Orono- Blaine Byron scored his second goal of the night, 2:56 into overtime, to lift the Maine Black Bears to a 3-2 victory over Princeton Saturday night in front of a crowd of 4,016 fans at Alfond Arena. The victory finished off a Maine weekend sweep of the Tigers and earned the Bears their first four game winning streak since the 2013-14 season.
Maine started strong swarming Princeton from the drop of the puck, but Tigers starting goalie Colton Phinney (38 saves Friday night) continued his solid play keeping the Bears off the board, including eight grade A stops to keep his team in the game. Maine would break through on Phinney though almost twelve minutes in. Byron would intercept a Princeton clearing pass just outside their blue line and make a move toward the front of the net. Byron seemed to be bothered by a Princeton defender behind him who looked to be hooking him, but he would continue into the slot and around another Tigers defender, then move the puck from his backhand to his forehand, and slid the puck underneath of Phinney as he was knocked to the ice with a highlight reel type goal to put Maine up 1-0. And that was the score after the opening period.
After a solid opening twenty minutes where they outshot Princeton 17-8, Maine would look to build off that in the second period. Princeton had several grade A opportunities on Black Bears goalie Matt Morris but Morris would close the door and keep the Tigers off the scoreboard. David Hallisey, who scored two goals Friday night, had a point blank opportunity on the powerplay four minutes into the period but was stoned by Morris in front of the cage. Max Veronneau also had a near breakaway in on Morris but had the puck knocked away by Maine defenseman Mark Hamilton. Ryan Kuffner took a pass from Veronneau on a two on one downlow also in the period that Morris was able to get his pad on. When asked about his recent play, Morris said, “Just keeping it simple, making sure my angles are on, lot of talking with the defensemen behind the net. Hopefully with this work ethic, results will continue to come”. Maine would double their lead late in the stanza on a powerplay goal from Dan Renouf. Cam Brown made a pretty pass tape to tape to Renouf at the point, who had time and space to walk into the high slot, roofing it over the glove of Phinney to make it 2-0. Just over a minute later and with just 1:30 left, Alex Riche had a breakaway on Morris to try to cut the lead to one, but the puck seemed to slip off his stick at the last moment, and Maine would get to the room holding a two goal lead.
The Tigers would storm out of the locker room in the final period and pressure the Bears. Princeton would finally be rewarded for their hardwork, as Veronneau would convert on a breakaway off a nice feed from Ryan Kuffner to cut the lead to 2-1 with still over thirteen minutes left. Maine had some great chances to increase the lead back to 3-1 including a Brown opportunity from in close that was kicked out by Phinney. The Tigers convered the equalizer with just 4:35 left in regulation. Kuffner swept home a loose puck after a shot by defenseman Josh Teves to make it 2-2 and send the game into overtime. “We had a defenseman standing right there in front of the net, but he was like a deer caught in the headlights, and the puck goes in and that shouldn’t of happened either. So sometimes we just have individual players that are making mistakes and we aren’t far enough ahead in the game to be able to make those mistakes”, said Maine head coach Red Gendron after the game.
In the overtime period, Maine carried the play. A hooking penalty 48 seconds in on Princeton allowed the Bears to have some good puck possession in the Tigers zone. And just after the Princeton penalty ended, is when Maine would send the home fans home happy. Renouf sent the puck from his position at the left point to Brown in the left corner. And before the Tigers skater could get out of the box and back into the play, Brown sent a laser of pass to Byron at the netfront. Byron was able to skate into it and redirect it into the open side far post past Phinney and send the Alfond crowd into delirium. “Brownie (Cam Brown) made a really nice play. The play started at the top with Dan Renouf, he made a nice seam pass to Cam, I just found a way to get my stick open, I didn’t really have to do anything, Brownie made a great pass and I just had to re-direct into the net”, said Byron after the game.
Coach Ron Fogarty, whose Princeton Tigers fell to 2-8 with the loss said after the game,”We were resilient to come back, faced a good onslaught of pressure from Maine. Thought Colton (Colton Phinney) played a great game they had 20 special teams shots and he stopped alot of them and thought that was the reason we stayed in the game”. Maine outshot the Tigers 50-33 in the game as Morris earns another win in net with 31 saves while the tough luck loser is Phinney with 47 saves (85 saves on the weekend). Maine was 1 for 6 on the powerplay with twenty shots while Princeton was only 0 for 1 with two shots on their only opportunitity.
Maine now improves to 4-8-3 on the season and will look to continue their winning streak with a home and home weekend Hockey East showdown series with UNH. The first game will be at the Alfond next Friday night at 7:30 p.m. with Game two in Durham on Saturday at 7. Eastern Maine Sports will be in attendance in both Orono and Durham, NH and will have your weekend border war series covered.
