Steven Swavely looks to get control of his own faceoff win during the third period of a Hockey East matchup Saturday night in Durham, New Hampshire. Photo by Chris Lessner
Durham, NH- The Maine Black Bears five game unbeaten streak came to a screeching halt on Saturday night. Andrew Poturalski and Maxim Gaudreault each scored a pair of goals to lead the New Hampshire Wildcats to a decisive 5-2 victory in front of 6,003 fans at the Whittemore Center.
Poturalski got the scoring started three and half minutes in. Dan Correale lead a three on two breakout down the left wing and found Poturalski in the high slot, who wristed it in five-hole on Maine freshman goalie Rob McGovern to make it 1-0. McGovern was playing for the first time since November 15th when he got hurt in a 6-0 loss to UMass-Lowell, where he allowed four goals on eight shots and was removed due to injury. “Rob had a great week of practice and has played well this semester, so I wanted to get him into a game before the break”, said Maine head coach Red Gendron.
UNH extended the lead just over seven minutes later. After a Maine defensemen broke his stick and had to return to the bench to grab another, Wildcat forward Kyle Smith would hit Gaudreault in full stride who skated in near the top of the faceoff circle to the right of McGovern and fired a slapshot past the glove of the Maine goaltender to make it 2-0. Maine would get on the board just 2:37 later as Andrew Tegeler sent a blind centering pass airborne to Cedric Lacroix who tipped it in past UNH goalie Danny Tirone to make it 2-1.
In period two, Maine had plenty of chances to score the equalizer. But Tirone stood tall including a brilliant save with his glove after a furious Maine flurry. Tirone was out of position and on his back with three quarters of the net empty but was somehow able to get the shot with his glove in the crease. “He is playing on the aggressive side and he had to do that in order to make the saves because we weren’t playing that well in front of him especially in the second period”, explained UNH head coach Dick Umile after the game.
The Wildcats (5-6-4, 2-1-4 Hockey East) used the play of their goaltender to ignite their offense. Gaudreault scored his second of the night and then Ara Nazarian added a powerplay goal just 2:23 later to make it 4-1 and take the wind out of the Black Bears sail.
Steven Swaveley scored his third goal of the year to make it 4-2 taking a perfect pass from Dan Renouf with 2:37 left in the game and McGovern on the bench for an extra attacker. Maine nearly cut the lead to one with just over a minute remaining in the contest. With McGovern on the bench again for an extra man, Maine also had 52 seconds of a powerplay creating a 6 on 4 advantage. Rob Michel took a perfect setup and fired a shot that beat Tirone but rang off the crossbar. UNH added an empty netter just over 30 seconds later by Poturalski to finish off the Bears.
“We didn’t play a bad game but we have to play better, you can’t give a team like New Hampshire those looks. Our puck management wasn’t good, we basically gave them three goals, two on turnovers and that other one on the broken stick”, said Gendron. McGovern ended with 24 saves while Tirone had 28 and 78 in the weekend series after a 50 save performance Friday night in Orono. The Bears were 0 for 2 on the powerplay and only had three chances all weekend but didn’t have any luck. UNH was 1 out of 5 after a 100% success rating the night before (2 for 2).
Maine drops to 4-9-4 overall and 2-5-1 in Hockey East play. Maine will now go on Christmas break having gone 4-1-1 in their last six games. The Black Bears return to action playing UNH again in a pair of non-conference matchups on December 29th and 30th in Portland and Manchester, NH, respectively.
