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ORONO – Around the University of Maine locker room, junior defenseman Bret Tyler is known as “The Doze.”
Saturday night, however, “The Doze” became superman.
With his team falling fast in the Hockey East standings and desperately in need of a win, Tyler rescued UMaine on Saturday night with a sensational play that capped off Maine’s 2-1 overtime victory over Northeastern. On the play, which ended an at-times frustrating but always exhilarating contest, Tyler picked up a loose puck on the boards and proceeded to snake in on netminder Brad Thiessen only to dish a perfect pass to Teddy Purcell for the game-winner with 43 seconds remaining in the extra frame.
“[Assistant coach Guy Perron] just told me to jump over the boards, so I jumped out there and the puck rimmed around,” said Tyler. “I got it and I faked the shot. The guy kind of skated by me, so I walked around him and I had a lane to the net. Then I looked up and saw Teddy Ballgame. If you want the puck on anyone’s stick at the end of the game it’s going to be him. I saw him and my eyes lit up.”
For the sixth-ranked Black Bears, now 16-7-2 and 9-7-2 in Hockey East, the play was one they have come to anticipate from Tyler, who appears to have ice water in his veins.
“He’s just a hell of a player, there’s no other way to say it,” said head coach Tim Whitehead. “I don’t know anyone who sees the game better than Bret Tyler. He is just one of those guys you see play hockey and you know he was born to play hockey.”
At a time when the Black Bears had lost four of their last five and three straight at home, including a 6-1 defeat on Friday, Tyler – who had two assists on the night – took the game into his own hands.
“He’s such an elite player, and with elite players they have such poise and patience with the puck,” said Purcell. “We always say to give Doze the rock and we did tonight and he made a great play like he usually does.”
According to Purcell, the minute Tyler snagged the puck he knew where he had to go.
“I just went to the net and I know Doze has great vision from the point,” said Purcell. “He made a great play to drag everyone in and he just slides it over to me. You have to give all the credit to him. Anyone could’ve scored that goal.”
The gutsy victory allowed UMaine to remain three points above Northeastern in the conference standings. After Friday’s surprising 6-1 upset of UMaine, Northeastern had crawled to within one point of the Black Bears for sixth place in the league. The Black Bears, while holding an impressive ranking of sixth in the country, were a shocking sixth place in their own league, good enough for a trip to the Hockey East quarterfinals. With a mammoth road trip looming next weekend against archenemy New Hampshire, the Black Bears needed to stand up and take control of their season. Plus, they had to make Alfond scary again.
“Going into UNH, we wanted to show the league that we meant business and wanted to earn some respect back because we had been falling apart,” said Tyler.
Still, the Black Bears realize the win is only one step foward in their climb up the Hockey East mountain.
“As I told the guys after, that is just one step for us,” said Whitehead. “We still have a long way to go before we earn back that respect from some of our fans here. But what a great first step. You want to take a great first step and we did that. Hopefully the next time we are at home we can continue to build on that success.”
Friday’s loss pushed UMaine to a .500 record at home in late January, a figure once thought unfathomable in Alfond Arena. The performance also rendered any Alfond mystique absolutely useless as a rapidly improving Northeastern crushed UMaine 6-1 to deliver the No. 6 team in the nation its third straight defeat at home, an abomination not seen since 2000. As well, the loss was the first at home against the Huskies in 10 decisions.
“We’ve seen the recent scores in here,” said Northeastern freshman Greg Costa. “We know BU came up here and beat them twice. We feel like we’re just as good a team as BU if not better. We hold them scoreless the last time we played them. We knew coming in here that if we played our system, we could win and we did.”
“They looked like a beaten team,” said Costa.
Behind Costa’s first two collegiate goals and a thorough team effort, the Huskies joined the ranks of Boston University, Boston College and the University of New Hampshire, who each have beaten the Black Bears at home this season. In fact, Northeastern might have trumped them all. Winning by five goals, a total only bested by UNH who had a six-goal advantage, Northeastern embarrassed Maine in front of a home crowd.
“These outcomes are definitely surprising us,” said Costa following Friday’s game. “We want the sweep this weekend. We want to move up in the standings. Since Christmas, we’ve had a great record and we’ve played great. We expect to win tomorrow. We’ve played in a lot of tough places – Yost Arena, up in Vermont and BU – the crowd doesn’t phase us.”
On Saturday, after trailing by one for more than half of the contest, UMaine finally breoke through on the power play at 18:41 of the second period. After failing to score in over 20 straight appearances on the power play, the Black Bears once again found solace in Tyler’s play. Camped out at the top of point, Tyler received a pass from Keenan Hopson along the boards and proceeded to rifle the puck on net.
“Keenan [Hopson] just made a good pass over to me and somehow I just one-timed it on net,” said Tyler. “Billy [Ryan] and Soares just did an unbelievable job beating the guys out of the corner and Billy got the deflection over the guys glove.”
Moments after watching the puck fly into the back of the mesh, a pumped up Ryan attempted to shake up his teammates.
“Usually I’m scoring the seventh or eighth goal, but finally I got a big goal,” said Ryan. “I just felt like I needed to get the team jacked up.”
Maine captain Michel Leveille earned special kudos on the play after drawing the penalty by taking a punch to the head from Jacques Perreault.
Upon scoring the goal it quickly became clear – Maine was back to their preferred style of hockey. Although they appeared to have the momentum at the end of the second, Northeastern didn’t go away. The re-energized Huskies, playing some of their best hockey in the past couple years, continued to get at netminder Ben Bishop, who finished the match with 16 saves. Yet the attacks proved fruitless. The lone Northeastern tally remained Chad Costello’s 3-on-1 score at 17:38 of the first period.
The “do-or-die” game for UMaine saw them finally conquer Thiessen, 31 saves, after he had given them fits all weekend.
The story of Saturday’s game couldn’t have been more different then Friday. By the time the Huskies had booted netminder Ben Bishop and scored their sixth tally, Alfond represented a crowd typical of a men’s basketball game. The emptied arena filled only with disappointed and upset fans didn’t go unnoticed by the Black Bears, who have played their best games outside of the state.
“This is really tough,” said Leveille after the match. “Every time you lose at home you feel like you let the whole state of Maine down. I definitely can’t stand that. It’s something I can’t explain. I don’t know why we’re coming out flat. All I know is that we have to get our stuff together.”
The Black Bears have surrendered six or more goals at home three times this season. The mark breaks a streak that goes back all the way into the ’80s.
“Northeastern played like a team and we played like a bunch of individuals and we paid the price for it,” said Whitehead.
Friday, Northeastern made their move on Maine early in the second period. Despite pushing the puck throughout the first period on 2-on-1′s and 3-on-2′s, Northeastern entered the second trailing 1-0 after a Michel Leveille point shot that jetted past freshman netminder Brad Thiessen. Undeterred by the tally, Northeastern stormed backed in the second with even more sustained pressure that went ignored by UMaine.
That pressure paid off at 1:01 of the second when Jacques Perreault caressed the back of the mesh on Bishop. He was followed shortly after by Chad Costello. The eventual game-winner saw the accurate Costello smack home a sneaky little drop pass from Kyle Kreamer.
“I didn’t even see the shot or the pass,” said Bishop.
With the floodgates open, Northeastern proceeded to register four more scores. However, they didn’t take control of the game until Costa scored the biggest backbreaker at 18:36 of the second. With all the momentum in the world, Northeastern headed to the locker room in full stride, while Maine looked completely flustered.
Later in the game, Costa closed out the scoring when he banked in a shot on backup goalie Dave Wilson. The two-goal night came courtesy of a performance the Huskies have started to expect from the speedy freshman from Maryland.
“Against Lowell, I looked like an imbecile for not playing him earlier in the year,” said Cronin.
In the third period, Costa was joined on the score sheet by Mike Morris and Randy Guzior, who scored goals at 2:58 and 9:18, respectively.
“You don’t have to put it lightly, this was embarrassing,” said Leveille. “I don’t know what’s going on. I would like to tell you what’s going on but in a sense we are just not playing as a team.”
With UNH in UMaine’s immediate future, the Black Bears are ready to use this weekend, the good and the bad, as a springboard.
“This is huge – confidence is a huge part of hockey and right now after that win our confidence is sky high,” said Ryan. “We just have to keep on building from this win. Personally I think this is a turning point in our season, not just tonight’s win but to build off Friday’s loss.”
Bangor Daily News