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First-year goaltender Jimmy Howard stopped 20 shots Saturday night at Alfond Arena as the University of Maine men’s hockey team held on for a 1-0 victory over the University of Massachusetts. In the process, Howard broke a UMaine goaltending record and tied another while registering his third consecutive shutout.
“It’s like a dream,” Howard said. “I’m just waiting to wake up.”
The win improved the Black Bears record to 6-1-1 overall and 1-0-0 in Hockey East. UMass falls to 2-4-0 overall and 1-3-0 in Hockey East.
Howard needed to keep UMass off the board for only 20 minutes, 31 seconds to break the longest scoreless streak by a UMaine goalie, which was set by Blair Allison in 1996 at 147 minutes 53 seconds. With the shutout, Howard has extended his scoreless streak to 187:23.
Howard also tied the mark for shutouts in a single season with three, tying Alfie Michaud’s record from 1998-99, and this season is just eight games old.
“This week I didn’t really want to think about the record all that much,” Howard said. “But people kept asking me about it all week. I just told them that I’m going to go out there and play and whatever happens, happens.”
“He stays really calm,” Robert Liscak, senior assistant captain, said of Howard. “I’m surprised how calm he stays in the games, especially [close] games since he’s a true freshman.”
Massachusetts’ keeper Gabe Winer, a freshman from Stoughton, Mass. was the reining Hockey East Rookie of the Week going into the game and he showed why by stopping 24 shots.
In the second period, Winer denied Lucas Lawson on a clean breakaway as Lawson went to the backhand. Winer got his right pad on the shot to keep it out. In the third, Winer made a similar save with his left pad as Todd Jackson went to the backhand.
“Goals were tough to come by tonight,” UMaine head coach Tim Whitehead said. “We drove the net more aggressively in the second and third period and we generated chances, but we just didn’t bury them. That’s going to happen sometimes, and their goalie was on fire. But, luckily, so is ours.”
“We had our chances, but they didn’t go in,” Liscak said. “They’re goalie played well. But, I think we created enough chances to score, but we had pucks bounce over our stick, or just wide of a post.”
The only goal of the game came from UMaine’s leading goal scorer, Colin Shields, a junior from Glasgow, Scotland.
Liscak gave him a breakout pass to send Shields on a two-on-one down the right wing. Shields wound up for a slap shot at the face-off and, after the quick moment of hesitation, brought the stick all the way back and cranked a sizzling shot that deflected off the cross bar into the net for his eighth goal of the season. Liscak and senior defenseman Cliff Loya assisted on the goal.
“After I passed the puck to him, I went to the net,” Liscak said. “I wasn’t sure if it went in or not, I just saw the [goalie's] water bottle bounce from the right side of the net to the left side of the net. I thought to myself, ‘what the hell just happened there,’ the light didn’t go on, so I just put my arms in the air.”
After five straight home games, the Black Bears will be on the road for two Hockey East games next weekend. On Friday, UMaine takes on the Northeastern University Huskies at Matthews Arena in Boston. The Black Bears will head across town to take on Boston University at Walter Brown Arena Saturday.
