Terriers hold off Bears’ rally

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ORONO – Boston University’s dominance of the University of Maine continued Friday night. But what appeared to be a comfortable men’s hockey win turned into a nail-biter.

BU junior left wing Pete MacArthur collected his first career hat trick, the Terriers scored six goals on their first 17 shots en route to building a 6-2 lead, and then they staved off a furious Black Bear rally for a 6-5 triumph at Alfond Arena.

BU is now 4-0-1 in its last five games against Maine and improved to 9-4-6 overall, 6-3-5 in Hockey East. Maine had its seven-game unbeaten streak (6-0-1) snapped and fell to 14-4-2 and 7-4-1.

Maine attempted 85 shots to BU’s 35 and finished with a shots-on-goal margin of 45-20.

The teams play again tonight at 7.

MacArthur’s important first goal came just 15 seconds after the Black Bears’ Brent Shepheard had opened the scoring on the power play.

Freshman defenseman Brian Strait gave BU the lead for good with 44 seconds left in the first period.

MacArthur scored his next two goals at the 3:06 and 7:00 marks of the second period with his second coming while the Terriers were shorthanded.

Maine’s Josh Soares scored the first of his three goals 1:22 later on that same power play, but Jason Lawrence restored the three-goal edge at the 14:50 mark.

Bryan Ewing knocked in his own rebound early in the third period to make it 6-2 and send ineffective sophomore goalie Ben Bishop to the bench after he allowed six goals on just 17 shots.

Keith Johnson closed the gap on the power play when the rebound of his wrister glanced into the net off the skate of BU defenseman Matt Gilroy.

Soares made it 6-4 with 9:32 remaining as he cut across the slot uncovered and beat BU goalie John Curry with a short-side wrister over Curry’s blocker.

Soares scored again with 3:46 left on a snap shot from the high slot, extending his goal-scoring streak to four games (6 goals) and his points streak to five games (6 goals, 3 assists).

The Bears pressed for the equalizer, but BU effectively bottled them up, and Curry made a couple of crucial stops in the waning seconds en route to a career-high 40-save performance. He made 15 Grade-A (high-percentage) saves.

“If you had told me I’d give up five goals and we’d still win, I’d have said you must be kidding,” said Curry.

Curry said he never thought the game was in the bag, even with a 6-2 lead.

“I was really impressed with the way Maine cycled the puck,” said Curry.

Soares said registering a hat trick in a loss is a “weird feeling.”

“I thought we had a great effort tonight, coming back like we did,” said Soares. “We made some mistakes and they capitalized on them. We didn’t give them many shots, but they were quality shots.”

Maine coach Tim Whitehead called it a weird game.

“It had a little bit of everything. It was very entertaining except for the coaches,” said Whitehead. “Curry was fabulous and Soares was equally exceptional.”

BU coach Jack Parker said Curry was outstanding and that it was nice to see MacArthur, who had six goals coming into the game, erupt for the hat trick.

“He’s a goal scorer,” said Parker, who feels MacArthur is capable of a 25-goal season.

Parker also said he thought his team hung Curry out to dry in the third period until the final two minutes.

“That was the best we played,” said Parker, whose team forced three Maine icings.

Bishop didn’t see a shot until MacArthur scored with just 4:57 left in the first period and he said it was tough to go 15 minutes without seeing a shot. Maine had the game’s first 15 shots on goal.

That set the tone as the young goalie had a dismal performance.

He was replaced by Dave Wilson after the sixth goal.

“I’ve just got to put it in the past,” said Bishop.

After Shepheard’s backhanded flip over Curry’s glove off a Bret Tyler rebound started the scoring, MacArthur was gifted the puck by a Black Bear who made an ill-advised diagonal pass out of the corner.

MacArthur took one stride and ripped a slap shot from the right circle that beat Bishop cleanly.

Strait made it 2-1 by trailing a 3-on-2, taking a nice pass from Ewing and firing a snap shot that popped out of Bishop’s glove and into the net.

MacArthur’s wrister from the right circle off a Brandon Yip pass made it 3-1 as it beat Bishop between the pads. MacArthur then blocked a shot at the blue line and converted a breakaway by pulling the puck around Bishop and roofing it into the exposed net.

Soares swept home a Teddy Purcell pass to slice it to 4-2, but BU regained the three-goal edge when Bishop mishandled Ewing’s two-hop bouncer and Lawrence jammed it home.

TERRIERS 6, BLACK BEARS 5

Boston Univ. (9-4-6) 2 3 1 – 6

Maine (14-4-2) 1 1 3 – 5

First period – 1. Maine, Shepheard 5 (Tyler, Ryan), 14:48 (pp); 2. BU, MacArthur 7 (unassisted), 15:03; 3. BU, Strait 2 (Roche, Ewing), 19:16. Penalties: Maine, Tyler, diving, 1:57; BU, bench minor for too many men on the ice (served by Cohen), 4:18; BU, Gryba, cross checking, 5:21; BU, Morrow, holding, 10:18; Maine, Ryan, interference, 10:22; BU, Gilroy, cross checking, 13:03.

Second period – 4. BU, MacArthur 8 (Yip), 3:06; 5. BU, MacArthur 9 (unassisted), 7:00 (sh); 6. Maine, Soares 11 (Johnson, Purcell), 8:22 (pp); 7. BU, Lawrence 3 (Ewing), 14:50. Penalties: BU, Ewing, holding, 6:50; Maine, Clark, hitting from behind, 9:13; Maine, Hamilton, contact to the head-roughing, 14:09.

Third period – 8. BU, Ewing 4 (Boone, Lawrence), 1:27; 9. Maine, Johnson 7 (unassisted), 7:09 (pp); 10. Maine, Soares 12 (Johnson, Hopson), 10:28; 11. Maine Soares 13 (Tyler, Clark), 16:14. Penalties: BU, Strait, holding, 6:49; Maine, Purcell, interference, 19:58.

Shots on goal: BU 5-10-5-20; Maine 15-16-14-45

Goaltenders: BU, Curry (45 shots-40 saves); Maine, Bishop (17-11), Wilson (3-3)

Power-play opportunities: BU 1 of 5; Maine 3 of 6

High-percentage scoring chances: BU 3-7-3-13; Maine 11-11-8-30

Attendance: 5,445