Lynden Breen broke his leg in a November game playing for the University of Maine men’s hockey team. It required surgery.
There was no guarantee he would ever play again for the Black Bears.
On Friday night, he broke the ice for the Black Bears as they brought home the Hockey East championship for the first time since 2004.
Graduate student co-caption Breen got the scoring started for UMaine in its 5-2 conference final win Friday night over the University of Connecticut.
Breen opened the scoring at the 12:47 mark of the first period with his seventh goal of the season. Sophomore right wing Josh Nadeau flipped a soft pass to Breen from the defensive zone.
Breen raced down the right wing, sliced across to the inner half of the right faceoff circle and fired a wrist shot that beat UConn goaltender Tyler Muszelik’s between the legs.
It was not an easy road for Breen to get to that moment and this conference championship. He suffered a broken fibula in a Nov. 30 game against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York and didn’t return to practice until February.
Getting Breen back at that time, even just in practice, gave his teammates a boost.
“He’s the heart and soul of this team,” junior defenseman Brandon Holt said after Breen’s first return to practice. “He has been here five years. He means so much to this program. He has been one of the main catalysts in turning it around.”
Breen’s opening goal in Friday night’s conference championship game gave his team yet another boost on the way to the Hockey East title. And that title marks a major milestone in the program’s continued turnaround.
UMaine now heads to the NCAA tournament for the second straight year after having not been there since the 2011-12 season, something Breen focused on in a postgame TV interview on Friday night by emphasizing that “we’re not done yet, we’re going to keep going.”
UMaine lost to Cornell 3-1 in the first round of the NCAA Springfield (Mass.) regional last season.
Breen could have begun a pro career after last season but wanted to come back for a fifth year in the hope of helping lead the Black Bears to a national championship.
Breen was asked about recovering from multiple surgeries, and staying at the program during the transition between the late Red Gendron and current head coach Ben Barr, who was hired after Gendron died suddenly in 2021.
Breen pointed to something Gendron told him as a freshman.
“And he told me that before I leave the University of Maine, I’m going to be a national champion,” Breen said. “And that’s something I remember and take pride in every day this year with this group. And I’m going to make sure that dream becomes a reality, and do it for him.”
