A deflected shot off the active stick blade of Brandon Chabrier looked as though it mopped up a Rensselaer Engineers’ dangerous three-on-two rush late in the second period during the #5 Maine Black Bears 6-2 win in a Sunday matinee contest at the Houston Field House in Troy, New York.

But the puck sprung high off the glass behind Maine’s net, glancing back toward an unsuspecting Albin Boija, who couldn’t do anything to stop the puck from bouncing off his back and into his net.

As flukey a goal as you will ever see, the crazy bounce knotted the game at two a-piece heading into the second intermission.

Home rink advantage in the most literal sense.

Rensselaer had just completely turned around Maine’s two-goal advantage, from two first-period power-play goals only nineteen seconds apart, through a swashbuckling second-period effort that gave the Black Bears all they could handle.

The Engineers were miles better than their Saturday performance, which could only manage 16 shots on Maine’s net in the Black Bears' 6-0 Game One win. Through the first two periods of Sunday’s showdown, the Engineers had already matched that shot total. Spurred by a wave of momentum, they were playing with the ice slanted downhill in their favor and the wind at their backs.

RPI’s big and long forwards were hammering Maine with a physical forecheck, creating the most scrambling second and third-effort chances they had all weekend.

“It was a much different game than last night. They played really well,” Head Coach Ben Barr said.

The Engineers had the bit between their teeth and weren’t going down without a fight.

“It wasn’t like we were playing badly, but we weren't playing great,” Barr said.

Owning the third-period

This season, third periods have not been  Maine’s strong suit.

Too often, they haven’t been able to cement their lead and seal the deal, allowing their opponents to dangerously hang around in the game.

“That’s kind of been the trend,” David Breazeale said a few weeks ago after a third-period goal by BU tied a game in which the Black Bears dominated the final frame, just a week after the Black Bears blew a two-goal lead to BC.

Even when they have hung on to win, they haven’t looked entirely convincing in doing so. That was the case last week at UNH, where the Black Bears were on the back foot for much of the third period.

But this weekend showed that Maine’s third-period woes may have begun to turn a corner in the right direction. Saturday afternoon, up by two goals, Maine poured it on in the third, scoring four times.

With the momentum in their opponent’s favor and having lost their talismanic leader and most recent potent goal scorer, Lynden Breen, to a nasty injury just twenty-four hours before, the team’s culture and mental strength in the face of adversity was to be massively tested.

It would have been all too easy for Maine to start the third period on their heels, thinking that getting out of the Hudson River Valley with a series split after a weekend of ill fortune would be just good enough.

But not these Black Bears, who came out hungry and snarling, turning it up from fourth to fifth gear, blowing RPI away with a relentless and ferocious third-period blitz that ground the Engineers into submission.

For the second straight afternoon, Maine’s third period was their best period.

“We’ve talked a lot about [third-period struggles] the last few weeks. It’s a really positive sign. We turned it up,” Barr said. “The response in the third was good to see.”

The Black Bears buzzed right from the puck drop to open the final frame, and it didn’t take long for them to be rewarded.

Just 1:31 after the two teams returned to the ice, Taylor Makar used all 6’3” and 210 lbs of his frame to roll off an Engineer check in the corner. He kept his feet moving and his head on a swivel, finding Josh Nadeau in front of the net with an inch-perfect tape-to-tape pass that Nadeau lashed into the back of the net with a one-timer.

The goal broke the dam, and the floodgates opened wide, with the Black Bears rattling off four unanswered third-period even-strength goals.

Harrison Scott got the all-important lead-extending goal to make it 4-2 midway through the frame when he muscled the puck off an RPI stick in the Engineers' end by the half-wall. He then drove to the net and scooped a backhanded shot into the goal.

Makar would join in on the fun a few minutes later, battling his way to the front of the net to pounce on a Jack Dalton slapshot that got kicked out into the crease.

Owen Fowler would close out the procession in the final minute of the game, finishing off a rush chance as the third man in. Sully Scholle skated the puck across the blue line and into the high slot, with Charlie Russell dragging an RPI defenseman with him as he barreled to the front of the net. This parted the RPI red sea and Fowler jumped in Scholle then connected with a nifty no-look backhand pass that Fowler wristed home, the final tally of the Black Bears' third-period barrage on Maine’s 50th and final shot of the afternoon.

Power play production

The Black Bears went an exceptional 5 for 11 on the power play this weekend, but most importantly, they saw both man-advantage units chipping in.

Maine’s first PP unit of Thomas Freel, Harrison Scott, Charlie Russell, Taylor Makar, and David Breazeale in for the injured Brandon Holt has been almost unplayable at times this season. The unit has scored eleven power play goals this year, which include Freel’s nation-leading seven power play goals.

Until Nolan Renwick tallied in Saturday’s tie against BU, the second PP unit was having trouble getting into gear, with Renwick’s goal the only one the unit had scored before this weekend.

But that line finally broke out of its rut with force, scoring three times this weekend.

The unit is made up of Ross Mitton and Sully Scholle on the elbows, with Nolan Renwick in front of the net, Josh Nadeau in the bumper position, and Frank Djursasevic up on the point. Prior to Breen’s injury, he was playing at the bumper position in the slot, with Nadeau quarterbacking up top.

“They were working it around really well. Jason [Fortier] has done a good job with that,” Barr said, crediting the success to his assistant who runs the power play.

With both units now firing in top form, Maine’s power play is the 7th best in the country, converting at a clip of 27.4% of the time.

Finding form

Saturday’s gut-wrenching injury to Breen threw Maine’s forward lines out of whack, but the Black Bears didn’t miss a beat.

For Sunday’s game, Barr moved Charlie Russell from right-wing to center, where he had experience playing at times last season in his few games at Clarkson. Russell didn’t look out of position whatsoever, winning 57.1% of his faceoff attempts, showcasing his valuable versatility.

Scholle moved up to Fowler and Russell’s line, playing on his off-wing, which he had always looked comfortable doing. Last season, the left-handed shooter played the majority of his games on the right-wing, able to use his quick hands and rapid feet to cut into the slot and shoot against the grain to great effect. Scholle had two assists on Sunday, totaling four for the weekend.

Anthony Calafiore moved into Scholle’s left-wing spot on Oskar Komarov’s fourth line, with Thomas Pichette sliding in on right-wing.

But it was the unforced changes to Maine’s forward lines that were the most impactful.

Nolan Renwick’s line with Taylor Makar and Ross Mitton had exploded out of the gates to start the season, scoring five of Maine’s seven goals in their first two games. The line has cooled off significantly as fall has turned to winter, with Makar not scoring since October 25th at Northeastern and Mitton since November 2nd against Merrimack. Although Renwick scored a power play goal a few weeks ago against BU, his last non-PP goal aside from an empty netter at Matthews Arena was back on October 18th against Quinnipiac.

Meanwhile, Maine has also been waiting to get their prime playmaker Josh Nadeau going. Last season in Nadeau’s freshman campaign, Josh, alongside his brother Bradly, scored 18 goals.

But this year without Bradly, Nadeau has fought a bit of a sophomore slump, scoring just two goals and assisting four times heading into the weekend.

To spark these crucially important players into form, the Black Bears flipped right-wingers Nadeau and Mitton. The change first came late in the game on Saturday, with Mitton playing alongside Scott and Freel and Nadeau pairing with Renwick and Makar.

Last season, when Josh and Bradly were going through a scoring slump late in the year, a move alongside Renwick got the two brothers going.

“It was actually Jason Fortier’s idea. Every now and then, you tweak something, and for whatever reason, it works,” Barr said.

The change certainly helped these particular Black Bears as Mitton, Nadeau, and Makar all lit the lamp on Sunday.

The chemistry between Makar and Nadeau was noticeably apparent, as they were able to find each other all over the ice, both having their strongest game in weeks, with Nadeau’s goal assisted by a great feed from Makar as Exhibit A.

“For us it’s not a huge difference of who's playing with who because we have a lot of similar type players. Josh is a little different just because he’s more of a playmaker and he slows the game down a little. For him, getting guys around him that can play off him and vice versa is important. The rest of our guys are similar. They play fast and that doesn’t make that big of a difference. There’s not a lot of science to it,” Barr explained.

Barr may say there’s not a lot of science to finding the right combinations to click into form, but it was noticeable that Mitton had his best game of the past few weeks alongside Freel and Scott. This fresh pairing perhaps enabled the power forward to pop up on his off-wing, where he has been strongest scoring-wise this season.

This weekend’s games were potential banana skins for Maine, but they passed with flying colors, outscoring RPI 12-2 and outshooting the Engineers 100-44.

For a team that has had its fair share of struggles on the road this season, the Black Bears have quietly won three straight games, all of which were away from home.

This was the first time Maine swept a weekend away from the Alfond since last November at Merrimack.

A culture win, it was Maine’s tenth of the season, one of only eight teams in all of college hockey to do so to date this season.

Of course, this weekend was full of positives, but it also came with the difficult loss of Breen. The extent of his injury is still unknown, as he will continue to need to undergo extensive testing to understand the full scope of the damage.

“It’s a lower-body injury. We’ll know more about it after next week,” Barr said.

The Black Bears’ train keeps rolling along, doing business as usual. Younger players have stepped up into bigger roles, and veterans have begun to find their game again.

Maine looks to be growing in maturity, and their mentality is strengthening.

This was another game Maine would not have won in past seasons– how many times have we been able to say that?

This one was for Breener.