ORONO, Maine- The weather outside Alfond Arena Friday night was cold and frightful. Inside however, the hottest team in Hockey East helped warm up the home crowd. Ryan Smith scored a third period goal that turned out to be the game winner, as the Maine Black Bears won their fifth straight game by defeating the #12 Northeastern Huskies 4-2.
Northeastern (15-8-2, 8-7-1 Hockey East) got the only goal of a pretty evenly played first period on the powerplay. Just 17 seconds into the man advantage, Zach Solow scored on helpers from Tyler Madden and Ryan Shea to make it 1-0 Huskies.
Patrick Shea would even things when he found a loose puck in front of the NU net on the powerplay for Maine at 7:02 of the second period, firing it past NU goalie Craig Pantano. The Black Bears would take the lead into the third period when Adam Dawe took a feed from the right wing boards near the back of the net from Jacob Schmidt-Svejstrup in the crease, and would make a quick move right to left and fired it in on a backhander at 17:54 to make it 2-1 Maine.
Smith helped himself on the game winner at 11:27 of the third period. Smith kept a puck alive at the Northeastern blue line and got it to Eduards Tralmaks near the left faceoff circle. Tralmaks returned the favor by centering a perfect tape to tape feed left to right to Smith who cut to the net, and Smith tapped it past Pantano to make it 3-1. Matt Demelis cut it to 3-2 when he scored at 13:32 for NU. Maine put the finishing touches on the win just 16 seconds later. Mitchell Fossier took advantage of a NU turnover at their own blue line and fired one on net that was saved by Pantano, but Tralmaks was in front to the right of the goaltender and buried the rebound to finish the scoring on the night.
Jeremy Swayman made 20 saves in the win for Maine, who moves into a second place tie in the Hockey East standings going to 15-9-4 overall, and 9-7-2 in league play. Tralmaks with a goal and an assist and Schmidt-Svejstrup with two assists led the Black Bears with two points each. AJ Drobot, Fossier, Kevin Hock, and Levi Kleiboer had assists as well. Pantano made 32 saves in the loss for Northeastern. Madden and Shea had two assists each for the Huskies. The Black Bears were 1-4 on the powerplay, while the Huskies went 1-3. Maine stays unbeaten at home this season improving to 10-0-2, and also ends an eight game losing streak to Northeastern dating back almost three years with their last win in the head to head series coming on 2/25/17. The Black Bears will host UConn for a pair of games next Friday and Saturday night.
Maine wins a first period faceoff in their Hockey East matchup with Northeastern on Friday, February 7, 2020 at Alfond Arena in Orono. The Black Bears would win their fifth consecutive game with a 4-2 victory over the Huskies. Photo by Chris Lessner
