The Alfond readies before opening puck drop. (Photo courtesy of Sophia Santamaria — UMaine Athletics)

The Black Bear Express keeps on rolling, steaming full speed ahead to thrash the Merrimack Warriors 5-0 in a dominant display at Alfond Arena on Friday night.

The nearly 70-degree day in Central Maine had the Alfond roasting, Black Bear Nation shedding layers and Halloween costumes alike, and the sheet of ‘ice’ a soft and slushy mess.

It also kept the #7 ranked Maine Black Bears red-hot, continuing their rampant five-game unbeaten start of the season, sizzling to now six.

Maine put Merrimack into the bear pit right from the bat with a dynamic forecheck that ruthlessly chewed up and spit out the Warriors. The Black Bears, minute after minute, line after line, won battle after battle along the boards. Their second and third effort on loose pucks was scintillating as Merrimack struggled to get out of  Maine’s pressure cooker.

“It wasn’t an easy game; there wasn’t a ton of ice, but I thought we were willing to play the ‘grind it out in the O-zone’ game with them. They didn’t give us a lot of rush chances. We had to earn what we got, and for the most part, we did,” Head Coach Ben Barr said.

Wave after wave of Maine’s relentless forecheck wore down the Warriors, who were never able to gain a foothold in the contest and get the puck up-ice with much speed. From Merrimack Head Coach Scott Borek’s perspective, the Black Bears simply out-competed his Warriors.

“Their whole group competes really hard for the puck. They won most of the puck battles,” Borek said. “That’s how you get worn down; that’s kind of what happened. They didn’t make any unbelievable plays; they just played hard, that’s their greatest skill.”

The unseasonably warm weather that caused the Alfond to swelter also got a couple of star Black Bear forwards firing, finally, with two of last season’s top scorers, sophomore Josh Nadeau and graduate student Lynden Breen, netting their first tallies of the year.

Last weekend, for the series with Northeastern, Barr tinkered with his lines, hoping that the changes would spark the likes of Nadeau, Breen, and Sully Scholle, three of Maine’s most talented and skilled forwards, who were yet to score.

Scholle netted last Saturday, while this Friday, it took Nadeau only seventy seconds to set the Alfond ablaze.

At this stage of last season, five games played, Nadeau had already scored twice and assisted three times. Coming into Friday evening’s contest, Nadeau only had two assists and no goals to his name, a stagnant start for such a special player.

Although working incredibly hard and creating plenty of chances through five games, Nadeau looked to be increasingly frustrated by his dry spell. His younger brother Bradly left Josh and the program in the spring, inking a professional contract with the Carolina Hurricanes. This perhaps had Josh feeling left behind and in the shadow of his brother, with whom he had such extraordinary on-ice chemistry and collegiate success.

Nadeau wheels away in celebration. (Photo courtesy of Patience Hanley — UMaine Athletics)

The weight of the world seemed to have lifted off  Nadeau’s shoulders when he slalomed his way from the top of the right faceoff circle all the way to the low slot with effortless edge work. The New Brunswick native waited, waited, and then waited some more, allowing an open shooting lane to appear before smoothly backhanding the puck across the goalline with ease.

Patience personified, the Nadeau show had returned to Orono.

“It feels good. I’ve been working hard the past six games and the bounces just didn’t go my way. I got the first one; I’ll try and keep going with that,” Nadeau said.

Now paired alongside yard dogs Harrison Scott and Thomas Freel, Nadeau looks close to being back to his dazzling best. Scott and Freel bring a lunch-pail effort, an unwavering compete level, and diligent puck-retrieval skills to the table, allowing Nadeau to pick up the pieces they bludgeon apart to craft something special as so few can.

The new line combination is certainly benefiting Freel and Scott as well.

Scott scored Maine’s second goal of the night when Freel, bearing down on net on the rush, stopped on a dime at the right faceoff dot, throwing a hard shot-pass toward the Warriors’ net directly onto the tape of a crashing Scott, who deflected the puck past goaltender Max Lundgren to put Maine up by two with five minutes left in the first period.

Freel got on the scoreboard himself midway through the second on the power play. Lundgren could not control Charlie Russell’s scorching shot, which squirted free to Freel, who swept home the most straightforward tap-in goal of his career all alone in front of the blue paint.

All four of Freel’s goals this season have come from his ownership of net-front realty. All four have also come on the power play.

Freel celebrates his first period power play goal. (Photo courtesy of Katie Moyes — UMaine Athletics)

Scott provided the secondary assist on the play and would go on to register one more apple seconds into the third frame. Back on the power play, Scott fed Taylor Makar, poised at the attacking blueline, who then motored his way down the half-wall, throwing a centering pass into the slot for Russell to attack. Some in Black Bear Nation have come to nickname the sophomore Charlie ‘Hustle’ Russell, who lived up to this billing by showcasing his tenacity when he received the pass in the low slot while being hauled down to the ice. Even then, Russell was able to poke the puck past Lundgren for Maine’s fifth and final goal of the evening.

Scott, a senior from San Jose, is Maine’s leading point scorer, with 11 points (3 goals, 8 assists) to his name. Friday night saw Scott register his sixth straight game with a point alongside defenseman Brandon Holt, who has also tallied a point in every game this season and is Maine’s highest points-contributor behind Scott.

Holt, October’s Hockey East Defender of the Month, had two assists on Friday, the first coming on Nadeau’s goal, while the second was to set up another New Brunswick native’s first of the season. Midway through the second frame with the Black Bears leading 2-0, Holt did what he does best, walking the blueline to rip a seeing-eye shot from the point, through traffic, which ricocheted off Breen into the net.

Breen, a second-year captain, is the ultimate team player and has chosen to focus on helping the squad in any way possible instead of lamenting over his goalless drought. A college veteran in his fifth and final season, Breen knows that the hockey gods tend to reward you when you do all the little things off the puck.

“I mean, the first one I get of the year goes off the ass,” Breen said. “That’s just from going to the net and trying to play the right way, and I think that’s what’s going to earn me more ice time and earn me more opportunity to help the team, and that’s what I’m trying to do every night.”

Understanding that he no longer needs to carry the load of being the team’s leading goal scorer that he was two seasons ago (21 goals), Breen has focused on honing his game on the defensive side of the puck as a platform on which to build his offense from. While he is relieved to get the monkey off his back, he wasn’t solely focused on doing so.

“For me, especially known to be a little more of an offensive-sided player, I think the key is to start from the D-zone and play the right way, and good things happen,” Breen explained. “It’s definitely a sense of relief. For tonight especially, it’s going in without that mindset of trying to get that first one, and maybe that’s why it happened.”

While Barr is pleased to see his co-captain get rewarded, he was happier with Breen’s diligent play on the defensive side of the puck.

“Lynden was fantastic tonight,” Barr said. “Lynden’s game away from the puck tonight was excellent. Backtracking, creating turnovers on the backcheck, his leadership, and his game away from the puck as a captain was awesome.”

Lynden Breen got his season off and running, scoring his first goal of the year Friday night. (Photo courtesy of Madelyn Lussier — UMaine Athletics)

While the five goals scored will make the highlight reel, Maine’s defensive game was superb and suffocating, carrying the team to victory.

Merrimack, blessed with great team speed, has a number of highly talented, high-flying defensemen with a nose for jumping up into the attack. Maine knew that Merrimack’s biggest offensive threat would come from the Warriors’ pace through the neutral zone led by these D-men. If they maneuvered through this zone quickly and directly, the Warriors could outnumber the Black Bears, creating odd-man rushes on Maine’s net. This was a scheme Northeastern exploited time and again last weekend in Boston to much effect.

But Maine bore down in the neutral zone this time around, clogging the space between the bluelines with a well-organized structure. The Black Bears, for the most part, were able to keep their formation, staying on the right side of the puck and laying a body on the Warriors skating up ice, who often couldn’t gain their offensive zone with any speed. Unable to move through center ice, Merrimack was never really able to set up around Albin Boija’s net for any prolonged stretch, totaling just 15 shots on Boija, who made saves, froze pucks, and performed like he usually does — cooly and calmly.

“I thought we did a pretty good job of it. We didn’t give them a lot of odd-man rushes. They got a couple of three-on-twos when we made poor decisions in the offensive zone. Outside of that, I thought it was pretty solid,” Barr said about his team's stifling center-ice play.

Most noticeable was Maine’s extraordinary effort on the backcheck. The Black Bears' pressure from behind was immense. They swarmed the Warriors’ puck handlers from behind in the neutral zone, pick-pocketing Merrimack over and over again, who looked a step slower than Maine.

“Our back pressure was really good. That was probably the best part of our game,” Barr said.

Maine outworked Merrimack, plain and simple, their culture’s calling card on full display.

According to their coach, the Warriors, who identify similarly as a gritty, lunch-pail effort team, were sorely lacking in the effort department. Borek was anything but pleased with their showing. He was furious.

“If we got out skilled, it really wouldn’t bother me because we had some key guys out [injured], and it’s hard. But we just got flat-out out-competed. That’s a choice. We just got to be better,” Borek said.

Borek, in his seventh season behind the bench leading the Warriors, likely laid into his team with some choice words in the dressing room after their poor performance.  “You are playing one of the best teams in the country, and that’s your push. Disappointing,” Borek said.

Merrimack, with a fire lit under their tail, undoubtedly will come out Saturday night with a point to prove. While a good performance, Barr and Maine know that there are still aspects of their game that need shoring up, usually mental mistakes by Black Bears overeager to make a play that’s not there.

“We’re still our own worst enemy at times with turnovers at the end of shifts and that kind of stuff. We’ve got to clean that stuff up. It’s hurt us the last couple of weekends with trying to make plays one minute into a shift that aren’t there, and then you give them life, and they come down and Albin has to make a stop. We got to grow up a little bit there and stop making those plays, but the effort, you really can’t fault the effort,” Barr said.

Ben Barr and the Black Bears’ bench watch Owen Folwer carry the puck. (Photo courtesy of Madelyn Lussier — UMaine Athletics)

While Barr, a perfectionist who demands the absolute best from his team, understands that the physical aspect of the game can never be utterly flawless in a sport like hockey, he demands that the mental is.

“I still think there are things we need to do better. Sometimes, that seems like a harsh message to the guys, but you know, if we get to the point where we do everything right all the time, we are still going to make mistakes, and pucks will bounce over our tape; that kind of thing. But the mental piece of just always doing everything right, if the intent is there things will work out,” Barr said.

Striving to be the best, Barr knows what it takes to be a championship-caliber side. He’s only done it just about everywhere he’s coached. 

Now, with a 5-0-1 record, their six-game unbeaten streak is the program’s longest such stretch to start a season since the 2006/07 season.

That year, Maine went on to its last appearance at the Frozen Four, which was played in St. Louis.

This year’s Frozen Four will, for the first time since, be in St. Louis.

The Gateway to the West will be the goal of Maine’s Journey North.

It’s a long season before that could become anywhere close to a possibility.

But Black Bear Nation has learned to dream again.