Maines Ryan Smith (#5 in white) battles along the boards in a game earlier this season at Alfond Arena against Boston University. Photo by Anthony Delmonaco.
The #16 Notre Dame Fighting Irish hockey team built a 3-0 lead after two periods, then hung on for a 3-2 win over the Maine Black Bears Friday night in Hockey East action at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland before a crowd of 4,990.
Notre Dame wasted no time, as Jack Jenkins opened the scoring at 1:05 of the opening period. Just over five minutes later, Anders Bjork scored unassisted to make it 2-0 Irish.
Andrew Oglevie made it 3-0 ND just 1:37 into the second period. Maine battled back as Brendan Robbins scored on a breakaway at 12:43 of period three to cut it to 3-1. Cal Peterson made some huge saves in the Irish net to keep it 3-1. Nolan Vesey would throw one on the net that went off the back of Petersons leg on the powerplay at 19:56 to make it 3-2, but Maine was out of time to complete the comeback. It was the Bears third straight loss after a weekend sweep two weekends ago at home over UMass.
Peterson ended with 29 saves on 31 Maine shot to earn the victory. Maine goalie Rob McGovern played the first two periods and made 18 saves on 21 Irish shots. Matt Morris stopped all seven Notre Dame shots in the third.
Dennis Gilbert had two assists for Notre Dame, while Cal Burke also added one. Blaine Byron, Sam Becker, and Cam Brown had assists for Maine. The Irish were 0-4 on the powerplay, while the Bears were 1-4.
Notre Dame is now 16-9-4 overall and 9-5-3 in Hockey East. Maine falls to 10-16-3, 4-12-1. The Bears will try to avoid being swept back to back weekends when they meet the Irish again tomorrow night at Alfond Arena in Orono to finish off the two game series. Faceoff is 7 p.m.
