It will be difficult for Black Bear Nation not to get ahead of themselves.

Not after Maine’s 4-0-1 start to the season, its best since 2006, which has the Black Bears ranked as the #7 team, in the country according to USCHO’s Coaches Poll.

Not after the Black Bears took 5 of 6 available points last weekend at the usually unhappy hunting grounds of Matthews Arena, its third-best-ever points tally from a conference road trip during Ben Barr’s reign and the first Maine win at Northeastern since 2012.

Nor after Maine has relentlessly displayed an encouraging mental character, and a steadfast knack for figuring out a way to find results, often in memorable fashion, no matter what obstacles have been thrown at them.

And it will undoubtedly be tricky for the fanbase not to look past this weekend, with November contests against the likes of Boston College, Boston University, and New Hampshire looming on the horizon.

But the Maine Black Bears are staying even-keeled, with one focus and one focus only on this weekend’s task at hand, the Merrimack Warriors, who are coming up to the Alfond to open up Maine’s home-ice Hockey East play.

The Warriors have yet to find their stride this season, going 1-3-0 to start the campaign, but the Maine dressing room is not about to overlook their conference foe.

“Every single game is so important, every game in our league. You can get smoked if you don’t play well. We're not looking ahead,” Head Coach Barr said after Tuesday’s practice. 

Since the start of Barr’s tenure, Maine’s contests with Merrimack have always had razor-thin margins.  Beginning with the start of the 2021/22 season, the Black Bears have slightly edged the Warriors in five of the nine games played, with seven of those contests being decided by two goals or less. This weekend is likely to be no different.

While last week’s results at Northeastern were terrific, Maine’s performance was not always very good. The Black Bears showed the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of their game during inconsistent performances in their Friday night win and Saturday tie. They played nowhere near their best hockey, perhaps fortunate to take so many points from the series, but they still demonstrated plenty of positives to build upon.

“The guys found a way. Neither of those games was pretty. Northeastern is a good team. We had stretches where we did some good things both nights and stretches where we were really loose and gave up a lot of grade-A [scoring chances]. But, we’ll take some positives from it for sure,” Barr said about last weekend.

With five points already on the conference standings board, the Black Bears are almost one-third of the way to matching their Hockey East point total from road games last year (16). But Maine knows that if they want to finish the regular season in the top three of Hockey East and once again clinch a First Round playoff bye, they will have to be close to perfect at home.

In the past two years of regular season league play, the top three teams in the conference have all been dominant in their home barns. Maine had a tremendous 9-2-1 conference record at the Alfond last season, only behind BC and BU’s identical 11-1-0 records at home. In 2022/23, BU and Merrimack had 9-3-0 records on home ice, while Northeastern’s 7-4-1 tally at Matthews was enough to earn third place in the standings and the all-important First Round bye in the Hockey East playoffs.

Needless to say, if Maine is to match its conference ranking last season or dare to push the cream of the crop at the top, the Black Bears must again be near-perfect when playing in Orono this season.

The Alfond will need to be a fortress again,  ensuring that the opposition’s chance to pick up points is as rare as hours of sunlight during the long Maine winters.

This season, the Black Bears have been nurturing a mentality of taking it day-by-day and game-by-game. With so much expectation, including from themselves, to achieve in the moments where they fell short last season, Maine is laser-focused on just winning the next game. They are trusting in the process that by doing so, it will help them enormously down the road when things matter ten-fold. Playing every game as life-or-death will allow Maine to be as comfortable as possible in those situations when the season really does become make-or-break.

It’s a steely focus on the next game of the season as a means to prepare for the last game of the year.

“Hopefully, they’ve learned some of the shortcomings the last few years. The end of the year was disappointing. Everything matters, whether it is your first game or, your fifteenth game, or your thirtieth game. They’re all one game that can make or break your season, so I don’t think they take anything for granted, which is good,” Barr said.

Hoping to avoid a repeat of last year's midseason slump, Maine is using their focus on the short-term to try and improve incrementally every single day. They’re emphasizing not losing their edge as central to the team-defining culture of endless hard work and attention to detail.

“We’re just trying to get a little better. As the season goes on you have to continue to get better each day. You go back to last year; we had a really good start, and then there was a lull. You can’t have a lull,” Barr said.

To avoid falling into a lull as the season progresses, the Black Bears practice like they play, full-out and with no prisoners taken, never allowing themselves a second of standing still, instilling this all-out identity into their DNA every time they hit the ice. This culture has become second nature for the Black Bears.

“We make them beat the crap out of each other in practice like they just did. Those are the things they like to do, and that really starts with our captains and our leaders,” Barr said. “Our compete level has got to be our calling card, and then the habits and the details that we bring to that compete level is what makes us good when we are playing well, and that can never change.”

Senior transfer Taylor Makar credits Maine’s pedal-to-the-metal practices to his (7 points in 5 games) and his team’s strong start.

“We practice so hard that games are easier,” Makar explained. “Playing against your own squad is always so tough. Guys get after it; there’s a little bit of chirping, but it’s all out of love. We just want to make each other better. So when the weekend comes, it really helps us.”

While this weekend provides Maine a golden opportunity to pick up valuable Hockey East points, it also allows them one final tune-up before their likely most challenging run of games this season: BC, BU, and UNH, all one after another.

Maine is hoping that this weekend sees a breakout from offensive stars Lynden Breen and Josh Nadeau, both of whom have gone scoreless so far this season. If Maine is to have success over the powerhouse Boston teams, they are going to need every player in their lineup clicking at their best. That starts this weekend.

“There are some individuals going through it right now, we’ve had some guys take huge steps for us, and if we can get everybody playing their best, I think we’re going to be a tough team,” Barr said a few weeks ago.

Breen, Nadeau, and Sully Scholle started the first three games of this season on a line together, but while the trio worked hard and created some quality scoring chances, they were unable to find the net with the same ease as they did countless times last season.

At Northeastern, Barr decided to break up the top line, hoping the change would jolt them into form. Scholle scored the game-tying goal in Saturday’s tie, and Nadeau looks to be getting closer to buzzing back at his best with every game. It is important to note that Breen had knee surgery over the offseason.

But Maine’s team depth, the deepest Maine has been during Barr’s time at the program, has stepped up enormously, carrying the Black Bears to their red-hot start while waiting for last year's top scorers to find their feet.

“All lines can go, we can get depth scoring, stuff like that while we are waiting for guys to go off. We’re looking for everyone to step up and be good,” Makar said.

The top-line of Taylor Makar (4g-3a-7 pts), Nolan Renwick (4g-2a-6 pts), and Ross Mitton (1g-3a-4 pts) has been a pleasant surprise. The line has yet to put a foot wrong and has not had a poor shift this season, embodying Black Bear hockey to a tee with their dynamic and explosive play. Thomas Freel (3g-1a-4pts) and Harrison Scott (2g-6a-8pts) have continued to raise their already high-quality game from last season. 

Charlie Russell (1g-4a-5pts) has had a smooth start to his Black Bear career. Russell, the son of Jamie, who Barr coached with at Providence, plays a dynamic game with a lot of sparks and always looks confident with the puck on his stick, eager to make something happen.

“Charlie has had some really good moments so far. He’s got a lot of pop to his game, he’s quick, he has a good skill level, and his decision-making is getting better,” Barr said on the Black Bear Coaches Show.

Meanwhile, other forwards, such as Owen Fowler, who has had hard luck not to score more than his one tally, Oskar Komarov, whose terrific forecheck set up Scholle’s game-tying goal Saturday, and Anthony Calafiore have more than pulled their weight so far.

Maine’s scoring and overall improved offensive threat from the defensemen compared to last year has also been notable.

Brandon Holt (2g-5a-7pts), who had 16 points last season, is the Black Bears’ second-leading points-getter this campaign. David Breazeale (1g-0a-1pt) netted the memorable OT winner against Quinnipiac. Brandon Chabrier (0g-2a-2pts) is an offensive threat but has yet to show his full attacking potential, and newcomer Frank Djurasevic (0g-4a-4pts) always looks dangerous with the puck on his tape, often quarterbacking the powerplay.

While the offensive numbers, Holt aside, aren’t too different from last year, Maine’s defensemen look noticeably more potent as an attacking force this time around, giving the Black Bears’ an added offensive dimension that, once fully clicking, could take the team to the next level.

“We’re trying to get our D involved in our offense, and that’s powerplay, that’s everything. It’s really important that we find a way to get more pucks to the point from our D, and then if they have the chance to jump in the rush or jump up down low in the play, as long as they do it in a responsible way, it’s something that we have to do to our advantage,” Barr said.

The Black Bears will have their hands full with Merrimack’s own offensive-minded defensemen, who excel at jumping into the rush, overloading the opposition defense. D-men #4 Seamus Powell, #5 Trevor Gribel, and #37 Zach Bookman all provide significant threats, as do forwards #10 Mark Hillier and #43 Ty Daneualt.

The Warriors play with great team speed. Slowing them down in the neutral zone with a stubborn and positionally aware defensive structure will be paramount for Maine. Staying on the right side of the puck, clogging the center of the ice, and laying a body on every Warrior that touches the puck in the neutral zone so as not to allow the opposition the chance to gain the blueline with speed on the rush are going to be vital. These were all qualities Maine struggled with last weekend as Northeastern cut through and around Maine’s defense frighteningly often.

“Being good in the neutral zone against their skilled D is really important,” Barr said. “When you don’t have the puck, and they [Merrimack’s d-men] are leading the rush into the offensive zone, that’s a problem. They have some guys that can do that. So I think just being really good positionally through the neutral zone allows us to hopefully create some turnovers and play in the offensive zone.”

Molded similarly to Maine, Merrimack plays with an underdog mentality. Aggressive, high-tempo, and with a chip on their shoulder, the Black Bears are expecting to deal with an early Warrior’s onslaught.

“They have an underdog mentality there. Obviously, they’re not a really flashy team; they have a lot of guys that are going to work really hard, and they’re going to put us in the cooker early. I think our team has the same strengths. We’re an underdog mentality team as well; obviously, we’re ranked really high, but we’re trying to keep that underdog mentality, and we’re going to play hard as well. I’m really excited for it,” Frank Djurasevic said

Djurasevic knows the Warriors well, playing for Scott Borek’s team last season. The New Rochelle, New York native will have extra motivation this weekend, facing off against his former team for the first time.

“There is [motivation]. I’m trying to keep it down a little bit for now, but there definitely will be once the puck drops,” Djurasevic said. “You know there’s always going to be a little bit of animosity there from the players whether they were friends or not. They’re probably going to want to beat us as bad as I want to beat them, so just another weekend.”

Djuraseivc will also be playing with a heavy heart, as Friday marks the one-year anniversary since his mother, Adine, passed away unexpectedly.

“It’s definitely going to be a hard day, not something I’ve gone through before. I’m just going to try and take it minute by minute and play hard for my mom and for my family,” Djurasevic said.

There will be about twelve members of his mother’s side of the family in attendance this weekend, supporting Frank like she always did.

“She was always there for me, always supportive. I always loved coming off the ice from games seeing her text messages. I played [junior] hockey in British Columbia for three years, so I was far away, but she always did her best to stay up late to watch my games and be there for me. She always supported me; that’s something that I really miss,” Djurasevic said.

The Alfond will have one extra supporter looking down from the rafters this weekend.