The result was disappointing but the performance was encouraging.
That is the best way to sum up UMaine’s 4-1 Friday night loss to Boston University in its first visit to Boston’s TD Garden for a Hockey East semifinal since the 2011-12 season.
UMaine will now travel to Springfield, Mass. to face ECAC champion Cornell University in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in the MassMutual Center at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday.
The winner will face the winner of the earlier game between Denver and host UMass in Saturday’s 4 p.m. regional final for the right to advance to the Frozen Four in Saint Paul, Minn. on April 11-13.
The UMaine-BU game is past tense.
But the BU game provided UMaine with a valuable tune-up for the NCAA Tournament.
Getting to play the nation’s second-ranked team in a National Hockey League rink in front of 17,850 fans, the majority being energetic and loud Black Bear fans, was a unique experience for UMaine.
It was the biggest stage for all of the Black Bear players while BU is used to it, having played in the Beanpot Tournament every year and appearing in the Frozen Four last season.
The concern was a ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ reaction by the Black Bears but that wasn’t the case at all.
After managing just one shot on goal through the first 15 minutes, but limiting BU to only three, the Black Bears began carrying the play over the final five minutes of the first period and were the better team the rest of the way in five-on-five play.
They won puck battles, they finished their checks, they made good decisions with the puck for the most part and limited BU to very few odd-man rushes, if any.
But the better team doesn’t always win and that’s especially true in hockey due to the prominent role of the goalie.
The stars of the game were BU goalie Mathieu Caron and the Boston University power play.
Brown University transfer Caron was the much busier of the two goalies, making 32 saves compared to 14 for UMaine freshman goalie Albin Boija.
And the BU power play continued to terrorize UMaine’s penalty kill as Boston College did to BU’s PK units in the Hockey East championship game, scoring four power play goals in five chances in a 6-2 triumph.
BU went 2-for-3 on the power play against UMaine and would have gone 3-for-3 if it wasn’t for an offsides call that nullified a third power play goal. BU is now 6-for-11 on the power play in three games vs. UMaine.
BU simply has more talent as evidenced by the 14-1 disparity in NHL draft choices with eight of BU’s being selected in the top three rounds. Freshman Bradly Nadeau is UMaine’s only NHL draft selection. He is a first round pick (30th overall) of Carolina.
Highly-skilled teams like BU don’t need many chances to score goals. They are opportunistic.
“Every mistake we made wound up in our net,” said UMaine coach Ben Barr.
Entering this season, UMaine had only two players who had ever scored 10 or more goals in a college season: Lynden Breen had 21 last year and Donavan Houle scored 10 two years ago.
But the addition of prolific brothers Bradly (19 goals, 27 assists) and Josh Nadeau (18 & 27); the improvement of the veterans and the emergence of freshman goalie Boija has gone hand-in-hand with this gritty team’s intense desire to elevate the long-struggling program back into the national picture.
Even though UMaine has only three players with 10 or more goals including Bentley University transfer Harrison Scott (14 & 12), it has six others with six or more goals.
And you can’t leave out the role of the Alfond Arena faithful.
In fact, UMass head coach Greg Carvel used social media to plead with UMass fans to buy as many tickets as possible to prevent UMaine fans from filling the MassMutual Center for the regional.
The NCAA hockey selection committee is cognizant of fan support because it doesn’t want half-filled regional arenas when it is trying to showcase its tournament.
So keeping UMaine in the east rather than sending the Black Bears to South Dakota or Missouri is due in part to the fact UMaine fans travel well.
The 23-11-2 Black Bears are capable of winning the Springfield regional but so are the other three teams.
Cornell, 21-6-6, has the nation’s lowest goals-against average (1.91 goals per game) thanks to junior goalie Ian Shane and his country-low 1.73 GAA.
The Big Red also has four players with 11 or more goals and four more with seven or more.
Following the BU loss, Breen alluded to the fact they didn’t make Caron work as hard as they needed to because they didn’t get to the net front and screen him as much as they should have.
That will be one of the primary keys to Thursday’s game.
They will also have to avoid turnovers and leaving players open in the middle of the slot where two of BU’s goals came from off one-timers.
And, as in any playoff game, they have to avoid taking needless penalties and they need their goalie to make important saves at critical times.
Crunch time has arrived.
