Senior center Chase Stevenson’s goal with just 2:09 left in regulation gave the University of New Hampshire a 2-2 tie with the University of Maine in a Hockey East game at a soldout Whittemore Center in Durham, New Hampshire, on Friday night.
Neither team scored in the three-on-three five-minute overtime and UNH went on to earn an extra Hockey East point by winning the shootout 1-0.
UNH earned two points to UMaine’s one. A win in regulation is worth three points.
UNH is now 1-1 in shootouts while UMaine is 1-3 and has lost its last three shootouts, managing to score just once in those three shootouts.
The game goes into the book as a tie for NCAA purposes.
UNH freshman Stiven Sardarian beat UMaine goalie Victor Ostman to the blocker side for the only shootout goal.
UNH goalie David Fessenden made a glove save off Didrik Henbrant and a pad save on Donavan Houle before Lynden Breen missed the net with his attempt.
Ostman made pad stops off Cy LeClerc and Stevenson in the shootout after Sardarian scored.
UMaine is now 13-13-4 overall and 7-9-3 in Hockey East while UNH is 11-18-2 and 6-13-2, respectively.
The tie snapped UNH’s four-game winning streak but extended its unbeaten streak to five games (4-0-1).
UMaine is now 4-1-2 in its last seven games.
The teams will play again on Saturday night at 7 p.m.
Senior goalie Fessenden made a terrific glove save off Ben Poisson’s point-blank one-timer following a pass from Jakub Sirota with 2:02 left in overtime to force the shootout.
Fessenden finished with 29 saves while junior Ostman stopped 24 shots.
Nolan Renwick staked UMaine to a 1-0 lead with a power play goal late in the first period but UNH’s Kristaps Skrastins equalized on the power play at the 7:05 mark of the second period.
Henbrant supplied the Black Bears with a 2-1 lead with 6:58 left in regulation but Stevenson drew the Wildcats level.
Stevenson’s tying goal came off his faceoff win against Breen in the circle to the left of Ostman.
Liam Devlin slid the puck over to Damien Carfagna at the left point and his stomach-high wrist shot was deflected by Stevenson over Ostman’s shoulder for his 12th goal of the season.
Stevenson was being covered by Breen but was able to get inside position and get his stick free to deflect Carfagna’s shot.
It was his fifth goal in his last five games to go with three assists.
Henbrant’s goal was his seventh with five coming in his last eight contests.
Luke Antonacci slid a diagonal pass to the right faceoff circle to Poisson, whose one-timer hit Henbrant and dropped at his feet just outside the crease.
Henbrant tapped it into the empty net.
Renwick had opened the scoring by shoving the rebound of another Poisson one-timer. It was his seventh of the season.
Skrastins scored his third when he took a Ryan Black feed in the middle of the slot and wristed one in off the post.
“It was a good hockey game,” said UMaine coach Ben Barr. “The team played extremely hard. We had (chances. We had some good grind time in the offensive zone. That’s our bread-and-butter a little bit.
“It’s hard to win on the road. It would have been nice to get the extra point in the shootout but that hasn’t been our forte so far,” he added.
