The Maine Black Bears knocked off the Northeastern Huskies for the second consecutive night, beating them by the same score they did on Friday of 4-2.
This time Northeastern took a 2-1 lead into the the third period before surrendering three consecutive goals. Just like the previous night, Maine came back from two separate one-goal deficits to tie the game at 2-2 and the Huskies could never answer back.
"We knew it wasn't going to come easy so we just stayed determined, didn't get frustrated, and eventually we were able to overtake them," said Maine head coach Tim Whitehead.
Unlike Friday, the Huskies power play wasn’t effective, going 0-5 and only managing to get two shots all game with the man-advantage. Maine, who had many more chances with the extra attacker, went 1-9. The Black Bears outshot Northeastern by a large margin of 40-19.
The Huskies got both of their goals at even strength. Tyler McNeely scored his third goal of the season 7:23 into the game to give NU the early lead, while Wade MacLeod put the team back on top 2-1 with his fourth of the season after Maine’s Spencer Abbott had tied the game early in the second period.
"We came out a little lazy for some reason, I'm not sure why," Abbott said. "They took advantage of it in the first and they outplayed us but going into the second we had a game plan to just get the puck deep and not many teams can handle us down low if we do our cutbacks."
Joey Diamond tied the game 4:19 into the third period with his sixth goal of the season and then Maine took over and went for the jugular.
"We knew right from the beginning that it was going to be a tough game," Diamond said. "We were going to have to grind it out like we did last night.
"It's exactly what we needed," Whitehead said. "He shrugged off the defenseman and took it to the net and just willed it into the net. I've seen him do that before and I think that was a big turning point."
Ryan Hegarty got the game winner just two minutes after the Black Bears tied the game up and they never looked back. Klas Leidermmark added an insurance goal later in the third.
Chris Rawlings made 36 saves for the Huskies in the losing effort, while Dan Sullivan stopped 17 for Maine.
“It was a hard fought series,” said Whitehead. “When you finish those close games you’re glad to have been in them. It was a good experience for us against a very determined, strong Northeastern team, I thought they deserved a little better fate this weekend but it’ll come for them and we’re pleased with the third periods both nights.”
Northeastern has now lost five consecutive games. Their last win came back on October 23 when they beat UMass-Lowell 3-1.
On the other hand, Maine is unbeaten in their last six games as they are 6-1-3 overall and have yet to lose a game in Hockey East play (4-0-1).
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