University of Maine interim men’s hockey coach Tim Whitehead plans to experiment with line combinations after seeing his top two scoring lines combine for only one assist in the weekend’s 2-1 overtime loss and 2-2 tie at Northeastern.

The primary scoring lines consisted of left wing Michael Schutte with center Marty Kariya and right wing Colin Shields, and left wing Lucas Lawson with center Tommy Reimann and right wing Niko Dimitrakos. They had been together for several games.

But Shields and Lawson have been flip-flopped. Shields will be the right wing on the Reimann line with Dimitrakos sliding over to the left wing and Lawson will go over to the right side with Kariya and Schutte.

“I just want to try to jumpstart them. They’ve gotten a little stale,” said Whitehead. “We need to get more production out of our top two lines. Northeastern’s top two lines outplayed ours. Sometimes, playing with a different guy gives you new energy. It’s as simple as that.”

He said it will be important for the players to “still play well defensively” while hopefully generating more offense.

He was pleased with the play of the Robert Liscak line, which includes left wing Todd Jackson and right wing Gray Shaneberger. That line combined for a goal and three assists on Saturday.

And he may have discovered a productive all-freshman fourth line with Ben Murphy between left wing Paul Falco and right wing John Ronan.

“The freshman line played really well. They generated seven scoring chances on Saturday night and didn’t allow any against them,” said Whitehead. “They worked hard, they played physical and they kept things simple.

“Murphy is a good all-around player who is quick, tough and smart. Falco skates well and is physical and Ronan is smart and can score,” added Whitehead.

Murphy said his line played well Saturday “but we would have liked to have gotten one to go into the net. That’s just the way the puck bounces.

“We wanted to be tough to play against. We went out there and tried to set a tone. We wanted to be scrappy and see what happened from there,” said Murphy.

Whitehead also said he plans to alter his defense tandems with the exception of senior captain Peter Metcalf and freshman Matt Deschamps.

And he is looking to re-insert freshman defenseman Troy Barnes back into the lineup. He didn’t play against Northeastern.

“We’ve got to do a better job moving the puck out of our defensive zone. And our forwards need to help out more,” said Whitehead.

Maine hosts Merrimack for a series this weekend.

Broken leg sidelines Sjogren

The frustration level has increased for Maine women’s hockey coach Rick Filighera, whose Bears dropped 3-0 and 4-3 decisions to the nation’s No. 3 team, Northeastern, last weekend and have fifth-ranked Niagara coming to town for a Friday afternoon game at 2.

“We outplayed and outworked Northeastern both games but we just can’t score. I’ve got to recruit a couple of snipers,” said Filighera, whose team has been held to two goals or less nine times in 21 games.

To make matters worse, Jarin Sjogren, who centers the top scoring line between 16-goal producers Meagan Aarts and Karen Droog, suffered a broken leg against Northeastern and is probably gone for the season. She was the team’s third-leading scorer with 17 points on five goals and 12 assists.

Aarts and Droog have combined for exactly half of Maine’s 64 goals. No one else has more than five.

Filighera said in order to manufacture more goals, they are stressing to their forwards to “stop in front of the goal, don’t get too close to the goaltender and stay higher in the slot so there are more options available” when they receive the puck.