The criteria for establishing an NCAA men’s hockey tournament field will only mean something to the University of Maine Black Bears if they can beat a gritty, enigmatic Northeastern University team in their best-of-three Hockey East quarterfinal series beginning Thursday night in Orono.

Yes, the odds would seem in Maine’s favor. The second-seeded Bears are 7-1-1 over their last nine games and are 3-0-1 in their last four. Northeastern, the seventh seed, has lost two straight and three of four.

Maine is 19-0 in Hockey East playoff games at the Alfond Arena and 27-1 including NCAA Tournament games.

It doesn’t matter. When the puck drops Thursday night, it’ll be 0-0.

“I don’t look at stats. I don’t live in the past. It’s a whole new season now and the first team to win four games wins the Hockey East championship,” said Northeastern coach Bruce Crowder, who had a significant role in Maine’s rise to prominence as an assistant at Maine for four years. “You’ve got to come ready to play in the playoffs. If you don’t, you should be doing something else with your life.”

The Huskies are different than most.

They have had their share of success at Maine’s Alfond Arena. They are 4-4-4 in their last 12 meetings in Orono.

“It’s a great place to play. The atmosphere is great,” said Northeastern junior defenseman and captain Jim Fahey. “They aren’t on your side but they bring a lot of enthusiasm to the game. The guys adapt to that. We thrive on playing in that type of situation.

“The fact they are 19-0 in Hockey East playoff games there says a lot about the type of teams they have and what coach [Shawn] Walsh does to prepare them for playoff games. We know they’ll come ready to play and, hopefully, we’ll respond to that and do our best to take two games,” added Fahey.

The Maine players certainly aren’t going to take the Huskies lightly. Maine and NU tied twice this season with Maine winning the only Alfond game 5-1 on Dec. 1. They tied 3-3 in Portland and 1-1 at Northeastern.

“They’re similar to us. They don’t have a [Boston College star] Brian Gionta or somebody like that but they have a lot of depth up front and they’re a well-rounded team,” said Maine sophomore center Marty Kariya.

Kariya added that the Huskies probably feel they’re better than a seventh-place team “and they’re looking to make up for it this weekend.

“They’re an intense team and we’ve got to do our best to match that intensity or we’ll be sitting home next weekend,” added Kariya.

Goaltending is always the most telling aspect of playoff hockey and Maine junior Matt Yeats, the Hockey East all-tournament choice a year ago, is coming off an important 22-save 5-2 win over Providence. He had stopped nine of 11 shots the previous night in a 4-2 win but didn’t look sharp.

“I feel good coming off the last game,” said Yeats. “It was good to face a lot of shots. It definitely helped my confidence. I didn’t have a great game on Friday.”

He knows he could be busy this weekend.

“Northeastern likes to throw the puck to the net and crash the net. We’ve got to do a good job protecting the front of the net,” said Yeats.

Crowder said he isn’t sure whether Mike Gilhooly or Jason Braun will get the nod in goal on Thursday.

Crowder said he is concerned with his team’s play in the neutral zone.

“Maine is such a great transition team. We can’t afford any turnovers between the top of the face-off circles. We’ve got to make sure we get the puck deep [into the offensive zone] and we have to play strong below the top of the circles in our [defensive] zone,” said Crowder.