UMaine hopes win over UNH will spark late-season surge

The University of Maine men’s hockey team is hoping Sunday’s come-from-behind 3-2 overtime win over the University of New Hampshire will serve as the springboard for yet another late-season run.

“We’re where we want to be. We’re right back in the picture,” said Maine coach Shawn Walsh.

Late-season runs have been a Maine trademark.

The Bears went 12-1-1 in their last 14 games a year ago with its loss coming to national champ North Dakota in the Frozen Four. They also won 17 of their last 21 games in claiming the NCAA title in 1998-99; they went 7-3-1 in their last 11 contests of 1997-98; 12-1 to close out the 1996-97 campaign and won eight of their last 11 in 1995-96.

“We have two goals: to continue playing well and to finish second,” said sophomore center Chris Heisten, who had two goals against New Hampshire. “We need to approach every game like it’s a playoff game. The New Hampshire game was definitely a momentum builder. We want to peak going into the playoffs.”

Junior defenseman Eric Turgeon added that the New Hampshire triumph “is as big as any we’ve had this year from a psychological standpoint.

“We beat a Top 10 team, we won in overtime and we came from behind,” said Turgeon.

Maine had been 0-6-2 in overtime and 0-7 in games in which it trailed entering the third period. UNH led the Bears 2-1 after two on Sunday.

The Bears are currently in fifth place in Hockey East with 16 points. Boston College leads with 27 followed by Providence (20), New Hampshire (19) and Boston University (18).

UMass-Lowell is sixth with 15 points followed by Northeastern (14), UMass (13) and Merrimack (12).

Maine and Providence have a game in hand on BC, BU, UML and Northeastern and two in hand on the other three.

In order, Maine plays two-game series at UMass, home with UML, at Merrimack and home with Providence.

“We’d like to make a run at second,” said junior goalie Matt Yeats. “I don’t know if that’s realistic. Third is very realistic. We want to win as many games as possible and get home ice for the quarterfinals.”

The schedule would appear to favor Maine. The Bears played their last seven games against perennial powers BC, BU and UNH and went 2-3-2 against them.

Providence, UNH and BU each has at least one game left with BC.

“But you can’t say the toughest part of our schedule is done because every game is a tough game in this league and you have to be prepared for every one of them,” said Yeats.

“We can beat anybody in this league. If every player plays a solid game for 60 minutes, we shouldn’t have to worry about how anybody else is doing. Things will take care of themselves,” said Turgeon. “This league is so tight. So many things can change.”

Maine will be without leading goal scorer Matthias Trattnig this weekend at Amherst. The right winger, who has nine goals, left Monday to play for Austria in a pre-Olympic Tournament in his native country.

He will return next Tuesday.

“He was looking forward to it,” said Bear sophomore center Tommy Reimann, Trattnig’s roommate. “He wasn’t able to get home for Christmas. He was going to get to see his parents.”

Reimann said it was a four-nation tournament and three will qualify for the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Trattnig played for the Austrian team in the World Championships last April.

“He’ll definitely be a big loss. He’s one of our premier power forwards and our leading goal scorer. We’re going to have to pick up the slack,” said Heisten.