The University of Maine men’s hockey team finds itself mired in its first three-game losing streak since last season following Saturday night’s 5-2 loss to New Hampshire at the Whittemore Center in Durham, N.H.
Sophomore Cy LeClerc’s pivotal 10th goal of the season with 10:28 left in the game came just 23 seconds after UMaine’s Harrison Scott had pulled the Black Bears to within one.
Junior Liam Devlin added an insurance goal with 3:57 remaining.
“We had all the momentum and we gave it right back,” said UMaine head coach Ben Barr. “It was a bad freshman mistake. It all started with backhanded saucer pass in the neutral zone that landed on the tape of their best player (Ryan Conmy).”
Conmy intercepted freshman defenseman Liam Lesakowski’s pass and the Wildcats were able to cycle the puck in the high slot before Conmy skated down the left wing to the bottom of the faceoff circle.
He protected the puck from a Black Bear player and made a nifty backhanded pass to the unattended LeClerc in the low slot on the inner half of the left faceoff circle.
LeClerc’s 20-foot wrister beat UMaine senior goalie Victor Ostman to the far corner.
Nineteenth-ranked UNH completed the weekend sweep of UMaine after winning Friday night’s game 6-2.
UNH improved to 16-11-1 overall, 9-8-1 in Hockey East, while UMaine fell to 18-8-2 and 10-7-1, respectively. UMaine was ranked seventh in one national poll and eighth in the other.
UNH is now 11-3-1 at the Whittemore Center.
It is UMaine’s first three-game losing streak since the end of last season when the Black Bears were swept at home by UMass and then lost its Hockey East preliminary round playoff game to visiting Vermont.
Senior Donavan Houle provided UMaine with its first lead of the series in the first period. It was his ninth goal of the season.
But Houle was assessed a five-minute major and game misconduct for contact to the head hit and Harrison Blaisdell tied it on the power play. It was his eighth of the season and second in as many games.
Sophomore Morgan Winters gave UNH a lead it would never relinquish with just 56 seconds left in the middle period. It was his ninth.
The puck was chipped off the boards in the UNH end and two Black Bears got tangled up at the left point trying unsuccessfully to keep it in the offensive zone.
Winters got behind the pair and broke down the right wing in a two-on-one. He waited patiently before firing the puck into the far corner from the right faceoff circle.
Early in the third period, yet another five-minute major was assessed to the Black Bears, this one for boarding on freshman Bodie Nobes, and Colton Huard took advantage with his fourth of the season.
Scott’s 11th of the campaign, set up by Thomas Freel and Nolan Renwick, got the Black Bears back into the game but it was short-lived as LeClerc answered it promptly.
Devlin’s goal was his 11th of the season and fourth in the series.
Jakob Hellsten made 21 saves for UNH and Ostman, making his first start in five games, finished with 31 saves.
“We’re just a very immature team right now,” said Barr. “We’re beating ourselves over and over and over again and we’ve done it three nights in a row now.
“We don’t know how to consistently play the right way whether it’s taking penalties, missing a hit or turning the puck over in the neutral zone,” said Barr. “We’re making it tougher on ourselves. We have a young team and a lot of guys who haven’t gone through this before.
“We are what we are right now and it’s not good enough. We have to get better. We have to find a way to turn this around and it starts on Friday night,” said Barr, whose Black Bears will entertain Northeastern for games on Friday and Saturday night at 7.
UNH will play a home-and-home series with UMass next weekend.
