Black Bears entering crucial stretch after bye, looking to close 2022 strong

Wednesday, November 23, 2022 18:02

Written by Tyler Krusz

ORONO  – After dropping their past five matchups, Maine men’s hockey welcomed their bye week this past week.

“I think we used it for rest,” said junior forward Lynden Breen. “Tried to just focus on us, and what we can control, and how we can get better.”

“You’ve got to take the good things from those past two weekends and carry them over, and learn from all of the rest,” said sophomore defenseman David Breazeale. “I think that off week was a good opportunity to do that, We stayed on it, we stayed hard, and we kept working.”

Maine’s five losses came to Northeastern, UConn, and Merrimack- all nationally ranked teams inside the top-20. Three of those were one goal losses, and all of them were competitive until the end.

“It’s hard when you’re so close like that to winning those games against those top teams,” Breazeale said. “You can see that we’re right there, and you’ve just got to keep believing in the process.”

In Maine’s last series against Merrimack, the process showed defensively in game one- allowing just one goal, but falling 1-0.

“We had a really good goaltending performance on Friday, and we lose 1-0,” head coach Ben Barr said. “Plenty of chances, power-play chances, but didn’t score a goal.”

In game two, it was the opposite, falling 5-3 for their fifth straight loss.

“We’ve got to put all of those things together,” Barr said. “We improve in some of those areas and I think our results will change.”

There’s no better time for the results to change than now- Maine has four games before they have twenty days off for the holiday break, and momentum is a major key.

“This is the most important time of the year for us,” Breen said. “We can’t come out of these without at least three or four wins.”

“It’s a great opportunity for us to go out there and show what we’ve got,” said Breazeale. “It’s time for us to put some wins on the scoresheet and hopefully go into Christmas break feeling good about the rest of the season.”

The first game of the stretch is Saturday, at home against American International College, a team Maine has yet to lose to. Barr says it’s the perfect chance to get back on track.

“We’re a game-by-game team, and this game is really important for us to hopefully get back to playing the right way and finding a way to earn a victory.”