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ORONO – The University of Maine men’s hockey team rode the emotion of Seniors Night, its potent power play, and a dominating first period to a 5-3 win over Massachusetts Saturday night that earned the Black Bears the second seed for the Hockey East quarterfinals.
Maine, which extended its unbeaten streak to eight games (6-0-2) and improved to 24-10-2 overall, 17-8-2 in Hockey East, will entertain No. 7 UMass Lowell (14-18-2, 11-14-2) in their best-of-three quarterfinal series beginning Friday night.
In the other series, No. 6 Vermont will visit No. 3 Boston College, No. 5 Providence will travel to No. 4 New Hampshire, and No. 8 UMass will invade No. 1 Boston University.
The UMass-BU series will start Friday while the other two series get under way on Thursday.
“Coach [Tim Whitehead] really gave us an emotional speech in the locker room before the game. It meant a lot to the seniors and the rest of the team, and we came out with a lot of fire,” said senior center Derek Damon.
Senior captain and right wing Greg Moore and sophomore right wing Rob Bellamy scored 28 seconds apart in the game’s first 3:21 to give Maine a lead it would never relinquish. Billy Ryan added a five-on-three goal at the 12:17 mark for a 3-0 lead.
Maine outshot UMass 18-4 over the first 20 minutes.
“We came out flat and they took it to us in the first period,” said UMass senior center and tri-captain Stephen Werner.
UMass coach Don Cahoon concurred.
“That first period took us out of the game. And their power play is excellent,” said Cahoon. “We played on our heels in the first period. To their credit, they were on their toes. End of game.”
Whitehead added, “We got off to a good start, which we wanted to do. That was a big key tonight. And we executed on the power play. That was another key. We drew some penalties with hard work. It was a good, complete effort.”
Damon’s second-period power-play goal expanded the lead to 4-0 before the scrappy Minutemen made things interesting with consecutive goals from Chris Davis and Werner (power play) later in the period.
But Josh Soares sewed up the win with 7:58 remaining in the game.
The line of Michel Leveille (3 assists), between Soares (1 goal, 1 assist) and Moore (1 & 1) combined for three goals and five assists.
Soares’ wrister from just inside the top of the right circle beat UMass goalie Gabe Winer to the far corner over the goalie’s glove. A Soares shot had hit the crossbar seconds earlier.
“I saw the glove side was open. Their two defensemen backed off me, so I took it in as far as I could,” said Soares, who had taken a pass from Moore. “When they both stepped up on me, I shot it as close to one of their defensemen as possible so it would be more of a screened shot. I tried to place it and put it through the defenseman’s legs.”
UMass goalie Gabe Winer said, “I was drifting back and over and he made a nice shot through a screen. I just didn’t pick it up.”
Werner said Soares’ goal “was a pretty big kill to us.”
Moore added, “We needed that goal.”
UMass freshman defenseman Topher Bevis capped the scoring with his first collegiate goal with 1:52 left.
Moore opened the scoring when he cut right to left across the slot and redirected a Leveille pass through Winer’s pads.
“It went through one of our defensemen’s legs. I saw it late,” said Winer.
Bellamy darted to the far post and converted a cross-ice pass from Jon Jankus.
“It was an awesome pass, and I just deflected it in off the post,” said Bellamy.
Ryan finished off a textbook passing sequence as Keenan Hopson passed it from the point down to his brother John, who then whipped it across the goalmouth to Ryan for a tap-in.
Damon’s goal 2:58 into the second period came off a snap shot from the faceoff dot to Winer’s left.
“There was great puck movement by everybody on that shift,” said Damon. “I came off the half-wall and ripped it short side off his [Winer’s] blocker and in.”
Davis scored on a breakaway between Maine goalie Ben Bishop’s pads off a Chris Capraro pass and Werner converted a Marvin Degon rebound.
Bishop finished with 19 saves, including nine off Grade-A (high-percentage) chances, and he almost scored into the empty net with a minute remaining.
Winer had 25 saves, 12 of the Grade-A variety.
BLACK BEARS 5, MINUTEMEN 3
Massachusetts (13-19-2) 0 2 1 – 3
Maine (24-10-2) 3 1 1 – 5
First period – 1. Maine, Moore 23 (Leveille, Soares), 2:53 (pp); 2. Maine, Bellamy 6 (Jankus, Shepheard), 3:21; 3. Maine, Ryan 10 (J. Hopson, K. Hopson), 12:17 (pp). Penalties: UMass, Davis, slashing, 2:29; UMass, Degon, obstruction-hooking, 10:26; UMass, Leaderer, holding the stick, 11:58.
Second period – 4. Maine, Damon 13 (Leveille, Tyler), 2:58 (pp); 5. UMass, Davis 9 (Capraro), 5:48; 6. UMass, Werner 13 (Degon, Davis), 18:58. Penalties: UMass, Fenton, hooking, 1:18; Maine, Damon, holding the stick, 13:23; Maine, Ryan, contact to the head-roughing, 17:10.
Third period – 7. Maine, Soares 13 (Moore, Leveille), 12:02; 8. UMass, Bevis 1 (Crowder, Kostka), 18:08. Penalties: UMass, Berry, interference, 1:21.
Shots on goal: UMass 4-7-11-22; Maine 18-7-5-30
Goaltenders: UMass, Winer (30 shots-25 saves); Maine, Bishop (22-19)
Power-play opportunities: UMass 1 of 2; Maine 3 of 5
High-percentage scoring chances: UMass 5-5-4-14; Maine 12-5-7-24
Attendance: 5,363
Tickets and TV
Tickets for Maine’s Hockey East quarterfinal series against UMass Lowell will go on sale at Alfond Arena today at 8:30 a.m. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased by calling 1-800-756-TEAM or at the Alfond ticket office.
WABI-TV of Bangor has announced that it will broadcast Saturday’s game at 7 p.m.
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