University of Maine second-year men’s hockey coach Ben Barr said his team didn’t play well in a 3-1 loss to defending national champ and current No. 1 Denver in Saturday night’s Ice Breaker Tournament championship game at Magness Arena in Denver.
But he also acknowledged that his Black Bears lost to a “really good team” that will be a serious contender for another NCAA title.
“Our guys played hard until the end. But no one is going to pat you on the back and say you only lost 3-1 to Denver,” Barr said. “We have to be better than that.
“We didn’t execute very well. We took a bunch of dumb penalties and lot of them were committed by our veterans. We made some immature plays and we had a lot of turnovers. But good teams force you into turnovers,” the coach said.
UMaine took eight penalties for 16 minutes to Denver’s two for four minutes. Denver went 1-for-7 with the man-advantage while UMaine was 0-for-2.
The University of Denver scored all three goals in the first period before UMaine received a consolation goal from Donavan Houle with 39 seconds remaining in regulation when he tipped in a David Breazeale point shot.
Denver’s Preseason National Collegiate Hockey Conference selection Carter Mazur scored a pair of goals and assisted on the other by defenseman Mike Benning, another preseason NCHC choice who was the MVP of the Frozen Four last season.
Mazur was named the Ice Breaker Tournament’s Most Valuable Player.
Benning opened the scoring 6:57 into the game.
Massimo Rizzo dug the puck out of the corner, took a couple of strides up the ice and fed a nice cross-ice pass to Benning, who took a stride and snapped a wrist shot past UMaine goalie Victor Ostman’s glove from the inner half of the left circle.
Mazur extended Denver’s lead on the power play with 2:54 left.
Sean Behrens had the puck in the left circle and slid it across to the top of the crease to Casey Dornbach, who tapped the puck back to the near post where Mazur swatted it into the empty net.
Dornbach was the provider again on Mazur’s second goal, which came 2:23 later.
Dornbach knocked down a UMaine clearance and dropped the puck to Mazur, who sailed a wrister past Ostman from the left faceoff dot.
Junior Ostman finished with 33 saves for UMaine while sophomore Matt Davis wound up with 24 for Denver.
“Victor had a tough first period but he recovered and shut them down the last two periods, which was good to see,” Barr said.
He praised the all-freshman line of Reid Pabich, Killian Kiecker-Olson and Thomas Freel.
Kiecker-Olson assisted on Houle’s goal.
“They gave us a lot of energy both nights,” Barr said.
Denver coach David Carle said it was a “good hockey game.
“We need a guy like Mazur to elevate himself this year and he has done that in the early going,” he said, adding that goalie Davis had a “really good performance.
“He made a real difference in the second period when they had us hemmed in a little bit. He shut the door for us,” Carle said.
He also said UMaine “responded well” after falling behind 3-0.
“They didn’t back down, and I knew they wouldn’t,” Carle said.
Davis was chosen for the all-tournament team along with forwards Mazur, UMaine’s Ben Poisson and Notre Dame’s Solag Bakich, and defensemen Luke Antonacci from UMaine and Brandon Koch from the Air Force Academy.
UMaine had beaten Air Force 4-1 on Friday, and Denver topped Notre Dame 5-2. Notre Dame and Air Force skated to a 5-5 tie on Saturday as Notre Dame rallied from a 4-1 deficit with four third-period goals.
UMaine will next play Atlantic Hockey team Bentley in Waltham, Massachusetts, on Saturday at 5 while Denver will visit UMass for a pair on Friday and Saturday nights.