UM penalty-killing improves > Black Bears using diverse schemes, speed to stop power plays

The University of Maine men’s hockey team used to be among the nation’s leaders in penalty-killing percentage.

However, over the last three seasons, the Bears haven’t even been among Hockey East’s leaders. Maine hasn’t finished higher than fourth in the league in penalty-killing percentage.

The Bears were sixth in that category a year ago with an 81.2 percent success rate.

But Maine is back among the league leaders in the early going this season.

The Bears have killed off 12 of 13 power plays in their first three league games and they have even scored a shorthanded goal. Maine’s 92.3 percent success rate is second only to Boston College’s 94.4 percent.

Maine leads Hockey East in overall games with an 89.5 percent efficiency rate. The Bears have killed off 34 of 38 opposing power plays including 25 of the last 26.

“When I came back from California [following immunotherapy treatments for his kidney cancer], we were at around 80 percent. That wasn’t good enough,” Maine coach Shan Walsh said. “I wanted us to be in the top 10 in the country and, with our goaltending, I thought we should be.”

The Bears have diversified their penalty-killing schemes although Walsh said that is nothing unusual.

Sometimes, the Bears will send one forechecker deep into the offensive zone to bottle up the opposing point men on the power play or force them to make a risky pass to get the puck out of the zone; other times they may drop their two forecheckers back to the offensive blue line to help congest the neutral zone and still other times they have even sent two forecheckers deep into the offensive zone to harass the defensemen.

“Teams can’t really prepare for us because we have so many different looks,” said sophomore center Marty Kariya. “We also have more speed this year. Chris Heisten wasn’t fast enough to penalty kill last season but he has really improved his speed and he is penalty-killing this year. He’s one of our smartest players.”

Kariya said there are other veterans who have been used on the penalty kill for the first time and they’ve also done the job.

Walsh said the system his forwards utilize on the penalty kill is suited to fit their strengths.

“And we’ve added a couple new twists on the forecheck that have helped us,” added Walsh.

“But the real key is we have experienced goaltenders and an experienced defense corps,” Walsh said.

Maine sophomore defenseman Michael Schutte said the team has done an exceptional job doing stops and starts on the penalty kill.

Stops and starts involve players stopping abruptly when their team loses possession of the puck in order to get back into good defensive position.