How sweep was that?

The #7 Maine Black Bears’ first period surge paves the way for a gutsy and gritty 2-1 victory over the #8 Massachusetts-Lowell River Hawks at the Tsongas Center on Saturday night.

Maine’s 15th win of the season sealed the weekend sweep. This is the Black Bears' first Hockey East sweep away from the Alfond since last November at Merrimack and Maine’s first conference sweep on the road against a ranked opponent since January 2020 over #4 Boston College.

For a team that had questions surrounding its drop-off in performances away from the Alfond earlier in the season, Maine has now won five consecutive road games.

Are the Black Bears turning into road warriors? It certainly seems so.

Flying in the first

Maine’s performance in the first period could not have been better.

The Black Bears shot out of the gate, guns-a-blazin', and before many in the Tsongas Center had taken their seats, Maine had taken the lead, lighting the lamp just 1:54 into the game.

Maine’s opening goal came courtesy of the Black Bears' red-hot line consisting of wingers Taylor Makar, Ross Mitton, and center Nolan Renwick.

Usually known for their punishing physical presence, it was their soaring speed that got the Black Bears on the board this time. Mitton fed Renwick to get Maine into the neutral zone, flying forward. Slipping past a River Hawk check, Renwick poked it up to Makar, who raced into the Lowell defensive zone and played a give-and-go back to Renwick, who had a step on his defender, creating a 2-0n-1. Makar’s pass was an inch-perfect backhand dish directly onto Renwick’s tape in the slot, enabling the senior from Saskatchewan to blast a one-timer bomb from his wheelhouse into the back of the net. 

Nolan Renwick celebrates with the Maine bench after his goal early in the game. (Photo: UMaine Athletics)

Scintillating and soaring, Maine’s opening goal was a work of art from a trio that has, of late, been playing its best hockey since the opening weeks of the year. Call them the MRM line (Makar-Renwick-Mitton). Their balance of speed and strength ripped apart the likes of AIC and Quinnipiac during Maine’s early games, scoring six goals in the first three games, going a combined +20 as a trio in even-strength play during that time.

The MRM line cooled off significantly as autumn gave way to winter, forcing the coaching staff to split them up in December. But since Head Coach Ben Barr recombined them to start the third period last Friday against Denver, they have significantly impacted the contests almost every time they’ve touched the ice. This includes a momentum-changing shift on Friday against Lowell in Maine’s lead-up to David Breazeale’s game-tying goal in the second period.

For Lowell, things got worse before they got better.

The River Hawks lost one of their best-producing forwards, Scout Truman, who was ejected from the game midway through the first for a high hit on Bodie Nobes. This resulted from a successful coach’s challenge prescribed by Maine’s watchful Director of Hockey Operations and video-reviewer, Nick Fonzi, that was deemed worthy of a major penalty.

“I really didn’t know if it was going to be a five-minute, but it gets called that way, and you live with it and try and kill it off,” UMass-Lowell Head Coach Norm Bazin said after the game.

Truman’s major handed the Black Bears a five-minute power play, which net front extraordinaire Thomas Freel capitalized upon, stuffing home a Brandon Holt point shot that was spilled in the crease by Lowell goaltender Beni Halasz. Freel’s goal tied him for the most power play goals in the nation, with eight on the year.

Phenomenal, ferocious, flying — the Black Bear’s first period was one of their best of the season as their endless energy and forecheck pressure kept the River Hawks penned in their own end for much of the frame, forcing Lowell to ice the puck time and again.

Maine’s power play celebrates Thomas Freel’s goal in the first period. (Photo: UMaine Athletics)

Maine, who had seven minutes of power play time in the first, recorded 21 shots on net during that period after being held to just 26 all game the night before. Meanwhile, Lowell only had four shots on Albin Boija’s net in the first period.

But Halasz kept the hosts in the game, as Lowell would have been relieved to head into the break, down by just two.

“We only got two, and that kept it a game. We probably needed to get one or two more in the first,” Barr said.

It wasn’t the start to the game Bazin wanted to see from Lowell, who was behind the eight-ball almost immediately.

“Some games don’t go as scripted, don’t go as planned. We had several new guys in the lineup, and sometimes it just doesn’t go as planned,” Bazin said. “When you start off in a 2-0 hole in Hockey East, it’s a tall task for anybody.”

Testing and tight second and third

The odd way the second period began seemed to set the tone for the rest of the contest, which was physical, bitter, and just plain strange at times.

As the teams were skating out to begin the second, goaltender Beni Halasz, skating towards his net, collided with Nolan Renwick, who was criss crossing Halasz’s path to the Maine bench. Renwick was given a two-minute minor penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct for the accidental collision.

The officials never gave Barr an explanation.

“[The officials] wouldn’t come over [to the bench]. I think he just didn’t see him; it was dark out there,” Barr said dumbfounded.

As if angered by the clash to their goaltender, Lowell came out pissed off and with a point to prove as the game descended into a physical, ill-tempered, black-and-blue affair between two Hockey East rivals fighting tooth-and-nail for standings points.

There were plenty of after-the-whistle shenanigans and missed calls as both coaches stood bewildered behind their respective benches, trying to decipher the officials' reasoning. 

“That was an interesting game just because there was a lot of stuff going on, where normally there would have been a lot more special teams in that game maybe. I thought the guys did a really good job of fighting through it. Both teams had to deal with it. It was definitely a weird game in that way,” Barr said. There were probably some [missed calls], both ways. S0, that was interesting.”

Both teams pride themselves on playing a blue-collar, lunch-pail style of game that represents their respective communities. This turned the contest away from Maine being comfortably in control to a heated and chippy battle in the trenches that kept the game choppy and bottlenecked, the glass constantly reverberating with crunching checks.

“The rest of the game was a grind,” Barr said.

After the Black Bears outshot the River Hawks 21-4 in the first period, it was Lowell who had the better scoring chances in the second and third periods, outshooting Maine 22-15 in the final two frames.

The River Hawks, with their tail feathers up, saw more of the puck. They kept the Black Bears hemmed in, running around in their zone for minutes at a time, and gave Maine everything they could handle.

“You’re not going to keep that [first period] pace up the whole game. It would be nice to do that, but that’s tough. There’s ebbs and flows to the game, and we had chances to get more, but we didn’t. That’s a credit to them; their kid made some saves, and obviously, the rest of the game was really tight,” Barr explained.

About mid-way through the middle period, Lowell’s Jacob MacDonald got the River Hawks onto the board and halved Maine’s advantage when he slipped into a quiet spot in the slot to rocket home a one-timer from a pass from the goalline by Chris Delaney.

But that would be the only time Boija was to be beaten as the Black Bear netminder pulled out yet another elite-caliber performance between the pipes, standing on his head all game, highlighted by an incredible post-to-post save early in the third period.

“I thought we got better as the game went along. Our guys battled, our guys competed, I’m very proud of them. I thought we were a shot away from tying it, and if we tied it, we could get the winner, but that didn’t happen, and that’s the way it goes,” Bazin said. “I thought the third period was our best, but it was too little too late.”

Lowell kept the pressure on Boija and the Black Bears, throwing everything they could muster at the Maine net. The Black Bears bent but didn’t break, however, bravely holding on to their lead under the Lowell pressure, blocking shot after shot while boxing out and tying up River Hawk sticks brilliantly, not allowing many second or third efforts to be whacked on goal in the net front chaos.

“I thought we blocked a lot of shots and did a better job at our net than last night,” Barr said.

Maine battened down the hatches and closed out the series sweep as waves of Black Bear Nation, which accounted for about two-thirds of the Tsongas crowd, counted down the seconds before the final horn sounded. The traveling Alfonders helped will their team to victory.

Alfond South. Everywhere they go, Black Bear Nation follows.

“We have a special hockey community in Maine…. I don’t know where they come from, if they drive down or if they just live down here and are alums, I don’t know. But it’s truly incredible, and it’s really special. It’s really something else; we are so fortunate,” Barr said.

The Black Bears celebrate their road sweep with goaltender Albin Boija. (Photo: UMaine Athletics)

The Black Bears showed that they are now well and truly battle-tested.

Maine had to suffer through large stretches of the contest, but they managed to stand unwavering in the face of the enormous pressure. All of a sudden, the Black Bears have now held on to three straight leads in tight games, an area that had dogged them earlier in the season.

Gallant, unflinching, fearless, and courageous, Maine ground out this victory in gutsy fashion.

Championship-caliber teams find a way, and Maine keeps doing just that: finding a way.

Call them road warriors because that’s exactly what they were: warriors at home and on the road.