It looked like Saturday was going to be a picture-perfect afternoon for Lynden Breen and the #5 ranked Maine Black Bears.

His line alongside wingers Owen Fowler and Charlie Russell was full-throttle right from the get-go. They carried their electric play, which supplied both of Maine’s second-period goals last weekend at New Hampshire, with them into Saturday’s matinee against the Rensselaer Engineers at the Houston Field House in Troy, New York.

Everything the trio touched of late has turned to gold.

Russell opened up the game’s scoring midway through the first when Breen, skating up the half-wall in RPI’s zone, curled back to find Fowler at the faceoff dot. He in turn, swiveled around, whiffing on the shot but connecting with just enough juice for it to trickle to Russell. The sophomore from further upstate New York, on his backhand in front of the net, swept it past RPI’s goaltender, Noah Giesbrecht, and into the goal.

Breen’s line was buzzing. Looking entirely in sync, they were having a late Thanksgiving feast.

First assembled in late November for the Northeastern series, the trio has recently been Maine’s sparkplug, firing on all cylinders and getting the best out of each other through their balance of sheer ferocity and sublime skill.

“[They] play so intensely. They are guys that are easy to play with because they open up the ice, and they are always going for second pucks, using that extra effort for pucks. It’s been special,” Breen said after practice earlier in the week.

A hat trick and then heartbreak

Breen would go on to score the game’s next three goals, securing his first collegiate hat-trick in his fifth and final year donning the blue and white.

The graduate student’s first tally of the afternoon came twenty-five seconds into the second period when Fowler fed Breen in the slot during a quick developing rush. The Saint John, New Brunswick native roofed a filthy backhanded shot to double the Black Bears’ lead.

He would light the lamp again in the third period when Russell’s nifty wraparound pass from behind the net connected with Breen, lurking in a soft spot of the ice in front of the crease.

Less than two minutes later, Breen would net his third goal and fourth point of the evening, this time on the power play. Sully Scholle skipped a tape-to-tape cross-ice pass from one faceoff dot to the other, where Breen was able to catch-and-release a rifling shot glove-side for his 47th goal for the Black Bears and first hat trick.

The heart and soul of this pack of Black Bears, Breen, in his second season as a captain and third wearing a letter, is the only current player to have suited up for Maine before Barr’s arrival at the program.

Breen got off to a slow start this season, still rehabbing from an offseason knee surgery, and looked a bit timid at times when going into puck battles. But for the past month or so,  he has re-emerged as the dynamic all-action player Black Bear Nation has come to know and love, skating with full conviction and zero hesitation. A dogged defender, particularly on the backcheck, and a natural goalscorer, it is perhaps Breen’s leadership qualities that have the most profound impact on the team and its culture.

“He’s been so good the past couple of weeks; he is such a great leader for us,” Head Coach Ben Barr said after the game.

Breen was having one of the games of his life, but a cruel twist of fate midway through the third period turned his afternoon from a perfect dream into potentially a heartbreaking nightmare.

Carrying the puck out of Maine’s end, an innocent-enough-looking check sent Breen crumpled to the ice, immediately holding his right leg, which looked like it buckled and twisted awkwardly during the fall. He lay on the ice in pain for several minutes, with both teams’ athletic trainers and a concerned-looking Barr on the ice surrounding him. Eventually, with the help of a few of his teammates, he was able to get off the ice without needing a stretcher.

Already having dealt with knee problems over the summer, the worry is the check could have reaggravated his surgically repaired knee. It is far too early, however, to speculate on the extent of the injury. The harming of ligaments or tendons in the knee would be devastating news to Breen and the team and could keep him out for the remainder of the season, which would be the worst-case scenario.

“It’s a tough one to swallow,” Barr said quietly after the game.

A full sixty

Looking shell-shocked and troubled at seeing their fearless leader leave the game in such a brutal fashion, the Black Bears still managed to focus enough on the game to score two more goals in the final minutes, securing a 6-0 victory.

Both came on the power play, the first via a Harrison Scott laser from the point through traffic and the second by way of a Frank Djurasevic one-timed blast from the left faceoff-dot, albeit with muted celebrations from the Maine bench.

The Black Bears didn’t allow the injury to Breen to throw them off their game, and it was noticeable that they played with as much vigor and focus as they had all season, keeping their feet firmly on the gas for the entire sixty minutes, eventually outshooting RPI 50-16 by the contest’s end.

“I thought the team responded well,” Barr said. “It is tough [to refocus]. It will be tougher tomorrow, just because we’ll obviously know a little bit more [about the injury].”

Maine has struggled at times this season, putting teams away when leading in the third period. Obviously, the loss at BC and the tie at home to BU come to mind. But so do last week’s win over UNH and the topsy-turvy victory against Quinnipiac, which both saw Maine unable to completely kill the game while on top.

The Black Bears did shoot themselves in the foot during this game with a couple of unnecessary penalties in the first and second periods. They also allowed a back-and-forth track meet to open up in the second period by playing loose hockey, resulting in the Engineers' best scoring chances of the afternoon, including ringing a shot of the iron.

But as afternoon turned to evening, Maine bore down and played better, eventually putting the nail in RPI’s coffin with four goals in the third period, wholly dominating the contest by the game’s end.

“The third period was obviously our best, which was good,” Barr said.

Throughout the game, but especially in the third frame, Maine took really good care of the puck. They almost entirely neutralized RPI’s hard and heavy forecheck through sound and secure breakout passes or the Black Bears’ defensemen taking no risks getting on their horses to carry the puck up ice themselves.

The Black Bears' best defense was their offense, which saw Maine dominate control over the puck as Rensselaer had trouble getting it off of the Black Bears' sticks.

“We played hard; we limited their time and space. We had the puck a lot, so that helps defensively,” Barr said.

And, of course, when RPI did sniff out an opportunity, rock-steady Albin Boija was yet again on top of his game, securing his third shutout of the season in cooly calm fashion.

What now?

Now, with Breen most likely out of the lineup for the foreseeable future, Maine’s forward lines are going to need some tinkering.

Right-wingers Ross Mitton and Josh Nadeau swapped lines to begin the third period, so it will be interesting to see if Barr continues to give Freel-Scott-Mitton and Makar-Renwick-Nadeau a run out on Sunday afternoon.

In terms of replacing Breen’s centerman spot, fourth-line center Oskar Komarov has certainly looked good enough this season to move up between Russell and Fowler with another terrific under-the-radar showing Saturday afternoon.

Meanwhile, Thomas Pichette played center at times last year in juniors with Penticton, as well as during a few shifts in the exhibition game against Army. Makar also played at center at times last season for UMass.

Whatever path Barr chooses, there is no replacement for the on-ice quality and the off-ice leadership Breen brings to the team.

The best-case scenario is that we see Breen back on the ice sometime during the New Year. The worst-case is that Saturday afternoon was his last game as a Black Bear

Next man up.