No. 5 Maine comes from behind to beat Northeastern

Maine forward Joey Diamond scored on a power play in the third period to put the Black Bears ahead for the first time all night and never looked back, beating the Northeastern Huskies 4-2 in the first of two games between the teams this weekend at Alfond Arena in Orono.


The Huskies got the lead late in the first period when freshman forward Rob Dongara got his second goal of the season. During a power play after Maine defenseman Ryan Hegarty went to the box for high sticking, Garrett Vermeersch got the puck to senior forward Wade MacLeod at the point. MacLeod took a quick shot that was deflected in front by Dongara and went past Maine goaltender Dan Sullivan who was out of position after the deflection.


“When we got the goal, I thought it was a lucky bounce but we got it and that kind of settled us down,” said Huskies head coach Greg Cronin. “I knew the first ten minutes was going to be important because Maine historically comes out and plays extremely hard off the energy the crowd generates and they did that.”

Maine responded just 1:33 into the second period when Jeff Dimmen scored his second goal of the season on a Black Bears power play.


Northeastern took the lead back on another power play goal later in the second. This time it was junior forward Mike McLaughlin who got his fourth goal of the season on a rebound after a shot by defenseman Mike Hewkin. But just as before, the Black Bears wasted no time in tying up the game as Spencer Abbott got his seventh goal of the season just a minute and a half later.


Diamond broke the tie in the third period, putting a puck past Huskies goaltender Chris Rawlings after he got a feed from teammate Adam Shemansky in front of the net.


"He just made a great pass out in front, put it right on my tape and it was just kind of a tap in goal from there,” Diamond said. “We knew coming into this weekend that Northeastern’s a great team and it was just a grind the whole game.”


Rawlings made 30 saves for the Huskies, while Sullivan only had to stop 17 shots to get the win.

“The first thing we wanted to do was to jump all over them right off the bat, take the crowd out of it, and we did that and we were right in it,” Rawlings said. “Our power play kicked in for us which was good and it was nice to see them help out. Now we’ve just got to execute.”

Gustav Nyquist added an empty net goal to seal the win for Maine, who is now 5-1-3 overall and 3-0-1 in Hockey East.


The two teams will meet tomorrow night and do it all over again.


“I think they carried the play for most of the game but I think it was a good game,” Cronin said. “I think that our power play got a lot of energy in a positive way, we got two goals but all of our possessions were really good. We just have to build on that.”