ORONO – Freshman left wing Bradly Nadeau and senior center and co-captain Lynden Breen snapped goal-scoring droughts and the University of Maine ended its three-game losing streak with a 5-1 Hockey East win over Northeastern University at Alfond Arena on Friday night.
Bradly Nadeau, who hadn’t scored a goal in his previous nine games, notched his 15th and 16th goals of the season and Breen posted his seventh after going 12 games without one as the Black Bears improved to 19-8-2 overall and 11-7-1 in Hockey East.
Northeastern, which had won seven of its previous eight games, fell to 14-14-2 and 7-13-0, respectively.
The teams will play again on Saturday at 7 p.m.
UMaine ended a five-game winless drought against NU (0-4-1) and beat the Huskies for just the second time in 15 games (2-12-1).
UMaine freshman goalie Albin Boija turned in a 32-save performance.
The score wasn’t indicative of the game as Northeastern carried the play for some extensive stretches although the Black Bears got better as the game wore on.
Freshman right wing Sully Scholle collected his sixth of the season and sophomore left wing Parker Lindauer scored his first college goal in his 23-game career.
Sophomore right wing Cam Lund scored Northeastern’s goal, his 11th of the campaign. Freshman goalie Cameron Whitehead wound up with 30 saves for the Huskies.
“Albin was outstanding all night,” said UMaine head coach Ben Barr. “He made some saves early and we got our legs under us.
“The guys played hard. It’s never easy to pull out of it when you’re in the muck a little bit. Some guys made some plays tonight which was good to see,” Barr said.
He said it was good to see Bradly Nadeau and Breen score and said “Parker Lindauer played great tonight. It’s so important when a guy like that gives you a game like that. He scored a goal but he was really good the whole game.”
Lindauer’s linemates, Nolan Renwick and Nicholas Niemo, also played well according to Barr.
Boija was the story in the first period as he made 15 saves including an Alex Campbell penalty shot 5:56 into the game as he calmly stood his ground and absorbed Campbell’s shot in his midsection. NU carried the play and had much more offensive zone possession.
The Huskies outshot UMaine 15-9.
Just 14 seconds after the penalty shot save, Nadeau gave the Black Bears a 1-0 lead he raced down the slot and one-timed his brother Josh’s pass from the left corner past Whitehead’s glove.
Breen also assisted on the goal.
“That was a huge turning point,” said Barr.
Just 1:21 later, Scholle made it 2-1.
Thomas Freel got the puck out of the defensive zone and Harrison Scott was able to muscle his way around a Northeastern defenseman along the left wing boards and create a two-on-one with Scholle.
He skated down the left wing and slid a pass to the slot where Scholle one-timed it past Whitehead’s glove.
Later in the period, Boija preserved the two-goal lead with a terrific close-range glove save off Dylan Hryckowian during a scramble and a nifty left pad save off Hryckowian’s brother, Justin, who had a backhander from the low slot.
Lund cut the lead in half at the 11:51 mark of the middle period when he was set up nicely for a one-timer from the inner half of the right circle by Gunnarwolfe Fontaine, who passed it out to him from behind the net.
But Breen restored the lead four minutes later when he stuffed the rebound of his wraparound shot under Whitehead’s right pad.
“When you’re battling (a slump) you just want to play the right way and have fun out there,” said Breen. “Me and Bradly both. He hasn’t been fighting it in as many games as I was but for both of us it was ‘let’s have fun and see how it goes.’ The floodgates opened for us tonight. I’m sure happy for him as well.”
“We started shooting the puck more. Coming off two losses last weekend, that’s when you go back to simple things and that’s why it worked tonight,” said Bradly Nadeau.
He extended the lead to 4-1 at the 5:06 mark of the third period when his brother spun around in the corner to Whitehead’s right and Bradly’s one-timer squeezed off the glove of the diving Whitehead and trickled into the net.
Lindauer scored five minutes later after Renwick did a nice job controlling a bouncing puck and slid it across to Lindauer who deposited it into a half-empty net.
“I give their goaltender a lot of credit,” said NU coach Jerry Keefe. “There were times in that game where we could have been up and, next thing you know, we’re down. We did a good job getting it to 2-1. The third goal they scored was a big goal.”
