Maine, Providence clash in HE semis Black Bears peaking at tournament time

After being swept by the University of Maine two weekends ago (4-2, 5-2), several Providence College players said they hoped to get another shot at the Black Bears in Friday’s Hockey East semifinals on at the FleetCenter in Boston.

The Friars got their wish after Marc Suderman ended the longest game in Hockey East tournament play with 3:34 remaining in the second overtime Sunday night as they ousted Boston University 4-3.

The Bears, 19-10-7 and the second seed, said they respect the third-seeded Friars (21-11-5) and know Friday’s 8 p.m. tussle will be a battle. Top seed Boston College (28-8-2) and No. 5 UMass-Lowell (19-15-3), upset winner over No. 4 New Hampshire, meet in the 5 p.m. opener. Saturday’s championship game will start at 7.

“Obviously, they’ll have a lot of momentum after winning in double overtime,” said Maine junior defenseman and co-captain Doug Janik. “They’ll be confident.”

Sophomore center Chris Heisten said, “They’re a tough team. They looked like a top-10 team against BU. They will come ready to play. We’ll try to generate a high tempo. We want to play a fast game. We want to make them play our game.”

Senior defenseman and co-captain A.J. Begg said, “We can’t worry about who we’re playing. We’ve just got to be ready on Friday. It’ll be a tough game. They’re a good team. Everybody is playing to stay alive.”

Junior goalie Matt Yeats echoed Begg’s sentiments.

“No matter who you play right now, both teams are playing for their seasons [to continue],” said Yeats. “Since we just played them, they’ll be fresh on our minds [and vice versa].”

Sophomore center Marty Kariya said the Friars gave them a couple of good games in Orono, “so we’re going to have to pick it up.”

The Bears’ two playoff quarterfinal victories over Northeastern gave them a Hockey East Tournament record of 34-14.

Over the past seven years, Maine teams have gone 65-20-3 from Feb. 1 on, including Hockey East and NCAA Tournament playoff games.

“There is a lot of pride involved in wearing a Maine jersey,” said Janik. “We don’t want to let the players on previous Maine teams down.”

Yeats said February is the start of “crunch time. It’s time to come together as a team.”

Heisten said January is usually the toughest part of Maine’s schedule and it prepares them for the stretch run.

Kariya said Maine coach Shawn Walsh prepares his teams to peak at the end of the season.

“We really pick it up over the last four or five weeks of the season,” said Kariya.

Maine is on a 9-1-1 streak that has catapulted it into eighth place in the Pairwise Rankings, which imitates the criteria used by the NCAA Selection Committee to choose teams for the 12-team NCAA Tournament.

Walsh said the team’s stretch run can be attributed to four factors.

“Number one is the emergence of Mike Schutte. He’s a scorer and a smart player who has complemented Marty Kariya and Matthias Trattnig,” said Walsh. “Second, Don Richardson has been the intelligent player we needed to play on a line with Chris Heisten and Niko Dimitrakos. Third has been the emergence of our checking line [Robert Liscak between Kevin Clauson and Todd Jackson] and, fourth, we’re healthy.”

The five league tournament champs, including the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference titlist for the first time, receive automatic bids.

Boston College is the only eastern team ahead of the Bears. The Eagles are second in the Pairwise Rankings behind Michigan State.

Providence is 10th, New Hampshire is 11th and ECAC regular-season champ Clarkson is 12th. New Hampshire and Clarkson have already been eliminated from league tournament play.

UMass-Lowell is 22nd.

The Pairwise Rankings judge teams by five criteria: Record against common opponents, record over the last 16 games, head to head competition, record against other teams at or above .500 and the Rating Percentage Index.

For the first time, the Selection Committee will seed the top four teams for the first-round byes regardless of region instead of having two western schools and two eastern schools.

That will probably mean one of the top two seeds in the Eastern Regional at Worcester, Mass., will come from the CCHA or WCHA.

The Western Regional will be in Grand Rapids, Mich.