 7 p.m. That series will be held Friday in Providence and Saturday in Boston.
