Swagger.
Winning teams have it. Losing teams don’t.
Teams with swagger go into every game expecting to win — not just hoping to win.
The players have confidence in themselves and their teammates and are convinced they can overcome any adversity to put another digit in the win column.
They will find a way to pull out a win where teams without swagger will find ways to lose. It is usually the last piece of the puzzle when a former cellar-dweller evolves into a contender.
The transformation from bottom-feeder to elite program begins with the right head coach. Then he and his staff bring in better players and create a culture for success.
It isn’t easy to eradicate the doubt of a player who is accustomed to losing.
These rebuilding teams almost always struggle for a couple of years because it takes time to obtain the players who are capable of turning the program around and for the coaching staff to install the systems and that environment for success.
The late Shawn Walsh, who was one of the best coaches to ever guide a UMaine athletic team, if not the best, went 12-29-1 in his first season (1984-85) at UMaine and 11-28-1 in his second season.
Those were the first two seasons of Hockey East’s existence and it involved a terrific and unique interlocking schedule with the powerful Western Collegiate Hockey Association.
UMaine was much more competitive in the second season, when the average losing margin was over half a goal less.
Year three produced the first of UMaine’s 18 NCAA Tournament teams and year four was the first of 11 Frozen Four squads which yielded five NCAA title game berths and two NCAA championships.
The current hockey team’s 2-6-1 record doesn’t reveal the improvements that have been made in Ben Barr’s 42 games to date behind the Black Bears bench.
Consider that five of the losses were to teams that were nationally-ranked and three of those losses could have been wins.
The two 3-2 losses on the road to No. 8 UConn last weekend could have been victories. The first one went into overtime. And the 4-1 home loss to Northeastern was much closer than the score indicated.
The nation’s best goaltender in 2021-22, Devon Levi, was the difference-maker in that one.
There are 16 newcomers including four freshmen defensemen who have emerged as regulars and have given the Black Bears much needed mobility that hasn’t been in evidence in Orono in several years.
Those freshmen — Brandon Holt, Luke Antonacci, Grayson Arnott and Brandon Chabrier — are four of the reasons UMaine is tied for the fifth-best penalty killing percentage in the nation among 60 teams at an 88.9 percent success rate.
The power play is a different story as there are only six teams with a worse success rate than UMaine’s 9.7 percent.
The coaching staff might want to just ditch the power play units and use whichever line and defense tandem is due up next. It has been done many times before.
This once-elite program is simply paying the price for a decade of poor recruiting. That’s why it hasn’t been to a Hockey East semifinal or NCAA Tournament since the 2011-12 season.
It is no different than what has happened at other former perennial title-contending schools like New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Lake Superior State, Bowling Green and Michigan State.
The growing pains will continue.
But the team is much more competitive than it was a year ago and will continue to get better. The work ethic, grit and desire to turn the program around are certainly in place.
But Hockey East is an unforgiving league. It is a dogfight every single night.
Goals have been hard to come by (2.11 goals per game, 47th) and that’s because there is a shortage of natural goal scorers.
So it is going to be scoring-by-committee this season or until one emerges.
But things will begin falling into place once this team develops game-changers, players who will score the goals, make the plays or come up with saves that will produce wins.
It takes time.
Barr recruited players for first-time NCAA championship teams at Union, Providence College and UMass so he knows what he is doing. There will come a time when this UMaine team will find ways to win instead of ways to lose.
And once the wins start coming, the swagger will follow.
