Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Digg
Tell us what you think!Send a letter to the editor about this or any other article in The Maine Campus.
Black Bear hockey overcame a third period deficit on Friday night to steal a 5-4 overtime victory and then skated to a 1-1 tie in the series finale on Saturday.
Maine improves to 15-10-7 overall, 10-7-5 in Hockey East.
The three-point weekend clinches a tie for home ice advantage in the quarterfinal round of the conference playoffs and moves Maine into a third place tie with New Hampshire in the Hockey East standings. It also produces an interesting set of circumstances for the final weekend of the regular season.
The Black Bears head into the final weekend with an outside chance at moving up to second place in conference should they sweep their home series with Providence and UNH stumble (loss or tie) in either of their two games with UMass-Amherst.
More importantly, a good showing against Providence is sure to move Maine up in the Pairwise Rankings, the criteria used for selection of at-large teams in the NCAA tournament format.
The Black Bears close out February with a 5-1-1 record and more importantly, momentum as they head into the most important part of the season.
Saturday night, Merrimack’s John Pyliotis and Maine’s Todd Jackson traded goals 38 seconds apart in the second period as the teams skated to a 1-1 tie.
Pyliotis’ tally was a fluke. The Warrior senior attempted a pass through the slot that deflected of Maine defenseman A.J. Begg’s skate and through Matt Yeats (22 saves) pads for a 1-0 lead.
Merrimack didn’t enjoy its puck luck for very long as Jackson collected a loose puck off a draw and roofed a wrist shot past Welby to tie the game.
Welby and Yeats made it stand up, each making several sizzling stops in the third period and overtime.
On Friday night, sophomore Michael Schutte’s breakaway goal with 1:16 remaining in overtime gave the Black Bears a 5-4 win and completed the third comeback victory of the month for Maine.
Schutte had tied the game at four at the 6:50 mark of the third period, converting a Chris Heisten feed with UMaine on the power play.
In the extra period, Schutte hopped off the Black Bear bench and directly into a perfect Martin Kariya cross-ice feed for the game winner. Schutte now has eight points (six goals, two assists) in his last four games.
Maine had jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on first period tallies by Cliff Loya (his first collegiate goal) and Eric Turgeon. Pyliotis cut the lead in half with an unassisted goal just 51 seconds after Turgeon’s marker.
Merrimack’s Joe Gray and UMaine forward Robert Liscak traded second period goals before the Warriors took their first and only lead of the evening.
With the teams skating four on four, Merrimack forwards Anthony Aquino and Vincent Clevenger lit the lamp one minute apart and the Warriors took a 4-3 lead into the final period.
When Maine took the ice for the third period, Mike Morrison had replaced Yeats (12 saves) in net and stopped all four shots he faced enroute to the victory.
Bangor Daily News