The University of Maine Black Bears men’s hockey team will finally get a chance to play on their home ice for the first time this season on Wednesday evening, when they host the University of New Hampshire Wildcats in a play-in Hockey East Tournament game slated for 4:30 p.m. at Alfond Arena.
#8 seed Maine (3-10-2) will face UNH for the third time this season. The teams met to start the season back on December 11 and 12 in Durham, with a tie in game one 1-1 (Bears won shootout 3-2), and a 6-2 Wildcats win in the second game. The Maine leaders are Adam Dawe, who has five goals and eight assists (13 points). Eduards Tralmaks (6 G, 4 A), Lynden Breen (2 G, 8 A), and Jakub Sirota (1 G, 9 A) all have 10 points a piece. Emil Westerlund (4 G, 5 A) and Jacob Schmidt-Svestrup (3 G, 6 A) both chipped in nine points on the regular season. Freshman Victor Ostman has seen most of the play in net, entering Wednesdays game with a 3-5-1 record, a 3.52 goals against average, and a .909 save percentage. The Black Bears have been good all year on special teams, converting at a 24% clip with the powerplay (15-63) and holding their opponents to a 19% rate with their powerplay opportunities (14-73).
UNH (5-13-3) enters as the #9 Hockey East seed. The Wildcats are led by Jackson Pierson who has eight goals and 15 assists. Angus Crookshank has nine goals and eight assists, while Kalle Ericksson also has 17 points with five goals and 12 assists. Patrick Grasso also has double digit points with seven goals and eight assists. Mike Robinson is the leader in the UNH net, entering with a 4-11-3 record, a 3.41 goals against, and a .870 save percentage. The Wildcats powerplay is only operating at a 17% success rate (17-98), while the penalty kill has allowed their opponents to succeed at 36% (30-84).
The winner of the Wednesday evening matchup will head to either #1 seed Boston College or #2 Boston University on Sunday for the quarterfinal round. All Hockey East play-in and quarterfinal playoff games are a one game format this season, as opposed to a best of three series as used in prior years.
