During the three full seasons under Head Coach Ben Barr, Maine has only completed a sweep on the road in Hockey East twice. Away at Vermont, in December of 2022, and last Fall at Merrimack. The Black Bears’ five points at Northeastern is now the third-best weekend road result for Barr in arguably the most difficult conference in college hockey, made more significant by Maine’s wretched record at Matthews Arena before this weekend.

There’s no such thing as a bad tie on the road in Hockey East.

The #6 Maine Black Bears scratched and clawed their way back from a two-goal deficit Saturday night to tie the Northeastern Huskies at Matthews Arena in downtown Boston. While the game ended in a tie, Maine secured the extra Hockey East point with a shootout win, taking five of the six conference points that were on the table.

Although the result on the scoreboard didn’t match Maine’s Friday night 4-1 win, the Black Bears' performance on the ice was noticeably improved.

“I know the score was different, but I thought we battled a little harder tonight,” Barr said after the game. “The tie is probably fitting for that game.”

So far this year, Maine has secured victories in just about every fashion imaginable. They blew out AIC 6-0 in an offensive explosion to open the season. They scraped their way to a closely contested, defensive grudge match 2-1 over Quinnipiac before roaring back to a miraculous comeback the next night in a topsy-turvy 6-5 overtime win to complete the sweep over the Bobcats. Then, on Friday night, they finally broke their decade-long Matthews Arena winless streak, finding a way to win ugly by dragging themselves over the finish line in a game in which they were often second-best.

Saturday night, however, threw a new challenge at the Black Bears, who fell behind early to Northeastern. This was the first time this season that Maine allowed the opposition to score the first goal of the game.

Northeastern’s Nick Rhéaume opened the scoring just two minutes into the contest when a rebound popped away from Albin Boija onto the Husky’s stick.

That deficit would double minutes into the second frame when Cam Lund squirted free behind the Black Bears’ defense with the puck on his stick, all alone down Route One on a breakaway.

The night before, the Huskies let the Black Bears off the hook on a number of occasions, failing to execute on their numerous odd-man rushes or breakaways.

Northeastern made sure not to make that same mistake two nights in a row.

While Maine’s defense was significantly better Saturday night, staying on the right side of the play, finishing their hits, absorbing pressure on the rush, clogging center-ice, and not allowing Northeastern nearly as much time and space with the puck, the skilled Huskies nonetheless capitalized on the fewer Maine mistakes with ruthless execution.

Northeastern’s second goal came on just their sixth shot on net.

Maine may have played better, but so did Northeastern.

“I thought we had two breakdowns that cost goals,” Barr said. “We lost a guy at the netfront for the first goal; it’s a pretty simple play, not a great rebound. The second one, obviously, Lund is a really talented player, but our defenseman can’t get walked like that. That’s fundamental hockey.”

Although down by two just minutes into the second frame, the Black Bears were playing a much-improved game from their Friday night win. They were tighter defensively, not allowing the Huskies to walk through their defense almost untouched. And they did a significantly better job of establishing themselves in the offensive zone. This enabled them to create much higher-quality shots on Cameron Whitehead, who stood tall in the Northeastern net, showing why he is one of the premier goaltenders in college hockey. 

Maine was able to work the puck around the offensive zone diligently and methodically, allowing them to create their shooting opportunities in dangerous scoring areas close to Northeastern’s net between the faceoff dots.

This was in contrast to Friday night, which saw the Black Bears unable to set themselves up around Northeastern’s net for any sustained periods of time. As a result, they were forced to throw lower-quality shots on net from further away from the Huskies’ net as Northeastern succeeded in keeping Maine, for the most part, to the perimeter.

In addition, Maine, who relies heavily on their forwards' ability to win back pucks on the forecheck, did not have the same in-your-face, combative vigor in their battles for loose pucks as they usually do on Friday.

Last night, [we were] chucking pucks around, poking pucks, that’s not our game. We were fortunate to win last night and I thought we were a little better in the O-zone tonight,” Barr said.

In contrast, on Saturday night, Maine’s forecheck and subsequent cycle in the O-zone was much more intense and deliberate, with the Black Bears playing more fearlessly with the puck. They invited and absorbed pressure — taking a hit to make a play — and were more resilient with their second and third efforts, as well as looking less timid going into fifty-fifty puck battles.

“I thought we were a little braver, to be honest,” Barr explained. “We took some more hits, we got our body around pucks and held on to it for an extra second or two. All it takes is an extra second or two to hold on to a puck, get body position, then you can get it to the point or get it to your support. That’s the difference in the game.”

This sustained pressure of grueling and grinding hockey began to wear down the Huskies, who started showing cracks as the second period wore on.

“[Maine] doesn’t mess around; the puck’s going behind our D almost every single time, they are going to finish their hits. And they do that over two games and you're asking defensemen to go out and play a lot of minutes,” Northeastern Head Coach Jerry Keefe said.

Maine, chipping away, slowly turned the screw on Northeastern with relentless physical pressure. The Huskies, fighting tooth-and-nail to keep their two-goal lead, began to lose their discipline.

This culminated with Northeastern handing Maine a golden opportunity to get themselves back into the game. Huskie Ben Poitras took a five-minute major for a facemask against Black Bear Anthony Calafiore during an after-the-whistle net-front scrum, giving Maine a momentum-changing opportunity.

“It’s an undisciplined penalty. We took too many undisciplined penalties this weekend,” Keefe said. “We take a five-minute major up two goals. That’s not a recipe for success.”

While Maine’s power play looked stagnant for much of their five-minute advantage, only getting three shots on Whitehead’s goal, their third-and-final shot of the PP finally broke through.

With only five seconds left in the power play, Brandon Holt continued his hot start to the season. Harrison Scott, gaining the zone, spun around to pull a Husky out of position at the blue line. This allowed Holt to receive the pass from Scott and walk into the acres of space in the slot uncontested. He then ripped a shot through a two-man Charlie Russell and Taylor Makar moving screen to cut the Maine deficit in half with eight minutes to play in the second.

It was a goal deservedly earned by Maine, which was able to reap the rewards for its greatly improved offensive performance. 

Another noticeable improvement on Saturday night was the body language on Maine’s bench. The Black Bears, although tallying on the scoresheet fewer times than Friday, were not allowing Northeastern’s stringent defense to visibly frustrate them as much. The Maine bench kept things positive, trusting that if they stuck to their game, they would be rewarded.

“I thought we got behind the eight ball, obviously, tonight and just kept battling back. It felt a little better on the bench tonight than last night,” Barr said.

This positivity is fed from the top down, from the head coach to the rest of the coaching staff, to the leadership group, and then to the rest of the team. Barr tries to stay as even-keeled on the bench as he can, hoping to lead by example and spread an aura of calm and focus to his team.

“Sometimes your emotions get the best of you, and you try to manage that because the team obviously feels that stuff, and I’m not great at that, to be honest,” Barr admitted. “Trying to be a little better at that tonight. Last night, I was not very good, and that didn’t help the team at all.”

With Maine fully playing for each other and their game going in the right direction, it only felt like a matter of time before the Black Bears would find their game-tying tally. 

Maine’s new-look fourth line knotted the game at two midway through the third period. Sophomore left-winger Sully Scholle was moved to the fourth line for the weekend after his line alongside Lynden Breen and Josh Nadeau had been held scoreless so far this season.

Freshman center Oskar Komarov hounded a seemingly innocent enough-looking dump into Northeastern’s zone. The Huskies D-man spun off Komarov’s first effort, but the Finnish forechecker doggedly kept with the play, pickpocketing the puck from Northeastern possession in the corner. Komarov, poised with the puck, found Scholle at the top of the near-side faceoff circle. Scholle received the pass and, with an explosive first step, cut around a Northeastern defender with a toe-drag, setting himself up for a shot in the slot. The sophomore rifled a perfect shot, beating Whitehead glove-side with a blistering release that kept the netminder flat-footed.

Barr had hoped that the lineup change would spark Scholle, Breen, and Nadeau out of their early-season scoring rut. certainly worked, jolting Scholle into form as he and his line with Komarov and Calafiore had an impressive game on both sides of the puck.

“He’s a skilled kid. He’s been snakebit a little bit so far this year, but he’s a kid that usually smiles, and he just goes out there, and whether he is on the first line or fourth line he can kind of play anywhere. He’s got really good hands and can really shoot a puck,” Barr said about his fellow Minnesota native.

Scholle would have the chance to be the hero for Maine once again in the shootout. Tied after regulation, the teams skated to a back-and-forth three-on-three five-minute overtime period. Maine hung on by a thread, with Albin Boija and scrambling Black Bear defenseman keeping the Huskies’ game-winning goal out of their net with last-ditch defending.

Charlie Russell opened the shootout with a nifty move to beat Whitehead glove-side. Nadeau missed Maine’s second opportunity, but because Boija held Northeastern scoreless in all three attempts, Scholle’s tally through Whitehead’s five-hole was enough for Maine to take the extra point in the conference standings, leaving their last trip to Matthews Arena with five out of six possible points.

Maine’s resilient nature was on display once again.

Mentally tough and with granite-like character, there has been no mountain too tall for Maine to climb this year.

Clearly growing in maturity, it has been their knack for finding a way to get a positive result, no matter the circumstances, that has been most impressive during this young season.

It’s back home to the happy hunting ground of Fortress Alfond next week, where Maine will be expected to continue their undefeated season in style.