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MILWAUKEE – For the third time in five years, the University of Maine men’s ice hockey squad saw their season end in heartbreaking fashion at the Frozen Four.
Thursday the Black Bears were dispatched 5-2 by eventual national champion Wisconsin in their 10th Frozen Four semifinal and third under head coach Tim Whitehead. The Badgers, riding the emotions that only a home state crowd can provide, denied UMaine their sixth title appearance and finished the squad’s season one game too early.
“Sometimes life doesn’t go your way,” said forward Keith Johnson. “I am just so proud of this team for getting this far. A lot of people wouldn’t have thought we would get here.”
The defeat, a first for Whitehead in the Frozen Four semifinals, was tough for the Black Bears. After a season full of ups and downs, the Black Bears were unwilling to declare the season over.
“It’s really a tough pill to swallow,” said junior forward Josh Soares. “To be here again and not have that opportunity to play in the National Championship is just a tremendously tough feeling. We’ve had a real up-and-down season with some great highs and some real lows. A lot of people counted us out throughout the whole season. I think we have shown a lot of character this year.”
Playing just an hour from their campus in Madison, Wis. the No.1 seeded Badgers refused to disappoint the hometown crowd. Anchored by a complete performance from the entire roster, Wisconsin skated to their first National Championship appearance in more than 15 years.
“You got to give credit to Wisconsin; they prepared well for us,” said Johnson.
Despite the Badger-bias in the Bradley Center, the Black Bears had several opportunities to spur the tide. However, they were finally unhinged at 12:26 of the third period when Ben Street delivered a devastating knockout punch. With UMaine having just pulled to within one at 7:37 of the third, Wisconsin stormed back and watched Street whack one over the shoulder of freshman Ben Bishop.
“It was just a killer; I really thought we were going to come back right there,” said Bishop. “It was just an unfortunate goal. They got three whacks at it. Usually when a good team has three whacks on the third time it is going to go in. They made no mistake. They put it upstairs.”
“Coach has been saying it all year if you get in front of the net good things will happen and that was exactly what [Street] need on that goal,” said assistant captain Steve Mullin. “The puck was bouncing and it went through a couple guys’ feet. It was just right there for him to lift it over Bishop. Our season has been like that: huge swings of momentum back and forth. Unfortunately that one went against us and we weren’t able to recover.”
Johnson, who was on ice at the time of the score, felt the Black Bears had too many men deep on the play.
“We got all the forwards caught low and our defenseman tried to pinch,” said Johnson. “We really can’t take those chances.”
Only 57 seconds earlier, UMaine managed to climb their way back into the game when defenseman Mike Lundin ripped a wrist shot over the left shoulder of Hobey Baker finalist and Badger netminder Brian Elliot. On the ensuing play senior captain Greg Moore, who received the puck from a Soares dump in, fed a crossing pass to Lundin at the top of the high slot.
“When we scored that second goal of ours there was no way in my mind that this game was going to end in a loss for us,” said Mullin. “I absolutely thought we were coming back and going to take control.”
“All of a sudden we are forging a classic Maine comeback,” said Whitehead. “But any time we started to gain some momentum they countered right away.”
After the game assistant captain Michel Leveille discussed how much of a massive hit the fourth Wisconsin tally truly was.
“It was really disappointing, after Mike scored that goal I really thought this is Maine hockey, we’re coming back,” said Leveille. “It just broke our leg. Down by two it’s a totally different game.”
“We worked hard to get back in the game; we did everything we could to make it 3-2 and they found a way to chip in another goal,” said Soares.
With the two-goal cushion in place, Wisconsin looked to Elliot to shutdown the Black Bears for good. Bending but refusing to break, Elliot stonewalled UMaine for the reminder of the game en route 33 saves. The junior got plenty of help from a defense and offense that smothered the Black Bears transition game.
“They are a well-coached team,” said Johnson. “Coach Eaves is a great coach and I really think he stressed clogging the neutral zone because he knew we had a good transition game. At the same time I think we still had our chances to win the game.”
“They definitely did a lot of things right to disrupt us,” said Mullin. “I don’t really know what to say about it. They got on us and we’re able to get at us in our own end.”
Bishop also touched upon the Black Bears breakout.
“I think they did a good job with it, but there was so much room behind the nets that I thought I had a little more time then I did,” said Bishop. “A couple times the puck started bouncing and led to a couple misfortunate plays.”
“They did a great job,” said Soares. “One of the problems was how fast the boards were. We had trouble coming out to play the puck because of that. I think they did a good job of forechecking us. They had some good puck movement from their defensemen to their forwards.”
The Wisconsin counter attack was also in full force at the start of the second. After watching the Black Bears regain the control of game with score nodded at 1-1, the Badger’s Ross Carlson broke free of Leveille at the far blue line and rushed in for an odd man rush on Bishop at 4:18. The tenacious move by Carlson surprised the Black Bears who were on the power play.
“It was one of those plays where I go to the blue line and I don’t know if I have to play it safe or not,” said Leveille. “Obviously I want to play aggressive on that play but the boards were so alive that I couldn’t keep it in. The guy played well, he just got it by me.”
Carlson having just barely eluded Leveille proceeded to deke out Bret Tyler, the lone defender back in the UMaine zone, and race in for a 1-on-1 with Bishop.
“He was in the slot and he kind of turned around to take a slap shot, I really didn’t think he was going to shoot because he was all alone,” said Bishop. “I thought he was going to fake the shot and try and get me to go down and then go around me. But when he did take the shot, I just missed it. I thought I had it. It just beat me.”
Several of the Black Bears cited the shorthanded goal by Carlson as a pivotal point in the game.
“That’s the price you have to pay,” said Johnson. “We have a very offensive power play that’s really been key for us. But at the same time we take chances.”
“We had the crowd out of the game. With that goal they just got back in the game and the place went crazy,” said Soares.
The shorthanded goal was the second one that cost UMaine in the postseason. In the Hockey East semifinals, Boston College scored a huge shorthand goal on their way to a win over UMaine. As well, in the second half of the season the Black Bears have had several shorthand goals hurt them.
“I didn’t really foresee it becoming a problem ever,” said Mullin. “It was always ‘oh they scored a shorthanded goal, it’s a bad break.’ It has now happened time after time and when it comes down to big games those are the goals that are really going to swing momentum. They are extremely tough to recover from.”
The shorthanded goal may not have hurt as badly had UMaine registered a mark on the power play where they went 0-for-7.
“That’s hockey sometimes,” said Johnson. “We had one of the better power plays all year and we just couldn’t capitalize tonight. If we capitalized on one of those power plays it could have been a different game. We had the chances but we didn’t the get the bounces.”
In the first, Wisconsin opened scoring with a goal by Adam Burish. The score saw Robbie Earl grab a loose puck in the UMaine zone and quickly send it over to Paveliski. With Bishop positioned perfectly, Paveliski elected to dish it over to Burish who bounced it off Black Bear Travis Wight and into the net. The goal came at 10:11.
“They had a lot of jump in their legs, which didn’t surprise me,” said Whitehead. “For them to come out flat in their own building would’ve been a shock. Given what we were up against to get out of the period 1-1 was actually pretty good.”
UMaine evened it up at 17:37 of the period when Leveille rifled a point shot from the high slot that went off Badger defender Olinger’s right skate. Bouncing freely the puck trickled through Elliot’s legs. On the play, it looked as if Johnson may have also gotten a piece of it.
The Badgers’ two other goals came from Robbie Earl. The first, which put Wisconsin up 3-1 at 8:16 of the second, came on the power play off a 2-on-1 one timer. Earl tapped the puck in stick side on Bishop after the pass from Paveliski. The final goal was notched by Earl as well. Delivering the final nail to UMaine’s coffin, Earl hammered the puck into an empty net at 18:16.
Although, he surrendered four goals Whitehead had high praise for Bishop who had 34 saves.
“I thought he was great, like he has done all year he shown that resiliency and determination,” said Whitehead. “He was able to make some big stops when we were forging that mini-comeback.”
The Black Bears finished the year with a record of 28-12-2, two victories shy of 30 wins and UMaine’s elusive third National Title.
“Right now it’s tough to start looking at the future already, but with Maine hockey it doesn’t matter what year it is, year in and year out we are going to be in that tournament and contending for the National Title. I don’t think anything will change for next year.”
