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The University of Maine men’s hockey team really didn’t want to go on a Christmas break with a 2-11-4 record.
UMaine’s 4-3 win over Union College (New York) on Saturday night was its first win this season and the team is 1-2-3 in their last six matches despite allowing only 10 goals.
The team has scored just eight goals during this period, so Saturday night’s four-goal eruption, including its first power game in eight games (0-17), gives the Black Bears room to build.
The Black Bears are unbeaten in their final three matches 1-0-2, and plan to take that momentum to the second half, starting with the all-time first series with Penn State at State College, Pennsylvania, on New Year’s Eve. New Year’s Day.
Both games start at 5 p.m.
UMaine head coach Ben Barr has conflicting feelings about a break.
“Everything is still day by day, but frankly, I hope we continue to play,” Barr said. “We’re starting to figure out who we are a little bit. Hopefully we’ll take a break to get our friends healthy. We have several injuries.”
Left Matthew Fawcett, center Grant Hebert and right Jacob Schmidt-Svejstrup are all on the side of the concussions.
Fawcett, a transfer from Quinnipiac with a goal in eight games, has missed six games, while Hebert and Schmidt-Svejstrup have missed the last three.
Robert Morris’ transfer to Hebert has four goals and a pass in 13 games and Schmidt-Svejstrup’s goal and three assists in 12 games.
Another striker, Brad Morrissey, who has a goal and a pass in seven games, has also been sidelined due to injury.
Barr likes where the team is right now.
“We’re leaps ahead of where we were a month or two ago,” said the former UMass assistant head coach. – Our defenders have been much better, everything has been much better.
According to him, it is natural for the team to get better as it gets used to the new coaching team.
“I’m proud of how players have bought. It’s hard to lose so many single-goal games. But they’ve stayed in it. They’re not depressed, which is a good thing. There’s a lot of character in that locker room.”
Eleven games this season were either settled with a single goal or they ended in a draw.
The score now stands at 2-5-4.
“If you look at our show game against Quinnipiac [7-0 loss in October] so far we are a completely different team, “said Keenan Suthers, a graduate student from the left, who scored two goals, including the winner of the game against the Union.” We’re playing our best hockey right now. in the second half.
Senior defender Jakub Sirota said it was nice to have a win before Christmas.
“Now we have the confidence to win again. We can take it to the second half of the season and hopefully continue it,” he said.
He agreed with Suthers that this team cannot be compared to the team beat by Quinnipiac, which is currently second in the country in the U.S. Collegiate Hockey Online poll.
“We’re taking steps every week and hopefully continuing that,” Sirota said.
Sirota takes a break as the team’s top scorer with nine points out of three goals and six assists. His new defensive partner David Breazeale has a goal and seven assists for eight points, and second-year central team Lynden Breen has a 2-6-8. Suthers is now 3-4-7, second-year real-law Donavan Houle has the team lead with five goals in pass and senior right-wing Adam Dawella 2-4-6.
Junior leftist Ben Poisson and junior defender Adrien Bisson have each scored three goals. Poisson has two passes and Bisson has one.
Despite two errors that led to the finish on Saturday night, sophomore Victor Ostman has played more consistently this season, as has junior goalkeeper Matt Thiessen.
In the last six games, they have scored a total of 1.61 goals against the average and 0.929 rebounds.
Thiessen, who is still looking for his first win of his career, is 0-5-3 with 2.73 goals on average and 0.898 rebounds, while Ostman is 2-6-1 with 3.01 and 0.897.
After the Penn State series, UMaine will host Alaska-Fairbanks a couple of out-of-conference competitions before it ends in 13 Hockey East games. UMaine is 1-8-2 in Hockey East.
Penn State, who is among 11-8, will not play again before the UMaine series. Alaska-Fairbanks is 2-12 and will play four games before their trip to Orono on 7-8 January.
UMaine takes a break in 54th place among 59 Division I teams in scoring (1.76 goals per game), split 35th in the number of goals allowed (3gpg), 56th in power play (8%), split 25th in the penalty shootout ( 83.3). percent) and the second lowest penalty team (7.41 penalty minutes per game). Black Bears is in 45th starting position (47.9 percent).
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