The season of firsts continued for the University of Maine’s hockey team on Saturday night.
UMaine’s convincing 5-0 victory over New Hampshire in their Hockey East quarterfinal at a sold out Alfond Arena in Orono snapped a string of 12 straight league playoff losses dating back to a 4-2 win over Vermont in the middle game of a best-of-three opening round series on March 7, 2015.
It was UMaine’s first Hockey East playoff shutout in 17 games since Martin Ouellette made 29 saves in a 2-0 opening round win over Merrimack on March 8, 2014.
The seventh-ranked Black Bears are now 23-10-2 and winners of four straight entering Friday night’s 7:30 p.m. semifinal against second-ranked Boston University, 25-8–2, at the TD Garden in Boston. The first semifinal is at 4 p.m. between the nation’s No-1 ranked Boston College Eagles, 29-5-1, and 20-12-3 UMass, who rank 12th in one major poll and 13th in the other.
It will be UMaine’s first appearance in the Hockey East semifinals since the 2011-12 season and, regardless of the Hockey East tournament outcome, the Black Bears will also return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since that same year.
UMaine will finish the season with the best record since the 2005-06 team went 28-12-2.
Of the 42 National Hockey League draft choices on these four semifinalist rosters, 41 come from Boston University (14), Boston College (14) and UMass (13).
Eight of BU’s picks were chosen in the first three rounds; BC has seven, and UMass has three.
Boston University also has Macklin Celebrini, who is projected by many to be the first overall pick in this summer’s upcoming NHL draft.
Then there is UMaine’s only draft choice, freshman left winger Bradly Nadeau, a first-round pick (30th overall) of the Carolina Hurricanes.
Nadeau and his older brother and linemate Josh, also a freshman, began their Hockey East playoff careers with two goals and two assists apiece against UNH. They were named the Hockey East Co-Rookies of the Week.
The other goal was scored by graduate student left winger Ben Poisson, one of just five current Black Bears who played in Ben Barr’s first Hockey East playoff game as a head coach, a 6-2 loss to Merrimack on March 9, 2022.
The others are Donavan Houle, Lynden Breen, Nolan Renwick and David Breazeale.
That 2021-22 team won seven games.
Last year’s team won 15 and now it is another eight-win improvement this season.
And Poisson is the only player who will use up his eligibility after this season although the other four seniors could leave and start pro careers or join the business world.
In Saturday’s game, UNH had a slight edge in the first period but once Josh Nadeau scored 52 seconds into the second period and Poisson scored a power play goal 7:41 later, the rink started tilting in UMaine’s favor.
Fueled by the high-energy crowd, the Black Bears swarmed the puck and smothered the Wildcats, who managed just 10 shots on goal over the final two periods, most of which required just routine saves from freshman Albin Boija, the league’s Goaltender of the Week.
He finished with 18 stops.
The win has elevated UMaine to sixth in the Pairwise Rankings that emulate the NCAA Tournament selection process.
That would probably slot UMaine into a second seed for one of the four, four-team regionals which are being held in Providence, Rhode Island; Springfield, Massachusetts; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and Maryland Heights, Missouri, in two weekends.
If so, UMaine would get the last line change vs. the third seed which is an advantage.
The hope among the Alfond Arena faithful is that the NCAA will keep the Black Bears in the east, knowing that their fans travel well and will be very well-represented in Providence or Springfield.
The last thing the NCAA wants is to have half-empty arenas for regional games. Those have been a problem, particularly in the west regionals, and have raised murmurs about returning to campus sites for the regionals.
To have UMaine bounce back from its 1-5 stretch with four straight wins says a lot about the character of this team and its resilience.
It was very important for this team to advance to the semifinals.
It will give them a valuable feel for the tournament atmosphere and prevent them from having two weeks off between the quarterfinals and their first round game in the NCAA Tournament.
You do not want to be rusty going into a do-or-die NCAA Tournament game, fall behind early and wind up with an early exit.
Plus you couldn’t ask for a better preparation for the NCAA Tournament than facing one of the favorites to win the NCAA title in BU.
There will be genuine entertainment value in that matchup based on the two games at Boston University in November, which were won by BU 3-2 and 5-4.
There was scintillating end-to-end action.
The winners this season are the long-suffering UMaine hockey fans and alums.
It had to be painful to watch a former elite program that went to 18 NCAA Tournaments and 11 Frozen Fours and played in five NCAA championship games, winning two of them, languish in mediocrity or even worse.
The hope moving forward is that this is sustainable and the $45 million renovation to Alfond Arena and contract extension with a sizable raise for Barr will help.