Entering Saturday night’s Hockey East game against arch-rival New Hampshire at an energized and sold-out Alfond Arena, the University of Maine’s fifth-ranked men’s hockey team hadn’t scored more than three goals in a game in its previous 12 games, never mind a period.
UMaine, which had scored only 25 goals in those 12 games, couldn’t have picked a better time to snap out of the scoring slump than Saturday night’s 5-2 victory over UNH.
A four-goal third-period uprising earned the Black Bears their 19th win of the season and kept them in a first-place tie with Boston College atop the Hockey East standings.
All four goals came in the final 11:53 including the game-winning goal by Sully Scholle and all-important insurance score by Thomas Freel occurring just 12 seconds later.
UMaine had stolen a 1-1 tie the previous night against UNH with its third extra-attacker goal of the campaign as Harrison Scott’s deflection off David Breazeale’s wrist shot with 43 seconds left produced the tying goal in a game the Wildcats deserved to win.
Adding insult to injury for the Wildcats, following the scoreless three-on-three five-minute overtime, UMaine won the shootout 2-0 for the extra Hockey East point.
UMaine had generated just nine shots on goal through the first 50 minutes of Friday’s game.
The Black Bears played much better on Saturday but had only one goal to show for it through two periods on 22 shots on goal and trailed 2-1 after 40 minutes.
But Charlie Russell began the comeback with 11:53 remaining, Scholle scored 6:47 later followed by Freel, and Josh Nadeau capped his second career four-point night (one goal, three assists) with a shorthanded goal.
Sophomore Nadeau’s other four-point night also came against UNH in last season’s 5-0 Hockey East quarterfinal victory when he had two goals and two assists.
UMaine again showed its character and resiliency over the weekend.
UNH had come into the series with a 8-1-1 record when leading after two periods.
UMaine has now earned points in four of the seven games in which it trailed after the first 40 minutes, going 1-3-3.
The Black Bears outshot UNH 11-3 in that third period and finally looked like the team they were before the Christmas break.
UMaine head coach Ben Barr called the third period performance his team’s best period since that break.
It was just the fourth time this season UMaine scored four goals in a period with the other three being in the two-game sweep over RPI and the 6-0 win over Merrimack.
Lost in the comeback was a save UMaine goalie Albin Boija made late in the second period off a clean breakaway by UNH leading scorer Ryan Conmy, who had scored earlier in the game with a blistering one-timer on the power play. That was his 14th goal in 27 games this season and 28th in 61 career games.
UNH was leading 2-1 at the time and if he had converted, it would have created a huge mountain to climb for the Black Bears, especially considering their goal-scoring struggles and UNH’s exemplary defensive performance for the first five periods of the series.
UMaine had a pair of back-to-back power play chances in a span of 4:08 early in the third period, but failed to convert, running its string of consecutive unsuccessful power plays to 28.
It could have been demoralizing to squander those two opportunities, and should have given UNH a big momentum boost.
But Russell scored four seconds after the second UNH penalty had elapsed to jumpstart the rally.
The fact that UMaine received goals from four players mired in goal-scoring slumps is noteworthy.
Nadeau, Russell and Freel had scored just once in their previous 12 games and Scholle hadn’t scored since a 2-2 overtime tie at Northeastern on Oct. 26, a span of 23 games.
For this team to be successful, it needs balanced scoring.
Those goals should give all four a shot of confidence moving forward.
And, again, this team continues to find ways to earn points and avoid defeats even when it doesn’t deserve to.
That is a credit to the culture Barr and his coaching staff have created in their four seasons at UMaine, which began with a seven-win season in 2021-2022.
The Black Bears went 7-22-4 in Barr’s first season and are now at 19-5-5 overall and 11-3-5 in Hockey East this year.
This team believes in itself and its ability to produce wins or ties when it falls behind or is having an underwhelming performance.
UMaine has five Hockey East games remaining and has all but clinched a quarterfinal round bye and the right to host that quarterfinal.
It is also inching closer to sewing up its second straight NCAA Tournament berth.
UMaine has moved up to fourth in the country in the USCHO poll and remained in fourth in the Pairwise Rankings which mimic the NCAA tournament selection committee’s process.
But there is still plenty of work ahead.
Can UMaine play the way it did in the third period of Saturday night’s games on a consistent basis?
Can the power play end its eight-game drought and 0-for-28 showing?
It appears that the Black Bears could be without graduate student right wing Ross Mitton for a while after he sustained a knee injury on Saturday night.
But center and co-captain Lynden Breen is nearing a return to action after sustaining a broken fibula (leg) on Nov. 30. The team’s inspirational leader has scored 35 goals in his last 86 games including four in his last two games.
That will give the Black Bears a lift.
Meanwhile, the Black Bears continue to be the second stingiest team among 64 Division I schools, allowing just 1.72 goals per game thanks to its veteran defense corps, the forwards’ defensive awareness and a goalie who is one of 10 finalists for the Mike Richter Award given to the nation’s top Division 1 goalie.
Boija has the nation’s third-best goals-against average (1,60) and sixth-best save percentage (.931).
UMaine will look for its first win over UConn this season when it travels to face the Huskies on Friday night at 7 p.m. UConn posted a 4-2 win and a 2-2 tie in Orono on Jan. 17-18.
